World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology 42 2008

Single Phase to Three Phase Converter

Naung Cho Wynn, and Tun Lin naing

 technologies.
Abstract—A new single phase to three phase converter topology
for small industries is presented in this paper: Phase converter,
include this paper, is a new technology that supplies three phase
power from a single phase source to power inductive, resistive and
capacitive loads with distinct advantages over any existing converter
technology. The converter consists of DC power supply, a MOSFET
Hex-bridge, integrated gate drive IC, and a DSP to generate the
switching signals. The switching signals generated are a unique
version of selective harmonic elimination, which produces a
consistent starting point for the switching functions, independent of
the number of harmonics eliminated
This converter covers the basis of induction motors and different
types of other motors. They are ideal for farms, workshops, garages
and large building etc.
Keywords—MOSFET Hex-bridge, DC power supply, gate drive
IC, switching signal static converter, rotary converter.
I. INTRODUCTION
II. PHASE CONVERTERS
A. Static Converter
The Static Converter is made up of two small components:
A voltage sensitive relay and a standard capacitor (Cs)
connected to your motor application (Red Box). The capacitor
delays waveforms (or shifts the phase) during the start-up of
your motor application. The relay disconnects this start
capacitor after the motor has started. From this point, the
motor will continue turning on the single phase supply. The
performance of such a motor is fairly poor and can be
compared to a car motor running on only a few cylinders
Motors operated on a static converter will produce about 50-
60% of their name plate power. When you add another low
cost run capacitor (Red Dotted Box) to the simple design,
rated power goes up to around 70% of the motors name plate

A wide variety of commercial and industrial electrical

equipment requires three-phase power. Electric utilities
do not install three-phase power as a matter of course because
power. To help with understanding, the Start Capacitor (Cs) is
used only to start the motor and then it is switched out
completely. The Run Capacitor (Cr) is always in the circuit
it costs significantly more than single-phase installation. As an and is carefully sized to balance the voltages at one load rating
alternative to utility installed three-phase, rotary phase (generally around 50% full load). Since Cr is fixed the voltage
converters, static phase converters and phase converting balancing at either end (0% and 100%) is quite poor.
variable frequency drives (VFD)have been used for decades to
generate three-phase power from a single-phase source.
Construction of three-phase power lines can cost as much as
$50,000 per mile and can have an undesirable environmental
impact. Even when three-phase lines are nearby, the cost of
installation is considerable. Based on anticipated electricity
demand for the three-phase application, the utility may or may
not charge the customer for the cost of installation. Continuing
monthly surcharges for the service are also common. Phase
converters have historically been employed where utility
Fig. 1 One line diagram of the static converter
three-phase power was unavailable, or where the electricity
demand did not justify the cost of utility three-phase B. Rotary Converter
installation. Reduced motor life caused by voltage and current
Add an idle running motor to a static converter; is called
imbalance, harmonics that pollute the power grid and damage
rotary converter. The added motor will compensate for some
equipment, or the inability to operate sensitive equipment or
of the static converter weaknesses and help extend the range
multiple loads are just some of the problems that have limited
of motor sizes and loads. The internal motor is inactive at
the use of phase converters. This phase converter is a new,
average load, but works hard when loads don’t match the
patented technology that supplies three-phase power from a
value of the chosen run capacitor (Cr). Rotary converters are
single phase source to power inductive, resistive and
clearly somewhat better than static converters. They can run
capacitive loads with distinct advantages over any existing
several motors of different sizes. Large motors will produce
converter technology. There are various phase conversion
up to 90% of their nameplate power, small motors (motor
being much smaller than the converters idling motor or pilot
Authors are with the Mandalay Technological University, Myanmar (e- motor) a bit more. If the manufacturers oversize these motors,
mail: awalyacho@gmail.com., tunlinthida@gmail.com).

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 World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology 42 2008

the output symmetry, start capability and capacity will all be Where;
increased. Pmax = maximum power of secondary transformer side
Vs = secondary voltage
C. Document Modification
And, the turn ration is

Vs Pmax
(2)
Vp Vs
Where;
Ns = number of secondary turns
Np = number of secondary turns
Vp = primary voltage
And,
Vs Vp Np
(3)
Vp Vs Ns
Where;
Fig. 2 One line diagram of the rotary converter
Is = secondary current
Both rotary and static converters have difficulty adjusting Ip = primary current
voltage balance to accommodate changing load conditions. For specifications Pmax = 500VA,Vs = 18V, Vp = 230V;
Voltage regulation schemes for rotary converters are available By using equation 1, Imax = 28A
which switch in different amounts of capacitance as the load By using equation 2, Np = 13 Ns
changes. However, it is still difficult to get good control, and By using equation 3, Is = 13 Ip
the high current pulses created in the system as the capacitors The peak voltage of secondary transformer side is
are switched in and out can be a problem. Digital Phase Vp 2 Vrms (4)
Converters are purely electronic and non-mechanical in
Where;
nature. As such they are able to produce decently balanced
Vrms = rms value of primary voltage
three phase power. Another benefit of this type of phase
converter is that they are very quiet. On the downside, this The average voltage is
type of phase converter takes a sign wave, chops it up and 2Vp
spits out a somewhat choppy synthesized 3 phase sign waves - Vavg (5)
their output harmonic distortion tends to be greater than a few ʌ
other types of phase converters. Where;
Vp = peak voltage
D. Design calculation for power supply circuit And the ripple voltage yields
1
D1 Vripple (6)
+ 2CF
MB351 Where;
.0 D2
220V C1 C2 C3 C = filter capacitance
200V F = operating frequency
AC D3 470µ 220µ 220µ
DC The output DC voltage is obtained
D4 VDC Vp  Vripple (7)
By using above equation 4, 5, 6, and 7, the supply
Fig. 3 200V DC Power Supply for H-bridge Inverter voltage 200V DC are calculated.
E. Hex-bridge
There are two separate power supply used in this variable The heart of a standard three-phase inverter is the hex-
speed drive. The 200V DC power supply was used for H- bridge. The hex-bridge takes a dc bus voltage and uses six
bridge inverter and 12V regulated power supply was used for switches arranged in three phase legs as shown in Fig. 4.
PWM frequency control circuit and driver circuit. This 200V From the middle of each phase leg comes the line which
DC power supply circuit is shown in Fig. 3. connects to the motor. The waveforms on these lines need to
The maximum current of secondary transformer side is be a balanced three-phase sinusoidal waveform in order to
drive the induction motor. This is achieved by applying
Pmax carefully controlled switching waveforms to the gate of the
Imax (1)
Vs switches.

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 World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology 42 2008
+ of IGBT ratings. IGBTs are usually used in higher power
Vdc
- the switching signals coming from the DSP or arbitrary
A B
Fig. 4 Hex-bridge
There are two kinds of switches that can be used for our
fairly high power application, Insulated Gate Bipolar
Transistors (IGBTs) or MOSFETs. To meet our specifications
the switch needed minimum ratings of 400V and 10A. In
addition we wanted a switch which minimized losses;
therefore, switches with lower resistances are more desirable.
The IGBT considered for this design was the
HGTP12N60B3D, which has a small equivalent resistance of
approximately 0.07ȍ, but IGBTs also have a voltage drop at
all times due to the collector emitter saturation voltage, which
in this case is equal to 1.7V. The MOSFET investigated was
the FQP17N40, which has an on-state resistance of 0.27ȍ.
20
Average Conduction Based Power Loss
FQP17N40
HGTG12N60B3D
15
10
5 However, this application does not need good dynamic
0 unique version of selective harmonic elimination, which is
0 2 4 6
RMS current (A) [Single Frequency Sinusoid]
Fig. 5 Power losses in IGBT vs. FET
The power losses of the IGBT and the FET are plotted
against the current. The IGBT has a fairly linear loss curve
because the loss is mostly due to the IVsat, while the MOSFET
losses are due to the I2RDS(on). The MOSFET losses increase
faster with current, but the MOSFET losses do not surpass the
IGBT losses until I is approximately greater than 9A. The
motor used in our project is rated for 3A so the current should
never reach 9A.
In addition to having smaller losses in our operating region,
the FQP17N40 is cheaper. It is $0.96 in a quantity of 1000,
while the HGTP12N60B3D is $1.70 in the same quantity.
The HGTP12N60 is rated for 600V which is the very low end
applications, so this part is not extremely common. The
savings in losses and price prompted us to choose the
FQP17N40 as the switch to be implemented in the hex-bridge.
F. Gate Drive
The gate drive circuit needs to provide an interface between
waveform generator and the FETs in the hex-bridge. The
DSP gives a 3.3V signal, while the waveform generators
allow for a specified voltage level. The gate to source voltage
C
needed for desired operation of the FQP17N40 FETs is on a
12 to 15V level. In addition, the high side FETs in the hex-
bridge do not have the source connected to ground, so the
actual voltage needed to drive the gate depends on the varying
voltage at the source. A single chip solution was found, the
IR21362, which implements all six gate drives, including the
circuitry that takes into account the issues with the high side
FETs. There were other options, such as the IR2121,
consisting of a single gate drive on a chip, but in the interest
of lowering component count and cost, the IR21362 was
chosen. Since six IR2121s would be needed, it is apparent that
the single chip solution (IR21362) is more cost effective.
G. Switching Signal Methodology
Currently small motor drive systems are expensive and
implement control schemes that use relatively high switching
frequencies such as sine-triangle PWM, space vector PWM,
or hysteresis current control. One drawback to the high
switching frequencies is the decrease in efficiency that occurs
from switching loss. However, the previously mentioned
control methods do have their own merits. Each control
scheme has been used widely and generates little acoustic
noise since the switching frequency is on the upper end of the
audible acoustic range (|20 kHz). These control schemes also
provide good dynamic performances.
performance since there are no dynamic load and speed
requirements. The switching signals implemented are a
8 10 currently an active research area in power electronics. This
technique lowers the switching frequency considerably
compared to the previously mentioned methods. In addition,
this switching scheme provides direct control over harmonics
present in the waveform. The selective harmonic elimination
method will be implemented in a switching waveform, while
sine-triangle PWM will be used as a back-up.
H. Switching Signal Implementation
Two DSP development boards for motor control
applications are available for proto-typing DSP code
development. They are the eZdsp F2407 and the eZdsp F2812
boards. The F2407 has a lower cost then F2812. However, the
F2812 has a faster clock at 150 MHz compared to the 30 MHz
clock on the F2407. The F2812’s analog-to-digital converter
has a 12 bit resolution, whereas the F2407 only has 10 bit
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 World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology 42 2008

resolution. This makes the F2812 more desirable since it will
give a better resolution for the speed commands. In addition,
constructed harmonic elimination PWM implementation in the
DSP requires the use of a large switching table that cannot fit
into the F2407 FLASH.
The eZdsp kit provides a complete development
environment: DSP board, power supply, on-board JTAG
compliant emulator, and an eZdsp specific Code Composer
StudioTM full featured, with debugger IDE, and ANSI C and
C++ compliant compiler. The DSP board has all peripheral
signals needed on the board headers, making it easy to
interface the board with the 3-phase inverter circuit.
I. Inverter Control
The control method implemented is open loop and based
upon constant volts per hertz ratio. Although the inverter uses
a 200V dc bus, the voltage is able to be varied by adjusting
the modulation depth of the switching signals. Additionally,
in order to meet the speed specifications over the given load
range an efficient load compensation method will be used to
determine optimal values of voltage and frequency to be
applied to the machine at a given operating point.
(PCB) that is mounted to the end of the motor. There will be
a fan attached to the rotor which actively cools the FETs.
These facts lead to the decision to forego the use of heatsinks.
The IR21362 gate drive chip requires some external
circuitry. The gate resistors (R11-R16), bootstrap capacitors
(C4, C5, and C7), and decoupling capacitors (C3 and C6)
were chosen based on information found in [2, 3]. A resistor
and capacitor (R2 and C5) had to be chosen to provide a time
constant which is used for the fault clearing time. A time
constant of greater than 1.5s was desired so values of 33kȍ
and 47ȝF were chosen. The FAULT pin needs to be pulled
high because it is active low. A LED was added in for visual
output in the case of a fault.
The protection circuitry, which includes R7, R9, R19, and
C1, is chosen based on the fact that a fault occurs if the
voltage on the ITRIP pin is larger than 0.5V. The variable
resistor, R7, can be adjusted so that a fault is given at a
desired current value. The values were chosen with the
intention of initiating a fault at currents larger than 10A.
Finally, three phase power for induction motor is got when
DC power supply connected with Hex-bridge and gate drive.

III. DESIGN DETAILS

A. Hex-Bridge and Gate Drive (Component Selection)

The FQP17N40 was chosen as the switch in the hex-bridge.
Often, MOSFETs need external circuitry, called a snubber, in
order to improve the switching trajectory during the
commutation period. The switching trajectory of the
FQP17N40 was measured (see Fig. 6) and appears to be fairly
rectangular, as desired for an inductive load.

Fig. 6 Switching trajectory

In addition, thermal issues needed to be taken into

consideration. The FQP17N40 is rated for 10.1A continuous
at 100°C. Since the motor used is rated for 3A, the current
should never be greater than 5A continuously. In addition, the
final product is intended to be on a printed circuit board

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 World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology 42 2008

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
B. Detailed Schematic
The First named author expresses sincere thanks to the
C_TO_MOTOR

university of Mandalay Technological University.

FQP17N40

FQP17N40

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R16

International Rectifier, Appl. Note INT985.

25
M3

M6

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B_TO_MOTOR

25

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FQP17N40

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A_TO_MOTOR

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[9] H Endo, T Yamashita and T Sugiura. .”A High Power-factor Buck

1 u

Converter”, Proceedings IEEE PESC.92, 1992, pp 1071-1076.

1 u
R12

1 u

C7
25

C4
C5
V1
200V

28
27
26
25
24
23
22
21
20
19
18
17
16
15
VB1
HO1
VS1

VB2
HO2
VS2

VB3
HO3

LO2
VS3

LO1
NC

NC

NC
FAULT

IR21362
D1

D2

D3

ITRIP

RCIN
HIN1
HIN2
HIN3

COM
LIN1
LIN2
LIN3
VCC

VSS
U4

LO3
EN
MUR160

MUR160

MUR160

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14

3
R7

500k POT
VCC

2
0.05
100
R9

R19
0.022u
C1
5V

LED
500
R8

D4
1 u
C6

1 u
C3
HIN1
HIN2
HIN3

FAULT

47u
33k
R5

C2

Fig. 7 Hex-bridge and gate drive circuitry

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