SATS238
Configurable, multifunctional AC/DC, AC/AC or DC/DC power conversion system platform
Designed to accept input power from nearly any source
Battery charging capability
Environmentally sealed to allow operation in nearly any outdoor conditions
Challenges
- The initial customer for this application was a major defense contractor who had been tasked with creating a configurable power system that could be used to reduce the number of diesel generators needed to supply the various power needs to remotely deployed military operational centers. The cost to get diesel fuel to these outposts to run the generators was extremely high ($100’s/gallon to $1,000/gallon depending on how it had to be delivered).
- The customer made an attempt to create their own system based on using commercially available Inverters, battery chargers, AC/DC power supplies etc. The result was a very large rack system cobbled together, that was very limited in capability & performance, was not able to survive most of the environment and was extremely difficult to service.
With our experience in design and manufacture of VME/VITA products and backplanes, ATS came up with a design on this basic concept.
ATS was chosen to take on the task.
Background
The challenges on this project were extreme to say the least as a system like this has never been attempted. The ATS project team worked with the customers engineering staff to determine the ideal system size. The system level specifications were created with ATS and the customers engineering teams working hand in hand. Design review meetings were held on a weekly basis to track the design progress.
In parallel with the electrical and mechanical design teams’ tasks, ATS firmware engineers worked directly with the customer to ensure communications requirements were understood and proper details were provided to the board designers to accommodate the required communication system.
Custom material items included: PCB, main xformer, bias xformer, input/output chokes, custom communications firmware, heatsinks, manufacturing fixtures, & test equipment. Prototypes were created and demonstration testing was done with the custom present.
Solution
The solution was a ground up custom design that was able to utilize many commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) modular AC/DC & DC/DC converters as building blocks within the individual VME slide in cards.
Features and performance as follows:
- The VME style enclosure is self/fan cooled chassis with a sealed electronics bay.
- A VME style backplane is employed as the main interconnection for all VME cards.
- Input and output filtered Mil-style connectors as used for outside interface & EMI filtering.
- Each slide in card could be configured as AC/DC, DC/DC, battery charger, Communications or other.
- The number of cards in only limited by the length of the chassis.
- Ease of configuration changes by replacing various cards
- Ease of maintenance/repair by merely replacing cards.
Outcome
The outcome was a full functional VME/VITA based power conversion platform that is modified with standard power cards to an almost endless number of configurations. Let Alliance Technical Solution configure a system for you.
ATS power sources have exceptional high reliability for both military and rugged applications.
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