Overview:

This is the Power Electronics Laboratory. EE 410 and EE 411 experiments are conducted here, as well as the stepper motor experiments in EE 365. The lab is equipped with 6 pentium III PCs, in addition to power diode modules, scr modules, triac modules, RLC loads and metering equipment such as current probemeters, voltmeters, portable scopemeters, pulse generators, and true rms meters. Software used for the lab is Orcad Pspice accompanied by Power Electronics Library

Recent Donations

• Siemens
• Six single-phase AC Drives
• Mr. Gene Quesnoy of Visalia Electric Machines Shop:
• Six Baldor Three-Phase 1-HP Induction Motors
• Six Baldor 1/3-HP DC Motors
• Six Baldor Three-phase AC Drives
• Six Baldor DC Drives
• Rantec Power Systems, Inc. in Los Osos:
• Cash donation, and
• Five units of dc-dc converters

Current Projects

• Integration of Lab-view driven programs for power signal analysis and measurements
• Addition of more power electronics related experiments in hard and soft switching converters
• Development of experiments in FACTS controllers
• DSP-based and microprocessor-based controllers for converters and drives

Current Problems with the Laboratory:

• The lab is in desperate needs for six sets of dynamometers (load cells). We currently share the heavily used load cells from room 20-102
• We need to acquire various new power switches such as IGBT, MOSFET, SCRs etc. for developing more new experiments

Equipment Needs:

We need to upgrade the lab with the following equipment:

• Six dynamometers (load cells)
• Six solid-state reduced voltage starters for 1 H.P. induction motors.
• Various types of power switches
• Six power measurement instruments
• Six Harmonic analyzer
• Six programmable logic controllers (PLCs)
• Six static Var compensators.
• DSP modules
• Six solid-state reduced voltage starters for 1 H.P. induction motors.