Zaptec - a company promising the impossible? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / projects

author: TheAmmoniacal
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 07, 2016, 07:01:25 pm
content: Anyone heard of this company Zaptec? (www.zaptec.com. Being from the same city as the company I've seen quite a lot of news coverage about them, most of them with unreliable promises (and more wank words than you can poke a stick at).Their claim to fame is developing a charger for electric vehicles (Zaptec Charger Portable), which includes an "electronic transformer" that (as far as I can tell) converts 230 VAC 1-phase to 400V 3-phase at 97% efficiency, thus allowing for fast charging of electric cars from regular electric outlets/sockets. Using 32 SiC power MOSFETs from STMicroelectronics. Their website introduces their invention:"Our core technology is a super compact and super efficient electronic transformer. It outperforms transformers up to 10 times its weight and volume, and uses up to 100 times less copper and iron. With that much power in a small package, we are ready for anything. Even space."I'd like to get your professional opinion about the company, is this something they can deliver? Are they the kind of fraudsters we see way too often on crowdfunding sites?http://www.automotive-eetimes.com/news/mobile-e-car-charger-kills-range-anxietyhttp://nextbigfuture.com/2015/03/zaptec-can-adaptively-charge-electric.html

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2016, 07:59:08 pm
content: This seems a work around for manufacturers refusing to re-engineer their internal charger for Norway's IT-Net.It seems to be a switching isolation transformer and an inverter in one.

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2016, 08:31:59 pm
content: how can you say they've made a claim? i dont see any claim at all (detailed specifications) just lip service. they use relative term such as "fast", how fast? one rotation of earth is faster than the time taken to orbit the sun, so are they talking about 24 hours charging time? "lightweight" how light? 10kg is lighter than 20kg. but they said its barely 3kg. 3kg charger is quite a heavy charger. "It outperforms transformers up to 10 times its weight and volume, and uses up to 100 times less copper and iron" its valid if they are comparing to 50/60Hz transformer.

author: janoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2016, 10:48:22 pm
content: I am not quite sure what the benefit of this sort of thing would be. The speed of charging is primarily limited by how much current the charger is able to deliver. If you are charging from a single phase, you are going to deliver the same current whether you are using it directly or converting to 3 phase first (including inevitable losses) - the amount of available energy from the outlet is the same. If you have a 16A outlet you won't be able to magically draw 25A from it because your have some magic gizmo plugged between the outlet and the car.The only way that I can imagine for this to "work" is that the single phase chargers in cars are slow for safety reasons and don't draw the full available current from the outlets to avoid overloading the circuit. So converting to 3 phase allows the car to use more current because it now thinks it is connected to a high current charger (which are generally 3 phase).However, in that case you will be far better off by simply paying an electrician to install a proper 3 phase outlet (most houses have access to 3 phase power, at least in Europe). Saves you both money for a useless gizmo and potential fire if the car assumes it can draw more current than the single phase outlet can handle.

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2016, 12:26:57 am
content: Quote from: janoc on July 07, 2016, 10:48:22 pmi think here in my country, rental rate for 3 phase (commercial premise) is higher than 1 phase (personal household).

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2016, 11:38:23 am
content: Quote from: janoc on July 07, 2016, 10:48:22 pmI'm not sure about the specifics, but there are some differences between how phases and grounds are arranged across Europe and the way companies design their internal chargers, Tesla's standard EU connector didn't work in Norway for instance.Isolation transformers are a nice universal fix for grounding problems, this is an isolation transformer ... but a really small one because it uses switching for isolation with an inverter to go back to AC. Basically a whole lot of extra electronics to fix design flaws in electric cars.

author: Kilrah
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 08, 2016, 11:48:14 am
content: Quote from: janoc on July 07, 2016, 10:48:22 pmThere are places where 3-phase power to the home simply doesn't exist (but single phase or 2-phase differential is available obviously with enough current capacity to power homes). This product is likely intended for use in those places with cars of which the manufacturer has not taken this case into account and only offers either 3-phase fast charge or single-phase slow charge because that's what the setup in the majority of places allows for.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2016, 01:49:42 pm
content: Quote from: TheAmmoniacal on July 07, 2016, 07:01:25 pmWhere you find this? It doesn't make any sense at all.To me, it appears they produce battery chargers, i.e., the (DC) output is connected to a battery. Which would absolutely make sense, and 97% efficiency is not impossible, just modern tech. And the home version seems bidirectional, having both 1-phase and 3-phase input-output.But of course, this is only guessing, because they don't tell us what they are even doing. I guess they are battery chargers (home version being bidirectional converter), as the name "charger" suggests; not 1-phase to 3-phase converters, because it wouldn't make a lot of sense, unless it's a special workaround for a specific problem.

author: Kilrah
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 08, 2016, 02:04:01 pm
content: The specific problem it's a workaround for has been descripbed in the posts above...

author: jh15
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2016, 05:22:50 am
content: Wasn't the Tesla meltdown fire in Norway?

author: ruffy91
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2016, 08:54:30 am
content: Quote from: jh15 on July 11, 2016, 05:22:50 amYes it was, but at a Tesla supercharger station. So this means direct DC charging with 135kW (about 280A@480V).Nothing in common with this device.The problem in norway is, that they have a 230V isolated phase-to-phase system (called IT-Nethttps://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/IT-System; Very resilient to earth faults, is used in operating theatres because of this). The Tesla charger refuses to work with this system (for reference:https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/umc-trouble-on-norwegian-electricity-network.31498/).So they take those 230V@32A (7.4kW) and convert it to 3phase+neutral@10A(7kW) for the tesla charger (or any other EV-charger).Nothing miraculous about this device.

author: Brutte
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2016, 09:44:32 am
content: I cannot see anything dodgy there.That looks like an AC/AC converter that does the 1 phase -> 3 phase work, with isolation.Not sure what for. I doubt many Tesla owners live in a wooden hut with 1-phase 6A circuit breaker. I do not consider myself wealthy and I have a 32A, 3x400V supply (C type) at home, which I think is a standard in here (EU, house built 15 years ago). That is 22kW continuous, 66kW for 20s, IIRC. The bathroom hot water heater itself is 21kW.Not sure how to power a 22kW 1-phase version. The 97% efficiency is quite plausible for 22kW AC/AC converter but I would be concerned with 660W thrown out off the window anyway. I think that charging a ~30kWh battery (not sure how serious such EV battery is) with 22kW involves some further losses.The product has its place on the market. Would not you consider that after spending $40k on EV?