Prius inverter disassembly

and a bit of reverse-engineering
A wonderful opportunity was presented to me -- to have a spare Prius inverter
assembly to do whatever I wanted with, and even a few extra bonus modules
thrown in.  While the technically-astute segments of the Prius owner community 
are already fairly aware of what's inside these things, having the parts
right there to play with and do deeper analysis on adds a whole new dimension
of understanding, which I can try to bring to the viewer in as much detail
as possible.

This project in part follows some earlier footsteps laid down by the National
Labs at Oak Ridge and Argonne, where they did fairly thorough analysis of the
third-generation Prius as part of the transportation research arm [funded, I
might add, by your tax dollars, and yet producing few if any *effective*
initiatives with regard to weaning us off oil.]  Sometime after data-gathering
and early stages of this began, news of the Embedded Systems Conference
live-on-stage "Prius teardown" emerged and they've got some interesting
results to look at as well.  But some different directions have been taken
here, possibly leading toward being able to actually re-use the unit in a
working car or even as part of an entirely different vehicle project.  Where
it all heads remains to be seen.
Sections



Prior / Concurrent Art



_H* 070531, 080522