u/powerelectronicsguy

Teardowns are always cool, especially in power electronics. So many subsystems in an EV, and everything is so unique.

Credits: speedkar99 | YouTube

Any idea what components or circuits made the difference?

Credits: Gruber Motors Shorts | YouTube

Credits: MunroLive | YouTube

Sure, the video is a good, direct tutorial on the importance of airflow in cooling power components. But how do you accommodate fans and cooling equipment when everyone is asking for compact power designs!?

Credits: ElectrArc240 | YouTube

Higher battery voltages push designers to weigh two-level against three-level traction inverters.

This chart compares conduction and switching loss at 100 kW. It covers a two-level (2L) inverter, a three-level active neutral-point-clamped (3L ANPC) inverter, and a 3L T-type inverter. At 800 V, the totals are 826.8 W, 634.0 W, and 573.3 W, in that order. The simulation uses a resistive-inductive load and assumes a balanced midpoint.

Curious what you think. Have you built an 800 V traction inverter? Which wins, ANPC or T-type, once part count and neutral-point balancing are counted?

Source: Sakib et al., World Electr. Veh. J. 2026, 17, 384, Fig. 2. DOI: 10.3390/wevj17080384 (CC BY)

I have been wanting to design a simple PCB for the last couple of years now. The thought of converting a design idea into a physical board and programming it to do things is fascinating to me. Long story short, I procrastinated until I tried to vibe-generate it with advanced models such as Opus 4.5 (up to 4.8) models. These models had no idea about the orientation of the components, they did not do any proper routing. I was disappointed and accepted the fact that these tools were not there yet.

One Thursday evening, around 10 hours before my weekly reset for Claude, I decided to give it another try; this time with Fable 5.

I had two rules:

1. No manual edits or verification of the board.
2. Every problem I face before manufacturing will be solved by Fable.

This meant I was going to trust Fable with my wallet. I decided to describe the board I want it to generate, and I was not going to be involved in the design phase. I was the end customer.

This was my exact prompt:

I would like you to design me a pcb that will have the rpi pico 2350 four buttons (2 on the left and 2 on the right, watchy buttons(or drop in replacement)), GDEY0154D67-FL04 display. The size of the pcb will be same as the size of the GDEY0154D67-FL04. The rpi pico will drive the screen and the buttons will control the rpi pico. Also have an i2c, and some gpio pins out. Use the kicad mcp, let me know when the schematic design and placement are ready

That was it, a short description of a RPI 2350 based development board which can drive an E-ink display. After working autonomously for a couple of hours it came up with the design shown in the images.

It chose two wrong components (shown in red boxes) : the SPI flash, and the transistor for the E-ink driver circuitry. I realized this while uploading the files on JLCPCB. It also suggested some components which were not in LCSC's stock. Within couple of back and forths all the issues were solved and I just needed to pay 130 euros for 5 boards. Like I said, I trusted Claude with my wallet and ordered the boards. I also ordered the E-ink displays from a local shop.

A couple of days later I received the PCBs and the first thing I wanted to do was to plug it in to my laptop. I have broken multiple USB modules for my Framework earlier, hence I thought checking for a short between 3v3 and ground was a no-brainer, although my colleague was suggesting me to just YOLO it since this was a fully vibe-generated board. There was no short and I just plugged it in. There it was, the board was recognized and it was ready to be used.

Using Opus 5 I wrote some software that worked on the board flawlessly. You can see a small demo on the GIF above. After I ordered the boards I was suggested another routing tool called KiCadRoutingTools, and it seems to be so much faster and efficient. I will be using it for my upcoming projects. I went into a little more detail in my post here: https://a6mzero.com/posts/this-pcb-is-brought-to-you-by-fable-5/ please check it out if you are interested.

I am really happy with the result and at the same time I don't feel much of an accomplishment. I want to properly learn how to design PCBs, but in the meanwhile I will continue generating PCBs for my random hobby projects 😄

Thanks for reading ❤️

Click here for the LinkedIn Post

Link to Job Post on LinkedIn

https://analogdevicesinc.github.io/documentation/solutions/reference-designs/ad-ps3803-rd/index.html

It seems like this design board carries a lot of wealth for the power electronics audience for PoE power conversion. I would like to see some conversation here, and also a separate discussion is initiated on Discord. If you want, you can join Discord using the link https://discord.com/invite/HEWfSYjTES

Credits: DENKI OTAKU | YouTube

Credits: DENKI OTAKU | YouTube

Credits: ElectrArc240 | YouTube

Credits: ElectrArc240 | YouTube

EV inverters handle serious fault currents, and their protection architecture is more elaborate than most engineers expect.

This teardown of a Tesla Roadster 1.5 power electronics module shows a full bank of fuses, relays, contactors, and large fuses handling the heavy current paths.

For those designing automotive inverters, how do you approach the tradeoff between protection redundancy and system weight or cost?

Video Credits: @grubermotorsshorts | YouTube

Credits: DENKI OTAKU | YouTube