Arduino-Nano Based Low Cost Power Converter Learning Kit

Abstract

This paper presents the low-cost power converter learning kit for power electronics lab in the undergraduate electrical engineering course. This paper also examines the learning outcome of an Arduino Nano and MOSFET based converter learning kit. With help of this converter kit, the student can learn the working and control of all types of basic power converter circuits which is present in their electrical engineering undergraduate curriculum. This is a plug and play kind of learning kit with minimum connection changes required to convert from one type of power converter to other types of power converter circuit. This learning kit facilitates to learn and control all type of basic power converter circuits like the chopper, inverter, AC voltage controller, and rectifier. It supports the single phase as well as the three-phase power conversion and control. The total cost of the basic converter kit is less than Rs.1400 i.e., which is less than $20. The effective usefulness and ease in use of the kit are evaluated by the feedback from the third year students of electrical engineering course. The collective feedback result shows the low-cost converter kit is much helpful to understand the basic concepts of the power converter circuit.