What is claimed as new and desired to be protected by Letters Patent is set forth in the appended claims and includes equivalents of the elements recited therein:
1. A current conversion device for a single- or multi-axis arrangement, the current conversion device comprising:
a voltage-source DC link,
a plurality of inverters, each inverter having a DC input side connected to the voltage-source DC link and an AC output side connectable to an electric motor in one-to-one correspondence, and
a control device operative connected to the plurality of inverters and configured to short-circuit each of the inverters,
a measurement device configured to measure an electrical variable at each of the inverters,
wherein the control device determines based on the measured electrical variables independently for each of the inverters directly or indirectly whether a particular inverter is feeding energy into the voltage-source DC link, and short-circuits, when this is the case, the particular inverter independently of the other inverters of the plurality of inverters,
wherein the measured electrical variable at each of the inverters is an AC voltage measured at the AC output side, and wherein the control device short-circuits the particular inverter when one of its phase-to-phase voltages exceeds a cut-off threshold, and
wherein each inverter comprises a plurality of identical inverter diodes and the cut-off threshold corresponds to the sum of the actual DC link voltage and twice the forward voltage of each inverter diode.
2. The current conversion device of claim 1 , wherein the cut-off threshold is greater than or equal to the actual DC link voltage in the voltage-source DC link.
3. The current conversion device of claim 1 , wherein the measurement device is configured to measure, during or after a pulse inhibit, a DC link voltage and a current flow between each inverter and the voltage-source DC link, and the control device is configured to determine, based on the DC link voltage and the measured current flow, an amount of energy that is supplied to the voltage-source DC link during or after the pulse inhibit.
4. The current conversion device of claim 3 , wherein the control device determined the supplied amount of energy indirectly based on an envelope of the measured current flow.
5. The current conversion device of claim 1 , wherein each of the plurality of inverters is a three-phase inverter.
6. The current conversion device of claim 1 , wherein an electric motor is connected to the AC output side of an associated inverter in one-to-one correspondence.
7. A method for operating a current conversion device for a single- or multi-axis arrangement, wherein the current conversion device comprises a voltage-source DC link, a plurality of inverters which each have a DC input side connected to the voltage-source DC link and an AC output side connectable to an associated motor,
measuring with a measurement device an electrical variable at each of the inverters,
determining with a control device based on the measured electrical variables independently for each of the inverters directly or indirectly whether a particular inverter is feeding energy into the voltage-source DC link, and
short-circuiting, when this is the case, the particular inverter independently of the other inverters of the plurality of inverters,
wherein the measured electrical variable at each of the inverters is an AC voltage measured at the AC output side, and wherein the control device short-circuits the particular inverter when one of its phase-to-phase voltages exceeds a cut-off threshold, and
wherein each inverter comprises a plurality of identical inverter diodes and the cut-off threshold corresponds to the sum of the actual DC link voltage and twice the forward voltage of each inverter diode.