Arlo's power stage Leaf controller runs and drives page 103

bearing said:
The bonding wires inside the FETs have enough inductance to cause ringing. My guess is that your FETs have a ~10 nH per leg. Even if you don't think you need snubbers, you should at least put the components in the layout, to be able to mount them later. I would use a 2512 size SMD resistor (since they typically handles 2W, and a 0805 size capacitor. If you have big fingers, you could use a 1206 size capacitor instead.
If I find I need them I will put them acroos the traces on the bottom.

Remember this is a double use board so my big plan is build one little wussy 18 fet controller then use the same design to run to my current powerstage. Which has the fets off the board. So the snubers (which I found I don't need because its a good layout) would go on the fets themselves. If I find I do need them which I am very VERY confident I wont I will edit boards in the next batch to add them. Remember this is a work in progress.
 
Na as I found I with my tests already the ringing goes away as I raise the voltage, I will test it of course. and I will have to see how it works with the to220 package fets as well.
The design with the buffer fets is good for preventing ringing! Anyways here is what I think is a finished protoboard now to figure out who to send the Gerber's to to get them here in a timely/costly fashion.
 

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circuit said:
Um, all gates in parallel?... This does not smell right to me :roll:
So you run them in series? So you would put 12v to the three giving 4v per gate? They wont even turn on.... :roll:
 
Lebowski said:
circuit said:
Um, all gates in parallel?... This does not smell right to me :roll:[/qoute]
Agree, better to use multiple gate resistors
Not what I have been taught, its better to run 1 gate resistor so things are more even!
 
circuit said:
Read on miller effect, also on distribution of miller capacitance and voltage thresholds among mosfets. No two semiconductors are identical.
With no resistors you may get strange ringing and blowups.
I do understand you can get slight differences in fets. But it is best to run from one gate resistor if you can. I will see how it goes. As well I will fet match per set of three as Jeremy and a couple others have.
The second set of boards can have provisions for a second low value gate resistor to "tune" each fet sepratly on the BIG powerstage.
 
arlo,

you are using the gate driver buffer from figure 11, page 14 from this appnote right?

how are Q1 and Q3 connected in your layout? they look to be connected "backwards" in the appnote.

the drain of Q1 should be connected to the R1 and the source to the +15v i think.

Niels
 
I have to spend some time and tripple check now you have me worried..... But the drain from 1&2 go to each side of a resistor (r1) and the drain from 3 and 4 go to their respected resistor (r1). It's hard to see from the screen shot. But I put the drains of all buffer fets facing inwards.
 
Here is a screen shot of the sch. Im sure i got it all right. I had it right the last time. You just have to look realy close. Once I get the boards and test them I will post the files for them.
 

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It might make more sense zoomed in a bit. So here you go. Q1 and Q3 both connect to the 12v input from the caps and from the jumper as you can see with the green trace.

Now I just noticed the 2 bootstrap diodes are not joined on the out puts. I will edit that for the future and for now I can just run a jumper.
 

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Hey Arlo1!! Nice job on KiCAD. I also designed a schematic recently for Smart EBike Controller and later I will need to work the PCB.

I just found that you also bought a Rigol oscilloscope, the same as me!! Seems we are using the same tools ;)

I don't know if you can, but seems your schematic could me more readable if you use labels. See mine as example (prototype V2):
 
It's all in the works. My plan is to label it all and make sure the silkscreen tells you what you need. Then I will post the files for all to read.
 
circuit said:
I think you should not use an autorouter in application like this. Component placement is also very important.
Circuit when you see what I am trying to run for a powerstage and how my plan to lay it out is you might understand why I laid it out this way.
As for the auto router I can edit traces after or try to do it all by hand but it does try to make the traces short as it can and i can change some of the design rules before running the autorouter and make it do things differently. At this point the autorouter is likely far better then I am!
 
Made a little progress while waiting for the mail man.
[youtube]YK-OFdEA-WE[/youtube]
 
Ok so as I design a board dedicated 100% to the 48 fet board I face one problem.
The distance from the gates of the 8 fets will be about 6 inches apart so my only idea is to double up the second set of buffer fets on each side of the H bridge so they can have shorter loop inductance.

So as seenhere Figure 11 it would mean two sets of Q3 and Q4 This would mean there would be the gates from 4 fets powered buy one set of q3/q4 and the other 4 gates powered by the other set of q3/q4. Meaning the distance between gates will be ~3 inches of a group of 4.
 
Paralleling 8 FETs in discrete packages is a real challenge. It is not an area that I have direct experience with. I cringe at using two discrete driver paths to a common FET bank. Any mismatch in timing, and that on the order of 10 nS, will start to skew the current paths. Absolute matching of driver timing is mandatory.

What we have seen in that area is the custom packaging of the 6 to 8 large die in a package, as a brick or a puck. You may want to dissect how Sevcon drove their multiple TO220 FET banks, or think of subpackaging your 8 FETs into a brick for further integration. Something where the TO247/TO264 packages are closer together.

An 8 inch spread on the Source Bus makes is going to make for an interesting definition of "ground." If the 8 FETs have different source potentials, they will have individual, and therefore different gate drive characteristics. Individual FETs will then hit the miller plateau at different times...
 
Lebowski said:
Are you using the new v1.1 i sent you ?
Not yet. I had one good one left from the old batch that had all the settings I needed. I will be using them soon I have 3 new brain boards and 4 powerstage boards coming.
 
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