Reliable and Flexible Switching System

[dancombine]

Hi Chris,


I'm the designer of the circuits you mentioned in the start of this thread.
The design is well proven so far in many hard switching cases, up to 500kHz. Soft switching could go to few MHz.
Of course to every design there are improvements possible, but the point is that the design has proven to provide good results, and is flexible and modular.


Attached is a picture of the latest board we use.
I'm using several such boards (self-made), which are called now "IPC" (Isolated Power Channel) and comes in 4 or 8 drivers, so IPC-quadra and IPC-octa.
Many people are suffering by trying to build themselves H-bridges, but have either no galvanic isolation, is not modular, or does not work reliable.
The intend I had, together with my friend and partner Selfonlypath, is to create the above for our private research.
However we understand the community could benefit from this as well.


I wonder if there would be an interest if I would start manufacturing and selling these boards to anyone who is interested in this stuff?


Note that the board has an Arduino Mega landing. I know the Mega is not the fastest and coolest on teh market, but it is sort of a standard, which is also important for modulatory.
The good thing about the ATmega is that the pulses are predictable with clock-precision, which is a must. This is not the case where boards are used with an O/S (like Rasperry Pi).


In fact we are checking if our future platform could be FPGA based. In this sense, I'm closely following the development of a new board by Jack from Gagdetfactory - see http://forum.gadgetfactory.net/index.php?/topic/1876-the-next-generation-papilio-help-me-shape-it/


In anycase some additional analog circuitry is required as front-end for the measured feedback signal conditioning, and threshold control.


I think there could be value if we share and/or sell these.


What do you think?


-Dan

[MarkE]

I think that there is value in a well documented and well behaved driver for experimenters.  Finding the right combination of price and performance might be a little tricky because I think that most experimenters do not realize all the things that can go wrong with power drivers and therefore why it is worth some money to buy a well engineered one.

[EMJunkie]

Hi Chris,


I'm the designer of the circuits you mentioned in the start of this thread.
The design is well proven so far in many hard switching cases, up to 500kHz. Soft switching could go to few MHz.
Of course to every design there are improvements possible, but the point is that the design has proven to provide good results, and is flexible and modular.


Attached is a picture of the latest board we use.
I'm using several such boards (self-made), which are called now "IPC" (Isolated Power Channel) and comes in 4 or 8 drivers, so IPC-quadra and IPC-octa.
Many people are suffering by trying to build themselves H-bridges, but have either no galvanic isolation, is not modular, or does not work reliable.
The intend I had, together with my friend and partner Selfonlypath, is to create the above for our private research.
However we understand the community could benefit from this as well.


I wonder if there would be an interest if I would start manufacturing and selling these boards to anyone who is interested in this stuff?


Note that the board has an Arduino Mega landing. I know the Mega is not the fastest and coolest on teh market, but it is sort of a standard, which is also important for modulatory.
The good thing about the ATmega is that the pulses are predictable with clock-precision, which is a must. This is not the case where boards are used with an O/S (like Rasperry Pi).


In fact we are checking if our future platform could be FPGA based. In this sense, I'm closely following the development of a new board by Jack from Gagdetfactory - see http://forum.gadgetfactory.net/index.php?/topic/1876-the-next-generation-papilio-help-me-shape-it/


In anycase some additional analog circuitry is required as front-end for the measured feedback signal conditioning, and threshold control.


I think there could be value if we share and/or sell these.


What do you think?


-Dan

Welcome Dan!

I think this thread has proved about the value of a Reliable and Flexible Switching System! People that have an idea about the area of research we all are investigating already see value here.

Isn't it funny how thing go around in circles and come back to the start sometimes! Three or so years ago I said to Albert how beneficial a Board like yours could be to people.

Please feel free to post your product range when you're ready. I am sure people will buy.

All the Best

  Chris

[EMJunkie]

I think that there is value in a well documented and well behaved driver for experimenters.  Finding the right combination of price and performance might be a little tricky because I think that most experimenters do not realize all the things that can go wrong with power drivers and therefore why it is worth some money to buy a well engineered one.

Hi MarkE,

I fully agree. Its critical to have something that will suit most all purposes.

Have we come to any hard decisions in the thread other than "Reliable and Flexible Switching System", not really. We don't have an improved design, we don't have any Circuits Designed, really we are no further than the first thread that I posted a few months back.

I wonder why some groups of people can get things done and other groups of people can not?

Procrastination or fear of being ridiculed, I don't know. Isn't it a shame how so many people can join for the good cause but not really do anything...

Apologies for my attitude today, I have seen some rather disheartening things occur in the last few weeks and it saddens me. Rant now over...

All the Best

  Chris

[MarkE]

Chris I think that the big issue is setting out constraints.  I would think that something capable of 100W peak hard switching is probably reasonable:

Say 32VDC input max, 4A current, half bridge or full bridge.

Half bridge solves the question of what to do about flyback protection.

Then the next issue is over current fault protection.  Some sort of cycle by cycle and burp burp for severe faults is really critical as part of the driver.

Then the next issue is what measurements if any feed back to the controller.

I think that once specified the design work is not demanding.  The best performance can be had from surface mount parts, but that depends on whether you want to supply finished assemblies or kits or instructions only.