DC-to-DC Power Converter by Rodney Yeu and Sudip Kundu ECE 345 Section H TA: Jon Wheeler 4/26/02 Project #34

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DC-to-DC Power Converter By Rodney Yeu and Sudip Kundu ECE 345 Section H TA: Jon Wheeler 4/26/02

Project #34

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ABSTRACT
The goal of our project was to efficiently build a DC-to-DC power converter. The input range of the DC source ranges from 13V to 21V and the output voltages are 4.5V, 5V, and 12V. The input voltage range was chosen to match the output voltage range of a solar panel. The output voltages were chosen because theses voltages are used in CD players, logic circuits, and portable devices. The converter would accept up to 75W input and output 25 W at each output. The output voltage ripple is 100mV peak-to-peak and the target efficiency is 80%. The project will consist of three buck converters, each having a feedback circuit and short circuit protection at the output.

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Table of Contents 1. INTRODUCTION..1 2. DESIGN PROCEDURE...3


2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Buck Converter3 Snubber Circuit4 Feedback and Gate Drive Circuits.......4 Protection Circuit.6

3. DESIGN DETAILS...8
3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 Inductor Values....8 Inductor Design....9 Capacitor Values..9 PWM Implementation....10 Snubber Values..10 Protection Circuit Resistor Values.11

4. DESIGN VERIFICATIONS.13
4.1 4.2 4.3 Voltage and Current Ripple...13 Short Circuit Protection.14 Efficiency...14

5. COSTS17 6. CONCLUSIONS..18 REFERENCES..19

1. INTRODUCTION
The objective of our project was to build a power converter that would take an input range of 13V to 21V DC and convert it into 4.5V, 5V, and 12V DC. To meet the target efficiency of 80%, a buck converter design was implemented. The input voltage ranges were chosen to match the output voltage range of a solar panel power supply. Since the input voltages were allowed to be in a range, a feedback circuit needed to be implemented so that the output voltages would be held constant. The feedback circuit also allowed for voltage regulation when different loads were connected to the output of the converter. To ensure smooth DC voltage at the output, the voltage ripple was constrained to 100mV peakto-peak, which was controlled by the capacitor. Also, the output current ripple was constrained to 250mA peak-to-peak, which was controlled by the inductor. Other than converting power, the power converter had to be protected from a short circuit at the output. The protection of the circuit was achieved by setting a level of current where the buck converter would shut down. A flow chart of the converter is shown in Figure 1.
Feed Back Protection Circuit

4.5 V Buck Converter 25W


Feed Back Protection Circuit

13V - 21V input 75W

5 V Buck Converter 25W


Feed back Protection Circuit

Figure 1. Flow Chart

12 V Buck Converter 25W

2 It can be seen from the flow chart that the buck converter has a feed back circuit that controls the duty cycle and thereby maintaining the output voltage. The protection circuit senses the high current and sends a signal to the feed back control to shut the buck converter down in the event of a shortcircuit.

2. DESIGN PROCEDURE 2.1 Buck Converter


The buck converter design allows for high efficiency. The design of a typical buck converter is shown in Figure 2. As seen from the figure, the components of a buck converter have very little power dissipation, which is why the buck converter is efficient. This design uses the switching of the MOSFET to set the output voltage. If the duty cycle (D) is defined as the on time of the switch over the period of the switch, then the equation for the buck converter from Krein [1] VOUT = D*VIN
Gate Drive

(1)

V in

Output

Figure 2. Basic Buck Converter Design The schematics of the buck converters are shown in Figure 3, Figure 4, and Figure 5. These schematics show the buck converters with the more complex components like the protection circuit and the gate drive in blocks. The capacitor, resistor, and the diode around the MOSFET are the snubber circuit, which is discussed in Section 2.2.
Gate Drive C4

5nf R1 230 D4 D 1N 4001 1 L2 100uH Q3 V in M T P 2955 C2 D7 M B R 1045 22uF 4.5 V 2 Protection Ckt.

Figure 3. 4.5 V output Buck Converter

4
Gate Drive

C5

R2 230

D 11

5nf L1 100uH Q5

D 1N 4001 1

V in

M T P 2955

D 9 M B R 1045

C1 15uF

5 V

Figure 4. 5 V output Buck Converter


Gate Drive C6

R3 1 .5 k

D 10

2nF

D 1N 4001 1 L3 330uH Q4 V in M T P 2955 D8 M B R 1045 C3 15uF 12 V 2

Figure 5. 12 V output Buck Converters

2.2 Snubber Circuit


As seen from Figure 3, the snubber circuit is the capacitor in series with the resistor and the diode across the MOSFET. The snubber circuit acts to prevent fast change of voltage and current during switching. The circuit also minimizes the voltage overshoot caused by the inductor of the buck converter. The capacitor has to be large enough to avoid the voltage overshoot and the resistor has to dissipate the stored energy during the switch on time.

2.3 Feedback and Gate Drive Circuits


The pulse width modulator (PWM) handles the feedback control by controlling the duty cycle. Through the PWM, the switching frequency is set to 50 kHz by the timing resistor and the timing capacitor. These values are specified by the datasheet of the PWM to obtain the desired switching

5 frequency. The PWM also has the feedback control to maintain the desired output voltage. Figure 6, Figure 7, and Figure 8 shows the schematic of the PWM for the 4.5V, 5V, and 12V output.

R 4 50k R 5 62k

Vout

Output of Comparator
R 10 150k C4 100p U 1 2 1 4 8 3 7 R 15 68k R 16 12k V FB C OMP R T /C T V RE F IS E N S E V CC U C 3843A OU T 6

Gate Drive

C 1

3 .2 k

R 1

10nF

Figure 6. PWM Configuration for 4.5 V Output

R6 50k R7 50k

Vout

Output of Comparator
U 2 R 11 150k C5 100p 2 1 4 8 3 7 R 17 68k R 18 12k V FB COMP R T /C T VR E F

Gate Drive
OUT 6

C 2

3 .2 k

R 2

10nF

IS E N S E VC C U C 3843A

Figure 7. PWM Configuration for the 5 V Output

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R 8 50k R 9 13k

Vout

0
U3 R 12 150k C6 100p 2 1 4 8 3 7 V FB COMP R T /C T V RE F IS E N S E V CC U C 3843A R 13 68k R 14 12k OUT 6

Output of Comparator

Gate Drive

C3

7 .5 k

R3

5nF

Figure 8. PWM Configuration for the 12 V Output Since a PMOS is being used, the voltage coming out of the PWM needs to be inverted so that the MOSFET will turn on instead of turning off. Figure 9 shows how the output of the PWM was inverted using a BJT. This inverter uses the saturation mode of the BJT to turn on the MOSFET and the cutoff mode to turn off the MOSFET.

Vin

R2 470 R1

Output of PWM
1k

Q1 2N 2222A

Buck Converter Switch

Figure 9. Gate Drive for all the Converters

2.4 Protection Circuit


The protection circuit protects the converters from a short circuit or even a load drawing too much current. The schematic of the protection circuit is shown in Figure 10. Since a short circuit at the output of the buck converter will draw very large currents, a small resistor was placed to sense the output current. When the output current reaches a high level, the voltage drop across the sense resistor

7 will increase causing the comparator to trigger and shut down the PWM, which then causes the whole circuit to shut down.

Vin

Inductor
R p lu s

R sense .0 6 o h m s

Vout

Cd

Rd

U 1 R3 2 3 8 5 + LM 311 4 1 6 7

PWM

Vref
R 1

R 4

R 2

Figure 10. Short Circuit Protection Design

3. DESIGN DETAILS 3.1 Inductor Values


The inductor values are critical to the design of the buck converter. The inductor must be large enough so that it keeps the current flowing even when the MOSFET switch is turned off. The inductor also keeps the current ripple to a small value. To find the appropriate inductor value, the critical inductor value was calculated first. The critical inductance is the lowest inductor value that can still supply positive current. For this, the following equation is used from Krein [1] VL = LCRIT* IL/T. (2)

For example, in the 4.5 V output case, it is important to look at the inductor voltage when the switch is off. The first calculation is the on time ratio with the equation Krein [1] D = VOUT/VIN. For the input voltage of 13 V to 21 V this on time ratio ranges from .214286 to .346154. Therefore, the off time ratio (1-D) ranges from .65385 to .78571. The next calculation is the full rated load current, which is equal to 25 W/4.5 V = 5.555A. It is also important to note that the frequency of the switching is 50 KHz and so the period is 20s. From here, the critical inductance equation yields 4.5 V = 2*5.555/(.78571*2*10^-5) = 6.3649 H. Since this critical inductance value will yield a current ripple of 2*5.555 A, an inductor value of 637H is chosen to give a ripple of .111A. The other inductor values are calculated similarly and the values of all the inductors are given in Table 1. These inductor values results in ripples around 100 mA to ensure that the maximum 250 mA ripple is obtained. Table 1. Inductance Values
Output Voltage [V] Inductance [H] 4.5 637 5 762 12 2469

(3)

3.2 Inductor Design


Since the converter needed to handle up to 6A, the inductors had to be built. For the calculated inductor values the T200-26 powdered iron core was implemented. Since it is hand wound, the inductance values are not exact. By looking at the inductor core data table, an inductor around 700H needed 90 turns, and an inductor of 2.5mH needed about 250 turns. The inductors were over wounded to ensure that the calculated values would at least be achieved. The inductors were wound with 18 gauge magnet wires so that the inductor could handle up to 6A.

3.3 Capacitor Values


The capacitor values are essential to keep the voltage ripple to a small value. Since the equation of a capacitor from Krein [1] is IC = C dVout/dt Solving for the output voltage ripple gives us the equation from Krein [1] 1/C*
Ic>0

(4)

IC dt < Vripple

(5)

Since the voltage ripple, which is in the shape of a triangle, is positive for half of the switching period, the integration turns out to be just the area of the triangle. For the 4.5 V output case, using the current ripple from the inductor value, the voltage ripple equation becomes 1/C*(.111/2)*.5*.5*(2*10^-5) < .100 Solving for the capacitor value gives C > 2.775 F. This capacitance and the other ones for the different output voltages are shown in Table 2. Table 2. Minimum Capacitor Values
Output Voltage [V] Capacitance [F] 4.5 2.775 5 2.5 12 1

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3.4 PWM Implementation


Figures 6, 7, and 8 in section 2.3 describe the use of the PWM chip. Pin 1 is connected to the integrator circuit, which consists of a capacitor and resistor. For all converters, a 100pF capacitor and a 150 k resistor was used. These values are from the PWM datasheet. Using different values for the integrator circuit changes the time needed for the circuit to respond to a change in the input. Using the values in the datasheet gave the quickest response. Pin 2 is connected to the integrator circuit and a voltage divider from the output. The values for this voltage divider are selected so that the voltage connected into pin 2 is equal to 2.5 V. For example, in order to voltage divide the 4.5 V converter output to 2.5 V into pin 2, the resistor values need to be 50k and 62k. The resistors used for the 5 V output are 50k and 50k and the resistors used for the 12 V are 50k and 13k. The voltage needs to be divided to 2.5 V because it is compared by an error amplifier with the 2.5 V internal reference provided by the PWM chip. After this comparison is made, if the voltage at pin 2 is equal to 2.5 V, then the integrator circuit does nothing. However, if there is a difference, then the integrator circuit ramps the output of the error amplifier up or down depending on if the difference is positive or negative. This function of the integrator circuit causes the duty cycle to adjust accordingly so that the output of the buck converter maintains the desired output. Pins 4 and 8 are connected to the timing resistor and timing capacitor. These values are chosen according to the PWM datasheet. The two components control the frequency of the oscillator. The timing resistor also controls the maximum duty cycle allowed. For the 4.5 V and 5 V converters, 3.2 k and 10nF were chosen. Since the maximum duty cycle for the 12 V converter could possibly reach over 90%, a timing resistor value of 8 k was used. The corresponding timing capacitor chosen was 5nF.

3.5 Snubber Values


The capacitor of the snubber circuit must be large enough to avoid voltage overshoot when the MOSFET switches. It can be calculated using the following equation from Krein [1] Csnubber (Ion*tfall

11 ) / (2Voff ) (6)

For the 4.5 V case, the Ion is equal to 5.56 A, the tfall is equal to 39 s, and Voff is equal to 21 V. The capacitor value needed for the snubber circuit in the 4.5 V buck converter is 5.2 nF. The capacitor values are calculated in a similar fashion for both the 5 V and 12 V buck converters. Their capacitor values are 4.6 nF and 2 nF respectively. The resistor value must be chosen so that the energy stored in the capacitor discharges within the on time of the MOSFET. This means the time constant 1/RC must be less than the on time of the switch. The resistor value can be calculated using the following equation from Krein [1] ) / 2* Csnubber Rsnubber < (DT (7)

For the 4.5 V case, D is equal to .2143, T is equal to 20 s, and C is equal to 5.2 nF. The resistor needed for the 4.5 V buck converter must be less that 412 , the value chosen was 230 . For the 5 V and 12 V case the resistor values are 230 and 1500 respectively.

3.6 Protection Circuit Resistor Values


Figure 5 in section 2.4 of this report shows the short circuit protection design. Since there is high current when the output is short circuited, the voltage difference across the RSENSE increases. This voltage difference along with the Vref is used to make the trigger level of the comparator. The 5V reference voltage for the protection circuit was taken from the PWM. The output of the comparator LM311 acts like an open when the negative terminal is greater than the positive terminal and it connects the output to the ground when the positive terminal is greater than the negative terminal. One of the most important considerations that had to be made when choosing the resistor values for the protection circuit was that the voltage difference between the negative terminal and the positive terminal of the comparator would not depend on the output voltage. In order for this to happen, the

12 difference had to be a function of the reference voltage and the voltage drop across the RSENSE. By using KVL and KCL the difference in the terminals turned out to be V+ - V- = VDROP - VREF *(R3)/{R1((R3+R4)/R1 + (R3+R4)/R2 +1)} (8)

The equation for the voltage drop is VDROP = RSENSE *I (9)

By setting the current limit, one can set the trigger limit of the comparator. For example, in the 4.5V case, the rated current is 25 W/4.5 V = 5.555 A. So protecting the circuit from 6 A, the equation for the voltage drops turns out to be VDROP to 6A * .06 = .36 V The resistor values can now be solved by setting the difference equation to zero and substituting the 5V into VREF. So the equation is now 0 = .36 - 5*(R3)/{R1((R3+R4)/R1 + (R3+R4)/R2 +1)} To solve this equation, a guess needs to be made for one of the resistors so that the other resistor values can be calculated. Since low current is desired to go through these resistors to ensure minimal power dissipation, the resistor values were guessed in the range of tens of kilo ohms. The 4.5 V and 5 V output circuits are protected for 6.7 A, and the 12 V output circuit is protected from 4.2 A. The resistor values for the different output voltages are shown in Table 3. Table 3. Short Circuit Protection Resistor Values
Output Voltage [V] RSENSE [] Rplus [k] R1[k] R2[k] R3[k] R4[k] 4.5 0.06 10 75 75 10 15 5 0.06 10 75 75 10 15 12 0.06 10 75 75 5 7.5

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4. DESIGN VERIFICATIONS
After building the converters on the protoboard, the circuit was tested using heavy loads so that less current was drawn. This was to ensure the current would not reach close to the rated value of the protoboard, since it is only rated for 2 A on most of its busses. After testing the circuit on the protoboard, the circuit was soldered. The 5 V output and the 12 V output worked well, but the 4.5 V output did not function. Replacement parts for the MOSFET and PWM were needed to make the 4.5 V buck converter fully operational. Therefore, data for the efficiency of the 4.5 V converter could not be recorded.

4.1 Voltage and Current Ripple


Measuring the voltage and current ripple was an inaccurate process. Since the ripples were such low values, the oscilloscope did not get accurate readings. The oscilloscope was set to 1V/div for the 4.5 V and the 5V converters to read the voltage ripple and it was set to 2 V/div for the 12 V converter. The volts per division was set to a high value because the output voltages were too high to scale down when the volt per division was set to smaller values. Since this was an inaccurate way to measure the voltage ripple, the capacitor values were chosen to be 100 F for all the converters to make sure that the voltage ripple was below 100 mV. With this capacitor, the voltage ripple never exceeded the 100 mV range for all the output voltages. The current ripple had to be a maximum of 250 mA peak to peak. The oscilloscope was also inaccurate for measuring such a low value because the noise that was associated with the oscilloscope was also around 200 mA. The scale of the current was adjusted to be 100 mA/div and yielded a rough estimate of the current ripple. Since the accuracy of the oscilloscope was small the inductor values were

14 calculated to give a current ripple of around 100 mA to ensure that the current ripple would be less than 250 mA. From the oscilloscope, the rough values of the current ripples were around 100 mA, for all currents measured.

4.2 Short Circuit Protection


Testing for the short circuit protection was simple. With the power supply feeding into the circuit the outputs of the converters were shorted one by one. The output voltage turned to zero on all the converters meaning that the circuit had shut down and more importantly the circuit was protected from a short circuit.

4.3 Efficiency
To test the efficiency, different loads were placed at the output of the 12 V and the 5 V converters, which allowed the converters to work around rated conditions. As the loads decreased in value, the converter got closer to rated conditions because the converter had to output more current through the small resistor to achieve 12 V and 5 V output. The results are shown in Table 4 and Table 5. Table 4. Results of Tests on 12 V
12 V Output Vin Iin 13.35 13.35 13.35 13.35 13.35 13.35 13.35 21.5 21.5 21.5 21.5 21.5 21.5 Vout 0.39 0.51 0.6 0.51 0.7 0.93 1.16 0.09 0.312 0.4 0.45 0.6 0.78 12.4 12.33 12.03 12.08 11.98 11.92 11.9 12.3 12.3 12.2 12.2 12.26 12.23 Iout Eff RL 0.031 7.383079 500 0.1206 21.84032 100 0.2336 35.08375 50 0.475 84.27701 25 0.656 84.09716 16.667 0.883 84.77597 12.5 1.11 85.2964 5 0.048 0.254 0.498 0.678 0.912 1.146 30.51163 46.57424 70.64651 85.49457 86.67535 83.57531 500 50 25 16.667 12.5 5

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Table 4. Results of Tests on 5 V


5 V Output Vin Iin 13.06 13.06 13.06 13.06 13.06 13.06 13.06 13.06 19.31 19.31 19.31 19.31 19.31 19.31 19.31 19.31 Vout 0.02 0.05 0.07 0.11 0.15 0.2 0.22 1.5 0.02 0.03 0.05 0.09 0.13 0.2 0.21 1.2 5.07 4.91 4.92 4.92 4.91 4.92 4.95 4.8 5.1 5 4.97 4.95 4.95 4.95 5.02 4.9 Iout 0.026 0.066 0.107 0.202 0.277 0.37 0.462 3.425 0.02 0.063 0.112 0.202 0.265 0.393 0.466 3.85 Eff RL 50.46708 500 49.62634 100 57.58477 50 69.18001 25 69.42675 16.667 69.69372 12.5 79.59418 5 83.92037 1.3 26.41119 54.37597 57.65303 57.53496 52.25471 50.37157 57.68834 81.41291 500 100 50 25 16.667 12.5 5 1.3

Figure 11 and Figure 12 show the efficiency versus the load. As seen from the figure, the efficiency increases as the load goes toward rated conditions. It is also clear from the figure that the target efficiency of 80% was achieved.

16 Efficiency vs. Resistance for 12 V


100 Efficie ncy [%] 80 60 40 20 0 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 Resistance [ohms] Vin = 13.35 Vin = 21.5

Figure 11. Efficiency vs. Resistance for 12 V output Efficiency vs. Resistance for 5 V
90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 Resistance [ohms]

Efficie ncy [%]

Vin = 13.06 Vin = 19.31

Figure 12. Efficiency vs. Resistance for 5 V output

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5. COSTS
The cost of the project is shown in Table 5. Table 5. Costs of the Project
MTP2955 MOSFET MBR1045 Diode D1N4001 2N2222A BJT LM311 Comparator T200-26 Iron Cores 230 ohm Resistors 1.5 k Resistors 50 k Resistors 62 k Resistors 13 k Resistors 150 k Resistors 3.2 k Resistors 7.5 k Resistors 68 k Resistors 12 k Resistors 1 k Resistors 470 Resistors .06 Resistors 75 k Resistors 10 k Resistors 15 k Resistors 5 k Resistors 100 uF Capacitors 5 nF Capacitors 2 nF Capacitors 10 nF Capacitors 100 pF Capacitors 0.78 0.88 0.05 0.47 0.7 4.81 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 2.12 0.15 0.15 0.15 0.1 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 1 4 1 1 3 2 2 3 3 3 3 3 6 5 2 1 3 3 1 5 3 2.34 2.64 0.15 1.41 2.1 14.43 0.2 0.1 0.4 0.1 0.1 0.3 0.2 0.2 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.6 0.5 0.2 0.1 6.36 0.45 0.15 0.75 0.3

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Labor Rodney Yeu Labor Sudip Kundu Total Cost 35/hour 35/hour 100*2.5 100*2.5 8750 8750 17538.43

6. CONCLUSIONS
After testing the project, the DC-to-DC power converter worked as designed. The output was constantly held around the 4.5 V, 5 V, and 12 V when the input voltage ranges were changed from 13 V to 21 V. The efficiency of the converter was above 80% at rated conditions. Even though precise measurements were not obtained for the voltage or the current ripple, the inductance and capacitance were increased from the minimum required values to ensure that the ripple was below maximum voltage and current ripple. The soldered on 4.5 V converter was not able to function because of chip damage to the PWM and the MOSFET. However, this converter is very similar to the 5 V converter and should have no problems once the chips are replaced. Overall, the power converter functioned as designed and would efficiently convert the power from a solar power panel to 4.5 V, 5 V, and 12 V

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7. REFERENCES
Philip T. Krein, Elements of Power Electronics. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998, pp.126, 150-153, 499-503.

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