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Minimum load recovery

A project log for today's assorted project ramble "grab-bag"

Assorted project-ideas/brainstorms/achievements, etc. Likely to contain thoughts that'd be better-organized into other project-pages

eric-hertzEric Hertz 09/15/2019 at 05:532 Comments

Thoughts on a switching dummy load, for a DC-converter, which redirects power back to the input.

At a minimum load of 0.6A, we're talking 20.4W just to power the thing with no useful load attached!

These are floating-output converters with a wide input voltage range, which, I'm pretty sure, means, if done right, the outputs can actually be placed in series with the input.

No, we're not talking free-energy, here... we're talking recovery of otherwise burnt energy.

Though, I've also pondered this same output-in-series-with-input to maintain the minimum input voltage while, say, half the series batteries are removed from the circuit for charging.

Weird world.

Oh, and this dummy-load would also decrease as the actual load increases.

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And then *really* vague thoughts on using a similar technique, and the scaling necessary, to replace resistors in many general cases. Please send me some moolah and some credit if you steal this idea!

Discussions

Ken Yap wrote 09/15/2019 at 06:06 point

What kind of SMPS do you have that requires a minimum of 600 mA load?

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Eric Hertz wrote 09/16/2019 at 03:01 point

They're DC converters from telecom/server systems. Really high quality, great deal, but of course not designed for exactly my purpose. And, really, judging by its intended audience, the 0.6A minimum is probably only necessary to guarantee precision regulation. In fact, the datasheet says something to that effect, so might work just fine for most purposes without such a large load [maybe none?]. But I've yet to wire 'em up to test.

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