IGBT driver board

[valerun]

Hi Guys, not that it's going to help those who must have VLA drivers, but I thought I'd share my design of the driver board PCB that works fine for me driving a single 400-600A 1200V IGBT at up to 16khz. Mounts directly onto the IGBT and has a built-in optocoupler driver so it's fully isolated from control side. It's only rated for 2.5A output current so has to be one per device. It has a +-15V DC/DC on board that ensures complete switch-off of the IGBT. These boards work in my 50A charger designs. I am planning to test them in the IGBT-based P&S controller soon. Let me know if you'd like more info. The total BOM for these is maybe $15...

[adamj12b]

Well I got my VLA-500 module from Mrbigh the other day and soldered it up to my driver board. This board is just 1 output for driving a 2pack module in a buck or boost converter. In this case, I will be using it as a buck in my charger. I will be testing it in the next few days, once I get my new boards for the charger controller. Here are some pics.

Enjoy!

-Adam


Untitled by AdamBrunette, on Flickr


Untitled by AdamBrunette, on Flickr

[NashvilleEVFiero]

Originally Posted by Nevyn

That would depend on your IGBT's. The VLA500-01 drivers are good for up to 1400A IGBT devices, so with 2 VLA's, you could put down 2800A as the theoretical limit of the controller.

I'd say a safer bet would be along the lines of 2000A or so.

Thanks!

Do we have a good supply source for IGBT of this size? I have used DigiKey and Mouser in the past.

[sawickm]

Originally Posted by valerun

Hi Guys, not that it's going to help those who must have VLA drivers, but I thought I'd share my design of the driver board PCB. Let me know if you'd like more info. The total BOM for these is maybe $15...

Hi Valerun,

Yes, please share what ever info you can on your driver PCB.

-Mark

[adamj12b]

Originally Posted by LouMan

WoW Adam where did you get that single driver board? that is extactly what I needed for my controller
I got to have some hehehehe I'm having to install my double driver board on a single IGBT, dangit were was I when all this got past around hehehe.

at anyrate the driver board works great the VLA get pretty warm after a little while even the one under no load, a small fan inside the case or vent fan would be a good idea
to keep the inside the controller kool.

Hey Lou,

I never got passed around. lol Thats why you never seen it. I did mention it once on my charger thread, but thats it. It would have to have the connector changed to really be viable in a car situation. Shouldn't be hard. I think a 6 pin molex connector would like right up.

Hm...thats interesting that they get warm. The only thing I can think of that would cause it to get warm under no load would be the built in dc-dc converter. I will be powering mine up tonight or tomorrow and I will see what It does.

-Adam

[valerun]

Originally Posted by sawickm

Hi Valerun,

Yes, please share what ever info you can on your driver PCB.

-Mark

Hi Mark - sure.

the BOM is:

* A3120 IGBT driver isolated opto-driver - from Digikey 751-1475-1-ND $2.31 1 $2.31
* DC/DC 2W 12V->+-15V - from Digikey 102-2096-ND $5.96 1 $5.96
* 18V zener - from Digikey 1N5355BGOS-ND $0.37 2 $0.74
* 50uF 25V el caps
* 10R 1-2W gate resistor
* 1k 1/8w resistor
* 10k 1/8w resistor

As I mentioned, these parts are ok to drive a 50nF IGBT at up to 10-16kHz.

Let me know if you have any questions or would like me to order some more copies when I make them for my controller...

Thanks,
Valery.

[valerun]

Hi Guys, I am designing a new IGBT driver circuit for my controller - see schematics below. It should be good to drive up to 6 IGBTs at up to 8A per IGBT. Highest frequency is likely to be around 30kHz for 100nF devices. Fully isolated (on logic and power). What do you think? I just don't want to depend on the availability of hard-to-source components...

[dcb]

Thank you, can I bear you a child? (not that I actually could)

[NashvilleEVFiero]

Originally Posted by valerun

Hi Guys, I am designing a new IGBT driver circuit for my controller - see schematics below. It should be good to drive up to 6 IGBTs at up to 8A per IGBT. Highest frequency is likely to be around 30kHz for 100nF devices. Fully isolated (on logic and power). What do you think? I just don't want to depend on the availability of hard-to-source components...

Sorry, do you mean up to 8 amps per IGBT as in "input" to drive IGBT?

[dcb]

yup, that is peak current to drive a gate. We are talking about some very large IGBT's that need to get their gate capacitance saturated/unsaturated very quickly or risk being fried.