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Comments on Contactor control - Higher voltage PWM

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Contactor control - Higher voltage PWM

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I have a battery pack that consists of 18650 battery cells(14 cells in series max.). Hence, the voltage of the battery pack will be between 35V and 60V(to be on the safe side)

I am designing a BMS in order to control it with cell monitoring, analog measurements, contactor control, etc. features built-in.

Using the battery HV pack voltage(35-60V), I would like to control a 12V/1.5A coil of a contactor. The reason for that being the fact that the rest of the circuitry could be powered with a 5V/500mA buck converter and not having a 12V/2A supply only for the sake of contactor control would be nice.

Would the following architecture for that purpose work in real life? Is there a better way of doing this? PWM Relay Picture


Here is how the circuit should work. Vpack_analog_input is fed into the micro analog input. The circuit around L1, C1, and D1 serves as a flipped buck converter having an NMOS instead of a PMOS. C2 is providing a low impedance for the switching node because I fear the ringing would cause a significant amount of emissions on the input cable.

The idea is to sense the Vpack and initially allow M2 to be opened for no more than t=L1*Icoil/Vpack , and after that apply PWM to Pwm_Control and limit the duty cycle in order to never have more than a certain threshold of current flowing through L1(to be done through experimenting).

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General comments (2 comments)
General comments
coquelicot‭ wrote over 3 years ago

I'm not sure I understand why you are trying to do. Is the problem the following? : the contactor needs 12 V, 1.5A to switch, but after it has switched, it needs much less current because of hysteresis. So you are trying to design a power saving circuit, using the coil of the contactor as part of a 5V buck convertor, right?

2kind‭ wrote over 3 years ago

I have a voltage source(35-60V range) and want to control the 12V/1.5A coil of the contactor without designing the 12V/2A buck solely for the purpose of contactor control. Moreover, 1.5A is enough for activating the relay, but I assume the holding current to be in the 300-500mA range.

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