Guru
Joined: 07/09/2016
Location: United KingdomPosts: 2171
| Posted: 01:04pm 12 Jun 2025 |
BLIMEY!
so I have been prattling on about the Vf of my chosen Schottky barrier diode in my solar charging circuit (see above)
I tried @phil99's idea of a bigger diode (thanks for that) so as to take advantage of it's gentler conduction curve and it was better but with both 10A and 20A variants, Vf was still around 300mV
you can see my dilemma here - was a fairly bright start to the day but now is very gloomy with rain on the way (trace ends at about 2PM, so very dull afternoon).
everything with those red lines and VSol>VBat could be putting a weak charge in to the battery.
So I got some cute little boards made up for the four component Ideal Diode and assembled/tested one this lunchtime.
Tests I had already done with what I had, suggested I might get Vf down to about 50mV which was very desireable... but, errrr...
Vf=10mV!
with the diode into a 56Ω load at 6V (i.e. to draw ~100mA) which are the maximum characteristics of the little solar panel I am using (which I won't get in reality).So, the question is: "how much 'ideal' is too much?" and what issues do you guys see if I put this in parallel with D2 (easier than replacing)?
cheers
h
Edited 2025-06-12 23:23 by CaptainBoing