I'm at the very early stages of converting a motorcycle. I can't find a 48V10A (~480W) on-board charger for a 16 LiFePO4 (TS) pack for less than 130€ to my door, buying directly from China. What really pisses me off is that I can buy a 600W PC power supply for less than 30€ at the store nearby. I'm in Europe.
So I've been wondering: how about building a DC-DC converter to connect to a standard PC power supply to get the 48V10A charger? I would like to know what you guys think of this.
The main challenge I see is that the output power of a PC PS is spread over 3.3V, 5V and 12V outputs. So this converter needs to be Multiple Input and Boost. I've looking at PC PSs and some models provide 2 12V outputs of up to 22A, so that is 528W available power. A Multiple Input power section can be built like this:
The schematics is just for reference. I've played with this under simulation. The diodes must be replaced because the ones above don't handle the necessary voltage, so I' inclined to use 60CPW150 (2x 150V 30A). There are other possible selections for the MOSFETs, these ones were just available in the simulator - a TO-220 MOSFET with low Rdson should be able to handle the job. There are some "hidden" values in the schematics, the components there are not ideal ones. The switching frequency is 10KHz. The inductors need to withstand at least some 25A. Dissipation on the each MOSFET is bout 4W and on each diode around 3W. This would be all uC controlled to do the temperature, current and voltage limitation.
There are power supplies with 4 12V outputs, one can play with the number of inputs versus power provided versus number of components versus power dissipation on the converter versus... The 5V rail can provide a lot of power too, but it implies dealing with a lot more current.
What do you think about the feasibility of this? Or, do you know of any source of a decent 48V10A charger for a reasonable price in Europe?
So I've been wondering: how about building a DC-DC converter to connect to a standard PC power supply to get the 48V10A charger? I would like to know what you guys think of this.
The main challenge I see is that the output power of a PC PS is spread over 3.3V, 5V and 12V outputs. So this converter needs to be Multiple Input and Boost. I've looking at PC PSs and some models provide 2 12V outputs of up to 22A, so that is 528W available power. A Multiple Input power section can be built like this:
The schematics is just for reference. I've played with this under simulation. The diodes must be replaced because the ones above don't handle the necessary voltage, so I' inclined to use 60CPW150 (2x 150V 30A). There are other possible selections for the MOSFETs, these ones were just available in the simulator - a TO-220 MOSFET with low Rdson should be able to handle the job. There are some "hidden" values in the schematics, the components there are not ideal ones. The switching frequency is 10KHz. The inductors need to withstand at least some 25A. Dissipation on the each MOSFET is bout 4W and on each diode around 3W. This would be all uC controlled to do the temperature, current and voltage limitation.
There are power supplies with 4 12V outputs, one can play with the number of inputs versus power provided versus number of components versus power dissipation on the converter versus... The 5V rail can provide a lot of power too, but it implies dealing with a lot more current.
What do you think about the feasibility of this? Or, do you know of any source of a decent 48V10A charger for a reasonable price in Europe?