J
John Larkin
Guest
I\'ve been asked to design an 8-channel dummy load board. It\'s not very
challenging but somebody\'s got to do it. It will be used to simulate
small loads like solenoids or relays or torque motors. It needs some
inductance too, because the drivers often PWM. Maybe 10 or so watts
per channel.
I could do this electronically, but it would a lot easier and more
rugged if I use wirewound resistors. I was thinking of making a
conductance DAC, namely resistors R 2R 4R etc switched in parallel
across the inputs with an SSR per resistor.
But there is a history of clever load banks. When I was an EE student
at Tulane, two semisters of Electrical Machinery (with lab) was
mandatory. It was a pain but I learned a lot. We had a big load bank
in the machinery lab, a string of giant series resistors with a
3-position knife switch at each node. That made me think about using
series-parallel combinations to hit some target value.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/x3e7xxi13n6wd1o/Load_Banks_1.jpg?raw=1
The upper pic is the ancient Tulane load bank as I remember it.
I was thinking about the lower circuit for my gadget. I could use
wirewould resistors and kink the leads to space them maybe 3/4 inch
above my PCB, in the air stream. The higher value resistors might be
2512 surface mounts.
I think there is a tool to bend and kink resistor leads. Or we could
send a bunch out to a service maybe.
challenging but somebody\'s got to do it. It will be used to simulate
small loads like solenoids or relays or torque motors. It needs some
inductance too, because the drivers often PWM. Maybe 10 or so watts
per channel.
I could do this electronically, but it would a lot easier and more
rugged if I use wirewound resistors. I was thinking of making a
conductance DAC, namely resistors R 2R 4R etc switched in parallel
across the inputs with an SSR per resistor.
But there is a history of clever load banks. When I was an EE student
at Tulane, two semisters of Electrical Machinery (with lab) was
mandatory. It was a pain but I learned a lot. We had a big load bank
in the machinery lab, a string of giant series resistors with a
3-position knife switch at each node. That made me think about using
series-parallel combinations to hit some target value.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/x3e7xxi13n6wd1o/Load_Banks_1.jpg?raw=1
The upper pic is the ancient Tulane load bank as I remember it.
I was thinking about the lower circuit for my gadget. I could use
wirewould resistors and kink the leads to space them maybe 3/4 inch
above my PCB, in the air stream. The higher value resistors might be
2512 surface mounts.
I think there is a tool to bend and kink resistor leads. Or we could
send a bunch out to a service maybe.