I'm designing a boost converter circuit using a Linear 1302-5, and it works well with aluminum electrolytics for the output capacitors, but I was hoping to clean up the output a bit by using os-con capacitors instead. I tried Panasonic os-con with the same capacitance/voltage rating as the electrolytics I'm currently using, but the converter doesn't work at all with them. Is there an obvious reason that I'm missing?? Linear recommends Sanyo os-cons, and I would have thought the Panasonics would be very similar.

Thanks!

 

I can't think of any reason it shouldn't work.

 

It's odd, I've tried several electrolytics of different values and they all work, and several os-cons of different values, and none work at all.

 

What does the converter do with the os-cons in place?

 

I haven't measured it, but it doesn't put out enough voltage/current to power the arduino I have it attached to.

 

It could be that the low ESR of the os-con capacitors are causing instability in the converter control loop (sometimes the stability depends upon having a capacitor ESR value typical of electrolytics).
You could add a small resistor (say 0.1 ohm) in series with the os-con capacitor to see if that helps, but that rather defeats your purpose of going to os-con capacitors to reduce ripple.

What is a Linear 1302-5? I could not find any info on it.

 

Sorry, the correct part number is: LT1302CN8-5#PBF. Here's the link: http://www.linear.com/product/LT1302 Datasheet does specify low-ESR capacitors (SANYO os-cons), but I don't really know how much they would reduce noise (even if they did work

It's the converter that's used in the "MintyBoost" circuit, where they use electrolytics, but they're not concerned about noise. I'm trying to design an audio device and I get a little noise with the electrolytics, but it's not too bad if I use two output capacitors in parallel.