Hello. I have been working on a UAV quadrotor design for about a little over a year now. Picking it up, then taking breaks. It was my senior design project and unfortunately I picked an extremely hard project to do and didn't finish because I wanted to design absolutely everything from as scratch as possible. I am almost done with the electronic speed controllers for the brushless DC motors finally, but right now I am working on the power supply for the main board on the quadrotor that will supply the 16 volts needed for each of the 4 motors. The motors can handle 30 amps max according to the conflicting data from the RC hobby website I got them from (http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__25555__AX_4008Q_620KV_Brushless_Quadcopter_Motor.html).
I am going to go by the lower values to be safe. But since I have four of these I would need a voltage regulator that could handle 120 amps at 16 volts.
I have been researching this and most or pretty much all voltage regulator let you use external pass transistors to increase the current flow. I have a few questions I hope someone could guide me in the right direction.
Can you pretty much use any regulator and just select a very high current external pass transistor to do the job? with a large heat-sink on the transistor or transistors and regulator of course.
If not, where do I go about researching a design like this? I found a website where a guy used an LM723 regulator with MJE3055 external pass transistors to achieve like a 105 A supply. And this would probably work as I may not need the whole 120 amps of current. The motors are a little over 500 watts each and the quad only weighs about 4 or 5 pounds.
Can a SMPS be designed for this current, or would I have to resort to linear and which would be more expensive or complex?
I took a class in Power electronics but we just went over theory and didn't get much into practical designing. I still have the book that we only got about a third of the way through. I will be looking through it but I thought I could get some advice from you guys.
And yes I have a battery that can source 200 amps constant. Not for very long of course but it can handle the regulator.
Thanks for your time and any advice or guidance you may provide,
Michael Walden
I am going to go by the lower values to be safe. But since I have four of these I would need a voltage regulator that could handle 120 amps at 16 volts.
I have been researching this and most or pretty much all voltage regulator let you use external pass transistors to increase the current flow. I have a few questions I hope someone could guide me in the right direction.
Can you pretty much use any regulator and just select a very high current external pass transistor to do the job? with a large heat-sink on the transistor or transistors and regulator of course.
If not, where do I go about researching a design like this? I found a website where a guy used an LM723 regulator with MJE3055 external pass transistors to achieve like a 105 A supply. And this would probably work as I may not need the whole 120 amps of current. The motors are a little over 500 watts each and the quad only weighs about 4 or 5 pounds.
Can a SMPS be designed for this current, or would I have to resort to linear and which would be more expensive or complex?
I took a class in Power electronics but we just went over theory and didn't get much into practical designing. I still have the book that we only got about a third of the way through. I will be looking through it but I thought I could get some advice from you guys.
And yes I have a battery that can source 200 amps constant. Not for very long of course but it can handle the regulator.
Thanks for your time and any advice or guidance you may provide,
Michael Walden