Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology

Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering

EEE 316 (January 2022) C1

Power Electronics Laboratory

Final Project Proposal

Section: C1

Group No: 02

Student ID(s): 1806132,1806137,1806157,1806159

Section Teachers: Ramit Dutta

Tanshia Tahreen Tanisha

Project Title:
Design a low price adjustable and multi-purpose DC to DC
converter power supply

Abstract

A fairly technical and good solution would be to design a low price adjustable and multi-
purpose DC to DC converter power supply that is very simple to use. Our idea is to have a
small 40W custom built solar charger that has the possibility of converting into a battery to
device power supply that can allow multiple voltages at it's output. This multi-purpose tool
could have an AGM battery charger implemented in it's menu and it could also have a Li-
ion battery charger. The aim would be to create this tool for the masses at a low price and
keep it under BDT 1000 so the people of these places could afford to buy it.

Background

In the rural areas, people are trying to develop better living conditions here and to begin to
use some small solar panels and some lead acid batteries to power a few lights and maybe in
some cases, charge their mobile phones. The technology is many times too expensive for
these places and people are ending up connecting their refurbished solar panels directly to
some old car batteries. This dangerous practice for a desperate cause to light up some 3W
light bulbs at night, leads many times to setting the batteries or the houses on fire.

Complexity Analysis
We realise that this design must be water proof. In these areas, the measured humidity
exceeds 80% almost everyday. We realise that having a piece of electronic - whatever thing
- inside of a coconut leaves roof house, can lead to water being splashed over the case. We
plan to 3D print the first cases and to keep in mind that we have to make them as tight as
possible. We are concerned that the display will have to come out of the case and this will
lead to some gaps between the case and the edges of the display. We are not planning to add
any fan or heatsink to the converter, so this automatically means that we will have to aim for
an efficiency factor of over 90%. We are planning to be able to build this box to switch
about 40W and this still means that in some cases we will have to dissipate 4W on our PCB
inside of a PLA plastic box. But it has some problems and shortages. It is a well known fact
that usually, the MOSFETs are likely to end up short-circuited if they fail due to high
current or/and junction temperature. A short circuit between the input and the output of the
converter means automatically that we will burn our mobile phone if our design ends up in
this situation. Having the OL voltage of the solar panel directly connected to our output
device will not be suitable. We must definitely have a thermal protection and a current
sensor.

References
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC-to-DC_converter
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck%E2%80%93boost_converter