{"id":1033,"date":"2012-01-31T08:05:31","date_gmt":"2012-01-31T16:05:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/?p=1033"},"modified":"2012-03-14T18:54:47","modified_gmt":"2012-03-15T01:54:47","slug":"2012-01-31","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/?p=1033","title":{"rendered":"2012-01-31 Buck Converter LED Driver"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/?attachment_id=1037\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1037\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-1037\" title=\"LED-BuckConv\" src=\"http:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/LED-BuckConv.gif\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/?attachment_id=1079\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1079\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1079\" title=\"DSC_0197S6\" src=\"http:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/DSC_0197S6-300x224.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"224\" srcset=\"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/DSC_0197S6-300x224.jpg 300w, https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/DSC_0197S6.jpg 803w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>I assembled a two transistor LED driver buck converter for dropping the 12V input down to the 3.2 volts needed for the LED.\u00a0 My problem seems to be that the circuit wants to act like a simple 22.2 mA current limiter, as if I took out the inductor and capacitor (the D1 is reverse biased and does nothing). \u00a0 Then when I try to get it oscillating, the LED current goes higher than 22 mA, My expected behavior was that the circuit would take in a higher voltage at low current and convert it to a lower voltage at higher current.\u00a0 I was hoping for 9V at 9 to 11 mA would give the LED a full 20mA.\u00a0 Instead, the circuit is taking more than double that current and I\u00b4m guessing that a good part of that is wasted as heat and the LED is being overdriven &#8211; too\u00a0 much current.<\/p>\n<p>Feb 5 &#8211; I have changed most of the parts to values from one extreme to another.\u00a0 I have not found an optimum point where the circuit did a better job of bucking the voltage.\u00a0 All of the values gave an oscillating circuit that really behaved the same as a simple 2 transistor current limiter.\u00a0 This current limiter can be visualized by removing the capacitor and replacing the choke with a short wire.<a href=\"http:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/?attachment_id=1100\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1100\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1100\" title=\"DSC_0197S6NO\" src=\"http:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/DSC_0197S6NO-300x224.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"224\" srcset=\"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/DSC_0197S6NO-300x224.jpg 300w, https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/DSC_0197S6NO.jpg 642w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I assembled a two transistor LED driver buck converter for dropping the 12V input down to the 3.2 volts needed for the LED.\u00a0 My problem seems to be that the circuit wants to act like a simple 22.2 mA current limiter, as if I took out the inductor and capacitor (the D1 is reverse biased<a href=\"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/?p=1033\"> <\/p>\n<p> (Read More&#8230;)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,12,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-electronics","category-led","category-lighting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1033"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1036,"href":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033\/revisions\/1036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rustybolt.info\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}