Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Vicor Brick

Vicor Bricks for Mega Pac. I need to reduce the voltage output of each brick in series so my end voltage is about 13.4 volts. My controller balks at 14.8 volts but works fine at 14.6 and under. I finally decided to go to RadioShack and purchase some 100K ohm resistors. They are used to lower or raise the voltage a bit from the factory setting. I have 3 bricks in series each puts out just under 5 volts each. Nominal is 5 volts. It is under because I am at the lower input voltage for the MegaPac. I was successful at soldering in a resistor and now have 4.57 volts output. That falls well within my needs. About 13.7 volt output now and my controller will be happy. However it is a real pain in the ass to solder them in so I am purchasing some molex pins for the molex connector and just solder a molex on the end of each resistor and plugging in the resistor. It will allow for easy changing if needed and if I need to change the output I can unplug and slip on a new resistor. I can raise the voltage or lower it. Depending on the needs. Some can just leave the mega pack at the nominal voltage and just run at 15 volts. I'd have done that too but my voltage requirements require me to have less than 14.5 volts. I may use two sets. One for my controller only and the other set for the car so I can use 15 volts for my main power for the car. Simple and easy.

Pete :)

2 comments:

  1. So I am assuming you are mounting the bricks to some sort of heat sink or water cooling? Do you have any pics? ;)

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  2. Chris,

    I am actually using the bricks in the Megapac and they are already set on a heat sink and just plug right in. I will get some photos. The ones I modified with the resistors are already in the car but since I have more I will photograph those and post them. You will see how it all goes together. I will put one at low power that is on all the time but used to switch a contactor to turn every thing else on. Should be a real simple setup with the vicor dc dc bricks. These are not bare bricks and are already sinked. Since the one will be low power only I don't need to worry about a fan for cooling. It will only power a contactor. d

    Pete :)

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