Matt circuit

This circuit was devised to switch power to a Peltier cooler in a vehicle. Power to the load from the vehicle’s battery is switched by a SPDT relay while the ignition switch is turned on and from the SLA auxiliary battery when the ignition is off. The SLA battery is charged from the vehicle’s battery. When the engine is running, the voltage remains fairly constant, which greatly simplifies the charging circuit. If the SLA battery is fully charged, any further charging current from the vehicle battery is limited by a 3.3W 5W resistor (R1). If the SLA battery is deeply discharged, the voltage drop across this resistor will be enough to bias on PNP transistor Q1. This will turn on P-channel Mosfet Q2 and it will provide further charging current via R2, effectively becoming a 2-step charger. Since the paralleled resistors (R1 & R2) have a lower combined voltage drop, Q1 will receive lower base bias, which in turn will cause Mosfet Q2 to fully saturate. This positive feedback creates a ...

This circuit was designed to ‘baby-sit’ SLA (sealed lead-acid or ‘gel’) batteries using freely available solar power. SLA batteries suffer from relatively high internal energy loss which is not normally a problem until you go on holidays and disconnect them from their trickle current charger. In some cases, the absence of trickle charging current may cause SLA batteries to go completely flat within a few weeks. The circuit shown here is intended to prevent this from happening. Two 3-volt solar panels, each shunted by a diode to bypass them when no electricity is generated, power a MAX762 step-up voltage converter IC. Solar Powered SLA Battery Maintenance Circuit Diagram: The ‘762 is the 15-volt-out version of the perhaps more familiar MAX761 (12 V out) and is used here to boost 6 V to 15 V.C1 and C2 are decoupling capacitors that suppress high and low frequency spurious components produced by the switch-mode regulator IC. Using Schottky diode D3, energy is stored in inductor L1 in the ...