Hardware Description

DC/DC power stage

The power stage mainly consists of a DC/DC buck converter responsible for the Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT). Texas Instruments CSD18540Q5B is used as both high and low side MOSFET.

For the reverse current blocking during the night, an additional low-side CSD18540Q5B is used, which is directly driven by the half bridge driver LS output.

Loads connected to the battery via the load output can be switched off in order to protect the battery from deep-discharge.

Power supply

The system contains 4 different supply rails: Battery voltage, 10V, 5V and 3.3V. The 5V supply voltage is generated by a switch-mode power supply from the battery voltage. For supply of MCU and other peripherals, this voltage is dropped to 3.3V using an LDO. The MOSFET drivers are supplied by a voltage doubler using the 5V supply voltage to generate 10V.