Voltage Control for Varying DC voltage

[zipfactor]

Hello All,

This is my first post here, so we will see how this goes. I am designing a charging circuit for lead-acid batteries and I believe I need to have some kind of control of the voltage, particularly for over voltage. The system generating the electricity has a DC output in the range of 0V to 60V. My question is, would a buck-boost or just a buck converter be the best choice for this circuit? Under voltage is not as big of a concern, mainly over voltage. Thanks for the help in advance.

Zip

 

[leo_o2]

For a croase one, a accurate buck is OK for it. Don't charge the battery to over-voltage.

 

[ARAVIND89]

you can very well go for a buck converter.

 

[leo_o2]

For accurate controlling, it is better to use a dedicated Charger IC. However, 60V input voltage is hard to find.

 

[zipfactor]

I just researched purchasing a charger IC and they are more cost effective, although, they are hard to find at 60V input (special order). I would be hesitant to use the charger IC with the 60V input because there will not be much room for variation (i.e. the input voltage swings up to 70V for a short time period). Thanks for the input everyone.

 

[ea.arun]

You can use a separate buck converter and then a dedicated lead-acid charger........
maxim,ti,linear all has some excellent products on sale....

 

[zipfactor]

I already had planned on using a 555 timer charge control circuit with trimmers to adjust the high voltage and low voltage states for charging, so I only really needed to ensure that the voltage did not get above 15V or so. This charge controller is less expensive than I thought, which is making me lean toward using this charge controller IC in place of the 555 timer circuit. My question with the charge controller IC is can I connect my "dummy" load to the sinking side of the IC's driver circuit so that I can run an external load when my battery is not being charged?