> + Just out of curiosity, why are you bothering with an IGBT or
> + MOSFET? Why not just a resistive load bank?

Mason Convey wrote:
> Throwing a series of light bulbs together wouldn't leave us much to
> design. The professors would give us funny looks and we'd receive
> failing grades for picking a project that was too simple for 4th-year
> electrical engineering students.

So, the more complex the solution, the higher the grade your professors
give you? In that case, we should come up with something REALLY
complicated! How about converting the power into AC, and pushing it back
into the AC line. Or stepping the voltage up a bit and using it to
charge the battery due to be tested next. Or using it to power all the
computers and equipment needed to do the testing.

Thanks for my "smile of the day" :-)  

> Setting out to design it around a transistor *and* a constant-current
> discharge gives us several things to work on. More specifically, it
> lends itself to a three-person project...

No, it can employ four people; don't forget the supervisor. Or is it
five, including the grant swinger who got all the equipment. Or six with
the health and safety officer.

> Building one based on PWMing a transistor is something I've never
> done before, but something I would like to study a bit more
> intimately, given its applications in EV controllers and various
> other devices.

Be aware that battery performance isn't quite the same with a pulsed
load as it would be with a purely resistive load. Your pulse should
include filtering so the battery sees fairly constant 50amp DC load, and
not a 0-100-0-100 amp load.
-- 
Lee A. Hart                Ring the bells that still can ring
814 8th Ave. N.            Forget your perfect offering
Sartell, MN 56377 USA      There is a crack in everything
leeahart_at_earthlink.net  That's how the light gets in - Leonard Cohen

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