This week on EYE ON NPI, we are keeping an eye on safety with Infineon's 170 W AC-DC Charger Design for E-bikes and Power Tools (https://www.digikey.com/en/product-highlight/i/infineon/170-w-ac-dc-charger-design-for-e-bikes-and-power-tools) featuring the Infineon XDPS2201XUMA1 (https://www.digikey.com/short/h3qfmvc0) digital flyback controller and Infineon IPA60R280P7SXKSA1 (https://www.digikey.com/short/cfvp4f82) 600 Volt, 12 Amp N-Channel power MOSFET. These two best buddies can join forces to help you quickly and safely charge big battery packs such as in e-Bikes and other micro-mobility devices (https://wagner.nyu.edu/rudincenter/areas-focus/micromobility).
If you live near any density of folks, and in a place with well-paved roads, you've certainly noticed the increase in e-Bikes, e-Scooters, mono-wheels and other electric 'person-movers'. In NYC we've seen these go from banned to bountiful, as COVID restrictions made food and grocery delivery a bigger business than ever (https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/01/a-simple-solution-for-getting-cars-off-the-road-right-now.html). They're also popular in lots of countries where folks may not be able to afford cars, motorcycles or even mopeds: an entry-level E-Bike can go for $1000 to $3000 - which is a lot of money but much less expensive than a car. Plus you don't have to pay for gas or parking, you can lock it up outside or in your yard and charge it over a 120V power plug.
But, about that charging setup ... these light vehicles (https://www.infineon.com/cms/en/applications/automotive/light-vehicles/) use very big batteries: a common 48V 250 Watt-hours is 26 18650 sized batteries connected in series - with extremely high discharge pulses necessary if you want to haul around a 75 lb bicycle plus a 200 lb cargo of human plus groceries. Also important is the ability to charge quickly. If you're using the e-Bike for a courier job, or you take it work, and you need to charge it in order to get back home, you don't want to wait around 16 hours. But that also means that bicycles are often charged unattended, and that could mean that a poor engineering job on the charging circuit can lead to tragedy (https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/07/e-bike-battery-lithium-ion-fire/674622/). So don't cheap out on your design, and don't try to invent high power electronics layouts and specifications when you can rely on experts who've already done the work and created a reference you can base your product on (https://www.digikey.com/en/product-highlight/i/infineon/170-w-ac-dc-charger-design-for-e-bikes-and-power-tools)
https://www.digikey.com/short/h3qfmvc0
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