Circuit using a MOSFET to control power

[Motamob]

I have a control board for a BLDC that controls the speed using a 0v-5v range. The GPIO pins only output 3.3v so my thought is to have a 9v power supply running through an N- MOSFET and using PWM on the GPIO pin to switch it on and off and control the power that way.

Here's a diagram of my circuit using a 2N7000



I believe this should work but I'd like some confirmation. Thanks!


NOTE: Yes, I did totally miss the BBCode on the image hosting site. Sorry.

[wh7qq]

Your image does not come up for me but if your circuit looks similar to this, it should work...specific to the 2N7000 but also works with other devices with similar specs.

http://elinux.org/GPIO/RPi_GPIO_Interface_Circuits.

[Z80 Refugee]

I'm not seeing an image in the first post or any kind of diagram in the link in the second post.

I have no direct experience of using MOSFETs (a bit of a hole in my otherwise wide experience with electronics), so I would personally probably steer towards an integrated driver with complete overload protection (by current limiting and shut-down), eg VPN10N07.

[DougieLawson]

https://ibb.co/fvCjiT

Diagram is at the URL above.

Note: the OP missed that his/her hosting site has a function to generate the BBCode needed to post on here.

[wh7qq]

Sorry...the link I posted has gone bad since I last visited. I did make a hard copy for my file and extracted the url from that. Dougie Lawson's link is close enough. The other link had the load between the power source and drain side of the MOSFET and the source goes to ground. Either way works.

[Z80 Refugee]

The other link had the load between the power source and drain side of the MOSFET and the source goes to ground. Either way works.

Really? The illustration now available in the first post looks completely weird (although I did say I have little experience of FETs). I would be happier with the source to ground and the load in the place of the drain resistor, I don't see how it could work as diagrammed. As shown, the drain resistor would seriously limit the performance, even if the FET did switch.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't a FET controlled by the gate-source voltage? And an enhancement FET is turned on while a depletion FET is turned off?

So, as illustrated, an enhancement FET will only turn on while the gate voltage is higher than the output, limiting the maximum output voltage at 3.3V and current-limited by the drain resistor. Nothing you can't do with a naked GPIO pin.

A depletion FET would go into current limiting.

Or I might be completely mistaken.

[Burngate]

That's my understanding, as well.
What's drawn is a source follower, a.k.a common drain. Wikipedia has a page.

So, as illustrated, an enhancement FET will only turn on while the gate voltage is higher than the output, limiting the maximum output voltage at 3.3V

It's even worse than that - the gate-source voltage must be greater than VGS(th), which for the 2N7000 is between 1v and 2v5 (depending on the drain current), so the output to the speed control will be no more than a couple of volts.

I'd be happier to make a recommendation if I had some information about what it's going to feed

[Z80 Refugee]

I believe this should work but I'd like some confirmation. Thanks!

I don't think it will, and I seem to have some agreement on that. For some design principles on circuits I, personally, know will work, take a look at my guide: viewtopic.php?f=34&t=207597 (scroll down to "Hardware Interfacing").