2. What is ETHOS?
•Engineers in Technical Humanitarian
Opportunities for Service learning
•You learn to use your engineering skills for
humanitarian purposes, serving others with
practical engineering knowledge.
•You learn about the world, different cultures
and yourself.
3. Minvayu
•Minvayu is an NGO based out of Auroville,
India that builds small scale wind turbines to
meet the needs of rural villages in India.
4. Senior Design Project
• Redesign the stator so it
produces at least 2.7kW at
440V.
• The old design produced upto
1.5kW systems operating at
24V or 48V.
7. Buck Converter
•The Problem: An inexpensive Voltage
Controller was needed to stepdown the
output voltage of the wind turbine down to
13V.
8. How a Buck Converter Works
•The input and output voltage is monitored
using a micro controller.
•The micro controller adjust the duty cycle
based on the output voltage to get an output
voltage close to the desired output.
•The voltage and current stay pretty constant
because the capacitor and inductor minimize
the switching losses.
•An appropriately sized filter inductor and
capacitor keep the voltage and current ripple
to a minimum.
9. Specifications for Buck Converter
Minimum Maximum
Power (W) - 500 W
Input Voltage (V) 10 500 V
Output Voltage (V) - 13
Output Current (A) - 38.46
