#81🚀 60W Flyback Fight 🥊 PI Vs Frenetic

SuperPowers for Electrical Engineers 🦸🏻‍♂️🦸🏼‍♀️

👋 Hello, friends! Dr. Molina here 👨‍🔧

Welcome to Dr.Molina Newsletter, where I break down Magnetic design for you every week, in 4 minutes the time needed.

Last week, we talked about those engineers working in small companies or startups looking for technical solutions for their power supply without the resources to design a complete power supply from scratch.

The most common solution used for these engineers is Application Notes from Semiconductors. They can adapt their needs to an existing App Note and try to copy it with small changes.

Semiconductor companies offer online tools for helping those companies without internal resources. Some of these tools are:

• Texas Instrument Webench

• ST eDesign suite

• Power Integration PIexpert

• A lot of others.

Some of these tools try to provide support with the magnetics of the power supply. One of those is PIexpert from Power Integration.

I have recorded a video of the tool for designing a Flyback converter.

CLICK ON THE PICTURE TO WATCH THE VIDEO.

The tool suggest you some magnetic designs, but you can´t edit them.

AFTER MEETING THE TEAM OF PI, I HAVE LEARNED, YOU CAN EDIT A DESIGN

This is a big problem for the engineers because of the BOM availability. However, the main goal of PI is not to sell you a good magnetics design but to sell you their chip. They won´t invest more money in the magnetic tool.

I took the same inputs, and I simulated one of the options proposed by the tool with Frenetic Online.

First, you can see the PI design.

And here, the Frenetic simulation.

In the following table, you can find the compared results.

I don´t know the details, but I bet they use Dowell for the AC losses, which is why the result is far from reality. According to our reports, we use our Winding Losses Model V2 by Jonas Mülhethaler and Lucas Nicieza, which has an accuracy higher than 85% in Flyback.

This difference in the AC losses moves the total losses from 2,9W to 6.7W, which is too much for such a small core reaching a temperature of 233ºC.

Summary

• Semiconductors tools are very helpful for choosing the suitable chip, but you need to review the magnetic design.

• PI tool AC losses underestimate the proximity effect

• PI doesn´t provide samples of the magnetics (Frenetic, yes, in less than two weeks)

Shop

The best way to get your magnetics is to use Frenetic in the design stage and order an online sample.

The question here is;

How often do you need to do this?

We have created a plan for each of you.

1. FRENETIC UNIVERSITY

2. FRENETIC ONE

3. FRENETIC LIGHT

4. FRENETIC PRO

5. FRENETIC PREMIUM

6. EXTRAS

We are integrating Frenetic with great products that could benefit the user.

1. Maxwell Integration

If you buy Frenetic, ask your sales contact about our offers to acquire Maxwell; here, you can watch an example of what you can do.

2. Bode 100

If you design magnetics, having an impedance analyzer will help you EVERY DAY. We have some offers here as well. Ask your sales contact.

I would love to review your case personally to find the best option for you 🤗; Email me at chema@frenetic.ai.

If you missed….some of the most widely read articles in the Dr.Molina Magnetics Newsletter:

#58🚀 How to design an Inductor

#54 🚀 How do engineers learn Power Electronics?

#51 🚀 Full Bridge TX PQ40/40 Leakage Inductance Game

#34 🚀 Dual Active Bridge 3,3kW 380/54V

#8 🚀 How to design a 600W Power Supply Full Bridge Transformer, Product Design and Community