Koncept Z-Bar lamp

koncept z-bar gen 4

I am relatively new to this domain, but I do see some immense great things happening in high-power electronics because of SiC devices. Folks in power electronics please do correct me if I’m wrong. Except currently for costs(being relatively new tech) SiC has everything going for it.

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Got a new lamp for the desk and its touch-based dual light from Amazon Basics. Minimalistic design with an adjustable gooseneck. The “touch” button cycles through the LED modes and you can dim/ brighten the 40LEDs. It has a 18650 1200mAh cylindrical LiIon rechargeable battery with the BIS 16046 battery certification. It has a micro-USB port to charge the battery with an indicator light(which doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to as the assembly team tried to cut corners by adding only a single LED). The circuit contains battery protection ICs and a battery charger IC which charges at a max current of 350mA(Full Charge in 4hrs). It does contain an unnamed microcontroller which handles all those logic switchings. It’s probably one of those absolutely dirt cheap one-time programmable microcontrollers. The microcontrollers drive a couple of MOSFETs which are connected to the LEDs via a series of 1.6Ohm resistors to dissipate power over multiple 0805 packages.

koncept z-barlightreplacement

The cool part is the touch circuitry. This is handled by a spring and 1kOhm resistor. When someone touches the spring, it acts as a capacitor with our body. I am guessing they are sending a square signal to this pin and reading it back based on the RC time constant with your body. Each capacitance change is measured as a button press. Neat setup. The base of the lamp also contains a large metal plate which acts as a counterweight to prevent the lamp from falling over. Overall a good buy for the price.

Z-Bar Floor Lamp

Have been reading about these for a while. Seems that this is one of the best things that has happened in power electronics in a long time. Mostly used in Power MOSFETs and Diodes, it uses Silicon Carbide(SiC) as the base material instead of the usual Silicon Wafers. SiC have advantages over Si with a wider energy bandgap and high critical breakdown field. Specifically for SiC MOSFETs, there are added advantages in having higher blocking voltage(The max voltage that can be applied to MOSFET), High thermal conductivity(Implies smaller heatsinks in system design) and reduction in switching losses, especially in higher switching frequencies.

Mostly IGBTs are commonly used for high voltage and current applications. SiC MOSFETs are aiming to replace them. Although they are more expensive than IGBTs, the benefits they bring about in the overall system design are significant. They have wider operating temperature and their Rds ON values are more stable at higher temperatures compared with others. That ensures lower losses in heat. Lower losses mean smaller heatsinks which in turn reduces the weight of the solution. This becomes massive when considering power electronics inverter solutions in Electric vehicles. Lower weight means a longer overall range. There is a case study out there which says Tesla switched entirely to SiC MOSFETs and which made their inverter system weigh almost half that of its competitors. That is massive in terms of savings in the range.