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FET Killer

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kinarfi

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Why is this killing my FETS and then shorting out the power supply?

EDIT
First drawing was bad, second is correct, supplied by Sceadwian.

What happens is I close the switch and I end up with a short across the power supply, I open the switch and the circuit is on and the FET is dead, Shorted.

Thanks,
Kinarfi
 

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Because the FET is in the wrong place, you're running it as a high side fet, which means you need a higher gate drive than your VCC can provide to keep it on when the load is using current. You need to connect the source directly to ground, with the load on the drain side, then it will work properly.

The gate on voltage requirement of a FET is ALWAYS related to it's source voltage, in your case you have a load on the source side which means it forms a voltage divider network, so the source voltage is elevated above ground requiring a higher gate voltage that otherwise needed.
 
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Your schematic is also missing +/- terminals on the power source so you could have it hooked up backwards for all we know.
 
Wait a second.. I just looked at that again. You DO have it hooked up backwards AND the fet is in the wrong place. Where did you get that circuit from? I'll post a corrected on shortly.
 
Something like this.

That's the basics of it at least.
 

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A Mosfet works best when it has something to turn it off.
The original schematic is a hopeless mess.
 
It's not hopeless, it's just completely wrong. The basic ideas are there, the voltage source connected to the fet, the load on one side of it, and even a gate resistor, just hooked up completely wrong, there's even a switch there attached to the gate to turn it on/off (his intention not the practical circuit)

The poster obviously has no idea what they're doing so lets explain it and move on without the wry commentary.
 
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We are a school for cooks. The poster had all the correct ingredients, just baked em wrong. My post more than well sufficed to inform the poster of the original errors and correct them so we don't need to be arguing in this thread or even saying anything else until the original poster comments on the original post and the responses. If they still have no clue what's going on or express a desired to learn then abandon the post, otherwise all we're gonna do is get wry comments and useless messages.
 
Sceadwian, your circuit is missing a resistor from gate to ground. The FET may never turn off when the switch is opened.
 
I knew I should have put that in =P This is what I get for quick and dirty =) Didnt realize I forgot it till I'd posted it, and the OP already had a gate resistor, was hoping they'd figure it out.
 
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Be nice you guys, I was in the middle of my reply and had to look at something and lost it all. Maul these over while I retype every thing, the FET was in correctly the drawing was incorrect. My next post will explain.
 

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Be nice you guys, I was in the middle of my reply and had to look at something and lost it all. Maul these over while I retype every thing, the FET was in correctly the drawing was incorrect. My next post will explain.
The black - and red + are the power supply output and it's turned down as far as it can be and I still toasted/ cooked:) to 100 amp FETs.

Now explain this if you can, you may even want to verify it. Using a Fluke 87, set for diode check, black lead on source, red lead on drain. reading OL ---red lead to gate, reading OL ---- red lead back to drain, reading .042 v reverse red and black leads, reading is.021v ---- the gate cap got charged, easy to understand. Now some weirdness
Black lead to drain, red to source, reading .510 -- the diode is forward biased, ----red lead to gate, read OL ---- red lead back to source, reading .022v ---- reverse leads, reading OL
-- doesn,t conduct in both directions

Explain that to me FET is IRF 2805
 
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Void please.
 
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Be nice you guys, I was in the middle of my reply and had to look at something and lost it all. Maul these over while I retype every thing, the FET was in correctly the drawing was incorrect. My next post will explain.

In the photo, the blue wire is negative, the white wires go to a 10Kresistor, the red is to the on switch and tab is heat sinked, or sunk, with a terminal on it to the rest of the circuit.

It is my guess that the gate gets reversed charge through the forward biased zener diode and when you turn the switch on, it kills the FET.

thanks
kinarfi

It is my guess that the gate gets reversed charge through the forward biased zener diode and when you turn the switch on, it kills the FET.-----That don't make sense, does it!!!
 
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If you do not do it correctly then you might as well don't do it.
 

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If your load is inductive you need to deal with the flyback voltage. Relying on the body diode will... well kill the FET.
 
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You drew the Mosfet wrong because you had almost everything upside-down.
The zener diode in your Mosfet was upside-down.

You did not say what is your load. If it is inductive then the voltage spike it makes when it turns off should be surpressed with a diode.
 
I was only driving and H bridge with nothing hooked to it, just checking the out put of some op-amps, and it has killed 2 IRF 3205 FETs so far. That's why I'm here, to see if I can get some ideas,
Nice drawing Audioguru, I'll try to do better in the future.
 
There is nothing wrong with being a newbie, everyone starts somewhere.

Consider this though, an important philosophy in electronics is that knowledge is secondary to knowing what you DON'T know. When in doubt, seek the answers.

That appears to be what the OP is doing, seeking answers. And with each answer, his knowledge will only grow.
 
try limiting Vgs to 10V, using a voltage divider. with the 10k resistor you already have, a 4.7 k resistor going from the gate to the switch should suffice. the 4.7k resistor and the gate capacitance will also serve to debounce the switch (to debounce it better add a 1 nF or 10nF cap across the 10k resistor). there are noise spikes every time you operate the switch, which the FET amplifies, and the burst of noise could be reflected by the load back into the FET. what is your load? is it a motor or other highly inductive device? if so, you might get an inductive spike that could kill the FET. yes there is a body diode in the FET, but that doesn't automatically protect the gate from being sent outside the +/-20Volt Vgs limit. when you check the D-S "junction" of a MOSFET, the gate should always be connected to the source during the test. also you said the device was heatsinked, which in the photo, it's not...
 
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