Driver ICs Light the Way For LED Headlights

Focus:

LED headlights offer design and performance advantages over the established headlamp types- incandescent , halogen and HID (high-intensity discharge). Those advantages include the ability to create new headlamp designs, higher efficiency, color adjustment, and simplified driver circuitry. (Note that the drawbacks of using LED headlights such as lamp cost are not discussed.) An overview of LED driver requirements is presented, followed by two examples of 50-W LED headlamp driver designs based on the LT3755 LED driver IC. In one design, the LT3755 is configured as a boost converter to achieve smallest size; while in the other, the driver IC is configured as a SEPIC converter to offer short-circuit protection. The performance of these designs is discussed including their efficiency, dimming capabilities, EMI performance, protection features, and design tradeoffs.

What you’ll learn:

• How to build an LED driver circuit for a 50-W LED headlamp and optimize it for smallest size
• How to build an LED driver circuit for a 50-W LED headlamp and include short-circuit protection

View the Source

Author & Publication:

Keith Szolusha, Linear Technology , Power Systems Design Europe, Sep 01 2008

This article summary appears
in the HOW2POWER Design Guide.

The Design Guide offers
organized access to
hundreds of articles
on dozens of power conversion
and power management topics.

The Design Guide search results
include exclusive summaries
and accurate "how to" analysis
to help you make faster,
more informed decisions.

Search
for more articles