Power electronics design laboratory exercise for last-year M.Sc students

This paper presents a project task for power electronics students at Chalmers univeristy of technology, Göteborg, Sweden, based on a flyback test board. The board is used in the course Power Electronics 2. In the project task, the students design snubber circuits, improve the control of the output voltage, improve the gate drive of the main MOSFET transistor and study the influence of stray inductance. The goal of the task is clearly given in certain steps, while the procedure of how to obtain to results is not specified, but instead left to the students to specify. ”Tools” that are given to the students are the hardware, measurement equipment, an example of the circuit in the circuit simulation software Pspice, and in addition lectures covering the items needed in order to obtain the project goals. The project formulation is build on the ideas from the CDIO-initiative, where the students are encouraged to think in a complete process structure. The results found was an substantial engagement by the students. It could be in the form that that they enjoyed the project or it could be that they thought that the project specification was too vague.