# Low voltage cutoff circuit not working

I've spent the past 10 hours trying to figure out why my low voltage cutoff circuit won't work, and I'm at the point where I feel like I need to ask for help.

The idea is to slap this circuit in between a lead acid battery and a buck converter. I want the negative terminal of the battery to get switched off from the rest of the circuit when the battery voltage falls below 11 V, and not reconnected even if the battery voltage recovers. The only way to "reset" the circuit to allow current to flow to the load again is to unplug/replug the battery.

Here is my circuit:

The LM431 is supposed to act as a forward biased NPN transistor when the voltage on its reference pin is > 1.24 V. Thusly, the R5/R6 voltage divider sets the appropriate voltage on the Vref pin such that when Vin+ is 11V, the voltage across C3 should be 1.24 V.

Once the FET has been switched off, it cannot be switched back on again, no matter what Vin+ does (within reason). By unplugging/replugging the battery, the FET gate can be charged through C1 and allow the adjustable Zener to conduct (if C3 voltage > 1.24) which in turn switches "on" the PNP transistor, which then itself connects the gate of the FET to within a diode drop of Vin+, resulting in a continuation of current flow from the battery to load (until voltage across C3 drops below 1.24V again -- i.e. Vin+ goes below 11 V).

For some reason, my FET gate just doesn't seem to want to discharge, even when the PNP emitter/base voltage is 0 and C3 voltage is less than 1.24V. This should mean no base current, and therefore no conduction between Vin + and the FET gate right???

I have tried modifying this circuit in a number of ways to see if I could make some magic happen. Here is what I have tried so far:

• Connect base of PNP directly to Vin+ : this results in the FET gate/source voltage clocking in at approx 2 V ! (in this scenario, shouldn't the PNP appear as an infinite resistance, thus not be able to maintain charge on the FET gate???) No good, the FET is still conducting significantly as the threshold voltage is 1.5V!

• Connect a 100 k resistor in parallel with R1.... this doesn't seem to have too much effect on anything other than dropping the gate voltage a few volts.

• Tried replacing my PNP transistor (MMB2907) with a generic 2N306 ... this is even worse... now when Vin+ is 12 V, the FET gate voltage is 2.2 V!

• Tried shorting R9 and using 20k resistor for R3... in this scenario cutoff voltage behaviour was achieved around 8.8 V at Vin+ WTF?

At this point I don't really trust too many of my findings as I feel there must be a demon in the circuit somewhere (burnt silicon, ESD damage, or something of the like). I've just put in a new order to DigiKey and will try assembling the circuit again from scratch when it arrives.

Would love to hear anyone's words of wisdom.

EDIT:

Forgot to mention that I have the circuit working as described (i.e. cutting of at Vin+ of 11V) in Multisim (albeit using a different PNP than what I am currently using in-circuit).

Sorry guys, my schematic should say LMV431, not LM431 sigh I hate Eagle sometimes... I guess that's what I get for posting at 2am.

So, my R6/R5 voltage divider is correct.

The LMV431 only needs 100 uA to regulate, which is why R4 can be so big.

So, it sounds like the consensus (reading between the lines in light of people commenting on the wrong circuit ... again sorry!) is that I need to tweak R3/R4 in the following ways:

• Make combined R3 and R4 resistance lower
• Make R3 smaller w.r.t R4

Here is what I plan on trying:

The datasheet says that the cathode voltage when LMV431 is conducting 100uA is about 1.25 V... I had assumed it was 0.2 (a Collector-emitter voltage drop on a NPN).

So, when conducting 100 uA from Vin+ at 11V to Vcut- R3/R4 needs to drop (11 - 1.2) = 9.8 V. Therefore R3/R4 can have a combined max resistance of R = 9.8 / 0.0001 = 98,000 ohms.

So looks like my R3/R4 resistance is too high for the Zener specs, however in practice (i.e. the lab) the Zener is indeed pulling enough base current through the PNP on the built prototype to saturate it.

Now when I want the PNP to turn off I need the following condition to be true:

• Current being sunk through base of transistor less than 50 nA (base cutoff current)

Now looking at the LMV431 datasheet it would appear that its off-state current (when Vref = 0 nonetheless, my Vref will be just slightly less then 1.24) is as high as 0.1 uA. I'll assume for my purposes that the off-state current of the Zener with Vref = 1.23 is 1 uA. This is twenty times the cutoff current of the PNP.

So, I need, say 20 times more current coming through R3 than is coming through the PNP base. Let's call it 50nA * 20 = 1mA

Assuming that when cutoff begins, the Emitter/base voltage is -0.5 V, that would imply that the voltage across R3 should be 0.5V.

This implies R3 max of 500 ohms.

If R3 is 500 ohms, that implies a max R4 of 97.5 kohms. I'll use a 56k resistor and see if its my friend.

Thoughts?

• All you need is a reference voltage, a differential comparator function and a LDO switch. Test each separately against what you expect as from a design spec that you should normally write. MOSFETs with a wide range of threshold like 2~4V all need 3x voltage for low RdsOn. So change the design. Test each part voltage to ensure each functions as you expect. If not , something's wrong. This design is suboptimal, but a minor change can make it work. Find the bad part or bad design is the key to debug by breaking down the function down to discrete levels. Swap R3,R4 – Tony Stewart Sunnyskyguy EE75 Jul 22 '17 at 4:42
• R4 can't be 150k. What is its actual value? – Bruce Abbott Jul 22 '17 at 4:44
• You need a minimum of 1 mA to bias the 431. – winny Jul 22 '17 at 7:08
• Hey thanks for replies, see my answer below. @Tony Stewart. EE since '75 : how would what you propose achieve the latching behaviour (i.e. not conducting once battery voltage recovered unless unplugged and plugged back in) I describe in my design requirements? – macdonaldtomw Jul 22 '17 at 13:59
• For any latch or memory, you can consider; passive or active, discrete or IC, analog or digital.. dozens of ways, none of which I would choose using this design, but an SR 2 gate latch is easy or a 2 transistor SCR or an IC with UVP. It is smarter to reverse engineer and learn than forward engineer without learning good specs and learning from old wolves – Tony Stewart Sunnyskyguy EE75 Jul 22 '17 at 14:42

LM431 uses a 2.5V ref. not 1.24V therefore when Vbat=11V Vref=2.5 so correct this error for R6/(R5+R6)*11V=2.5V << Fix

Then to bias the PNP there needs to be at least 0.6V~0.65 across R3 so R4 must drop the rest ( minus say 0.2V saturation on LM431) But what is your minimum battery voltage from self-discharge? Let's say 9V so R4/R3< 8.35/0.6- =14 so R4=14 * R3 ( OR LESS) so R4 needs to be reduced or R3 increased.

For something completely different

This is called a $1 Battery Protection IC. It has a UVP latch function and also manages thresholds for Charge and Discharge. The bq76200 device is a high-side NMOS FET driver with integrated charge pump. The device can convert a low-side battery protection system into a high-side protection system, allowing the battery monitor device or battery MCU to always maintain communication to the host system regardless if the protection FETs are on or off. The device provides independent enables to control charge and discharge of a battery pack. App. Note http://www.ti.com/lit/pdf/SLVA729 Found by searching "disti" site > (ICs) > PMIC > Battery Management (PMIC = pwr mgr IC) Another choice$0.26/pc in reel . You just scale Vbat to LiPo UVP threshold and use 1 FET for UVP

Why reinvent the wooden wheel? \$0.26 plus FET

• Sorry, my bad, it should have said LMV431, not LM 431 – macdonaldtomw Jul 22 '17 at 13:42
• It is a better practice to make specs for yourself and when you test and meet your specs , it is a perfect design. If not your specs are poor. learning how to write specs is a priori. Then you think about all requirements of input and output, cost, size, etc and then in design break that down to discrete parts but then easily testable, by design. – Tony Stewart Sunnyskyguy EE75 Jul 22 '17 at 14:09
• p.s. there are chips that already do UVP, OVP, OTP, OCP and regulate switching voltage for automotive. – Tony Stewart Sunnyskyguy EE75 Jul 22 '17 at 14:15
• Hey thanks for the suggestions. Just took a peek at some of the chips you are referring to and they are about 1/2 the price of my entire BOM (not just the battery protection circuit, but the PCB and the entire rest of the circuit). Looks like these are meant for designs in which there is some sort of microcontroller or digital communication happening, which is not the case for my design. So, looks like I'm going to have to stick to simple discrete components as in my original design. – macdonaldtomw Jul 22 '17 at 21:52
• Consider SCR to latch or a logic chip for UVP, triggered by comparator. 5mm white LED @ 2mA makes a good 3.0V ref. then with a single NPN with Vbat divider = 1/3 then 11/3 = 3.66 this will turn on LED and transistor to drive FET above 11V and below this fire SCR to clamp output OFF. – Tony Stewart Sunnyskyguy EE75 Jul 22 '17 at 22:06

Yes, as Tony said, LM431 reference voltage is 2.5 V. So, as per your circuit, 1.24 V is not enough to make a path for current. Take a look on the data sheet here : http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/lm431.pdf

Check out the minimum voltage for base to be based in PNP transistor. 0.2V is the value which goes to base of transistor as of now. It needs to increased. Changing voltage divider values as said above, increase R4 or reduce R3.

Seems R1 may cause gate to conduct with the aid of battery supply. Try to reduce its value.

Use an LMV431. That part has a 1.24V reference and needs only 80uA to regulate.

Ok, I finally found out what was happening. I did indeed need to reduce the size of R3 relative to R4. I am now using 4.7k and 68k, respectively.

The reason it took me so long to find the problem is that both the PNP transistor and the adjustable Zener keep getting fried every time I solder a new board. They appear to be EXTREMELY sensitive to heat. In fact, out of 5 boards that I've made, only 1 works because the zener keeps getting cooked during soldering.