Electronic – MOSFET H-bridge design

I would suggest starting with a smaller H-bridge project first. The control of MOSFETs seems simple, but there are some subtleties which can easily bite you if you are not careful. When designing a smaller H-bridge project, it's not too hard to protect a circuit in such fashion that even if something goes horribly wrong it won't do much damage (and may very well not do any, though whatever caused the problem will need to be fixed in any case). This is useful not only from the standpoint of reducing the amount of time spent replacing blown components, but also from the standpoint of being able to figure out what happened. If something goes wrong in a 12V 30A H-bridge controller, it's likely to cause enough destruction quickly enough that it will be hard to analyze the pile of cinders and determine what failed first.

Beyond that, the reason companies make H-bridge controllers is that other companies buy them, and the reason that other companies buy them is that a surprising number of discrete components are required to safely and optimally control a MOSFET. If one is trying to control a MOSFET whose Absolute Maximum Vgs is 15 volts, and an inductive transient causes Vgs to reach 30 volts even for a microsecond, the part may easily be destroyed (the voltage required to destroy the part would most likely be around 20 volts, but one shouldn't rely upon it being above 15.01). Keeping Vgs below 15 volts may not sound hard, but factors like parasitic gate-drain capacitance can lead to some unpleasant surprises.

To turn on any of the MOSFETs properly in your circuit, the gate voltage has to be significantly higher than the source voltage. For the lower position devices Q2 and Q4, the sources are grounded to 0V therefore they can easily turn on into "saturation" by applying a gate voltage of a few volts above ground.

For the devices connected to the top rail, if you want the on-resistance between drain and source to be really low you have to obey the same rule - the drive voltage to the gate has to be several volts above the source. Now for low volt drop you want the source to be switched virtually to 6V - where in the circuit can the gate receive a voltage of maybe 9 or 10 volts?

There isn't one so please consider two options: -

• Using P channel MOSFETs at the top rail, source to 6V. P MOS is slower than N MOS but in your application it won't make a difference (1.7kHz).
• Using a drive circuit derived from a supply voltage that is at least 9V and quite possibly higher to get the best saturation from the MOSFETs.

Now the relays. What are you hoping to achieve here? The MOSFET whose gate is disconnected will float to some almost random voltage level and possibly turn on unexpectedly or just get hot. Get rid of the relays unless you have some cunning plan for their use which eludes me.

This is a standard H bridge using P and N MOSFETs: -

Please ask if you need recommendations for devices.