Not much to this. Nice easy way to add a MOSFET to a project that doesn't otherwise need a board. Would be nice if it had a mounting hole on the board.

I am working with an raspberry pi 3 and have an actuator that needs 24 volts. And this circuit is perfect for this! so now i am controlling it with a 3.3 volts PWM an it converts it to 24 volts PWM.

The Mosfet Power Control Kit is fine except for its documentation. I soldered the product together and used my VOM to figure out where the traces went. I drew a simple schematic of what the "device" does and from there the inclusion in a project was easy.

I will email a drawing of the controller schematic for you to consider for your documentation upgrade.

Larry

good luck wiring this without Eagle. The schematic makes some sense but doesn't correspond with the board markings... whats this RAW tag in eagle... what the heck does RAW mean..

I'd also have more landings for source as you at least always need to connect your control source and your high voltage source, right? Well assuming that you have two different voltages, say a 3.3 volt uController and a 12volt LED. That would make this a nice little board.

The MOSFET is rated for 60 volts, 30 amps. The circuit board traces are rated only for 3.5 amps.
This information should be included in the description of the product. It's misleading.

In the end I had to buzz this out as I found the layout very confusing.

Behind each screw terminal block, there are holes for 0.1" pitch headers. I thought these would work well for breadboard use. However, Sparkfun designed the board so that the 2-hole side falls directly in the gaps between the 3-hole side. This does not allow for smooth insertion into a breadboard. Also, the header rows are spaced just slightly off between the 2 rows so the breadboard wants to pull the headers apart. The board should be slightly tweaked to allow for use in a breadboard.

Works as it should and easy to assemble. In practical use, there is no way to mount it to anything. End up having to pot it in a small plastic box.
Would be great if they made a single board with 4 of these that share a common Vin

I think the product is fine. For Heaven's sake... it OUGHT to be... not many simpler devices out there, are there? But I'm not sure. Out of time to hook it up, use it, now, after 4 hours to figure out.. I hope... what a diagram would have made clear in 20 seconds of my time.

But, despite YEARS of comments in these pages about the frustrations of figuring out how to hook it up... still no sensible "word" from Sparkfun. (The cited bildr page saved my sanity, I admit... but why did I have to dig in comments for it?? And it didn't help much with details of hookup, just reassured me that what I wasn't thinking wasn't madness.)

Took me 4 hours to figure out my guess as to how it ought to be hooked up. Mainly because a design, to me really SIMPLE, EASY, SENSIBLE, was NOT used. Instead, something I find messy and illogical.

I usually write up, publish, my answers, but at this stage I am so fed up, and so much time spent on this that I have little inclination, little time. If my guess is right, you need... unnecessarily... to stuff two wires (ground to Arduino/ ground of high voltage/current supply) into one of the terminal positions. And, on the 3 connector side, the Arduino "half" and the higher voltage/current "half" are "upside down" to one another. And ALL of the supplies of voltage are on one side (the three connection side), with the Arduino, and just the "supplied with high voltage/current" elements are on the other side. And don't forget the snubbing diode, if your load is inductive.

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Another reason I'm not bothering to write this up is that I note that User 601528 says he sent a diagram 5 yrs ago, but don't see it on the Sparkfun page.

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I think I see what the designer was thinking. There was a method to the madness. But "my" design is so simple, so obvious, and not, as far as I can see inferior in any way... and the complaints about confusion so common... that maybe someone at Sparkfun should have understood where the confusion was coming from, and dealt with it?

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Had a bought a little kit from an eBay entrepreneur, at half the price, I wouldn't have been so bitter. But I pay the Sparkfun premium because usually that also buys me good documentation. And this was not, after all, so hard to document decently, and several people before me said they had had trouble, because of the lack.

Disappointed.

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PS: NOW I see FURTHER discussion of the device in the "comments". Wish I'd seen that 4 hours ago. Wish the info was in the main part of this page. Not sure the comments really "answer" "how do you hook it up?". I have an answer now, I think, and have wasted enough time for now. The comments I glanced at weren't especially clear... except in repeating the refrain of "we need better guidance on this".

Probably my own stupidity, but I couldn't figure out how to work this break out board. Ended up going back to just a plain breadboard. I generally love Sparkfun but everyone once and a while they seem to drop the ball and this is an example. This board has been poorly reviewed, and they still haven't posted the documentation. The Eagle schematics don't seem to match what it actually is. Probably this could be solved by a single piece of documentation.

The easiest way to dim LEDs!

Like others, I was frustrated trying to wire this up. But I was also frustrated by the people who said it took them 4 hours to figure it out, and then didn't take the time to post their solution.

So, here are a couple of the resources that helped me figure this board out:

1) https://forum.sparkfun.com/viewtopic.php?f=102&t=49679&p=203417&hilit=COM+12959#p203423

2) https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/led-light-bar-hookup

This is a good product to quickly control ~3A loads from a MCU

I use these little boards to add LED lighting control to my Photon boards. I've experimented with using custom PCBs for my Photon based projects that incorporate this functionality, but each Photon board ends up controlling a different number LEDs. I've found that creating a generic PCB for the MCU, and attaching as many of these as needed works pretty well. These are super easy to assemble and connect, especially in my RV since lighting is all 12v anyways. I've never had a problem with these boards, and I'm currently using a couple dozen of them. I give it 4 stars instead of 5 because the output screw terminal is too small for the heavy gauge wire used in my RV. I can fix this though by using a larger screw terminal block that I purchase separately.

I'm building a homemade pinball machine and needed something to drive the solenoids(coils). These kits fit the bill, easy to assemble and work perfectly.

Parts showed up. No discussion of assembly. What the heck is "RAW"? What I learned was more about lack of end-user support than the application of the parts.

I'll press on, a few clues from this kit, but little help.

Yeah, thanks.