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I'm building a 3D printer from scratch (My first one, so yeah, tall order), so I'm buying all the parts separately, now one of the things I bought was a 300x300 12v 25A Silicon heaterbed (Yeah, I know, should have gone for a higher voltage, but that's the only one I could get at the time)

I have a RAMPS 1.4 board in all it's crappy MOSFET glory, so I tried giving my math skills a shot in trying to find a decent MOSFET that won't explode, though I'm still having issues deciding. And due to where I live, getting anything very specific is not the easiest thing to do.

So can anyone recommend a MOSFET that I can use to switch 25A and mention if it will need a heatsink?

I live in South Africa, So one place that I can get them from is from RABTRON Electronincs

There are a couple other places, but I'd prefer to get them here if I can.

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I have looked over the 20 or so most expensive MOSFETs in that shop, and none are suitable.

It might be easier to go with a DC Solid State Relay rather than a bare MOSFET.

If you do want to go with a bare MOSFET instead, a TO-220 package MOSFET can dissipate around 1W without a heatsink, and around 3-4W with one. For 25A of current, that means the resistance of the MOSFET can be at most 1.6mΩ (without heatsink) or 5.6mΩ (with heatsink).

The IRLB3034 might be suitable. It is readily available on ebay (for under $1 shipped). 195A, 40V and an Rds(on) of only 1.4mΩ. A caveat is that this resistance is specified at a gate voltage of 10V, whereas it is slightly higher at lower gate voltages (1.6mΩ-2.0mΩ at 4.5V). This is on the upper edge of what is acceptable without a heatsink, but should still work (junction to ambient resistance is 62C/W, so in the worst case of 2.0mΩ the temperature would get to 77C above ambient - the MOSFET is rated for operation up to 175C). With a heatsink it will definitely work well.

Note that the gate charge is much higher (10x) than that of the MOSFET used on RAMPs so you should use a low switching frequency.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thanks man, I'll try and get the IRLB3034, I was considering an SSR, though I've heard the DC ones tend to wear out over time at high frequencies, not sure if it's true, but I figured sticking to a MOSFET would keep things simpler. $\endgroup$ – Snickers Sep 15 '16 at 17:54
  • $\begingroup$ Will probably run wires to it off the board to mount the MOSFET to the aluminum case, and keep the frequency low. $\endgroup$ – Snickers Sep 15 '16 at 18:08
  • $\begingroup$ Just got the IRLB3034 and it's awesome, doesn't heat up at all, I do have a small heatsync on it, but yeah. Great advice, thanks! $\endgroup$ – Snickers Sep 22 '16 at 10:41
  • $\begingroup$ Awesome, good to hear! I wrote this entire post just going by datasheets, so I don't have any practical experience with this MOSFET. Glad it works for you. $\endgroup$ – Tom van der Zanden Sep 22 '16 at 11:33
  • $\begingroup$ I wouldn't have expected you to buy and test a bunch yourself, but yeah works like a charm :), your reading docs skills came in handy. For anyone else in South Africa that might be trying to get that component, I found it here za.rs-online.com/web/p/products/6887204 $\endgroup$ – Snickers Sep 29 '16 at 13:42

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