Low Loss Step Down Converter

This circuit arose from the need of the author to provide a 5 V output from the 24 V battery of a solar powered generator. Although solar power is essentially free it is important not to be wasteful especially for small installations; if the battery runs flat at midnight you’ve got a long wait before the sun comes up again. The basic requirement was to make an efficient step-down converter to power low voltage equipment; the final design shown here accepts a wide input voltage from 9 to 60 V with an output current of 500 mA.