Hi George, members.
Mosfets are capable of big power, no problem, obviously heat sinking is a factor. I would be careful using pcb tracks as a resistor where you are relying on heat as an aid in resistance changing - there is a fine line (no pun intended) between getting hot enough and a fuse, but if you decide to do this see Roman Black's site
http://www.romanblack.com/pcbtemp.htm
for a utility to allow calculating track sizes.
I have had good success with an arrangement that controls Source current by robbing Gate drive. Use a Source resistor (N channel device) to ground and place the b-e junction of an NPN bipolar across it. The collector goes to Gate with a 1k. This will rapidly switch so the average Source current is controlled by the Source resistor - value determined by 0.65/desired current e.g. 0.065 ohms will give 10amps average.
If this meets your needs I would start small and scale up accordingly.
I hope this helps.
Regards,
Bill
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