A question about "Super Fast Recovery Rectifiers"

[Irukanji]

Anyway as the title states, I'm looking for some more information on how these work/can be used.

I pulled a "F5LC20U" out of a computer power supply a long time ago, but it's sat dormant in my parts box until now(my interest in electronics has been rekindled). Looking at the side of the packaging, it appears to be 2 diodes mounted end to end(presumably output side facing inwards).

Now that got my thinking; could you hook up 2 separate power supply modules(positive rails, I assume), and have them combine in this component? The idea being is there could be 2 separate 5V rails but if you ignore those 2 ports and plug straight into the middle port(assume this example has 3 ports), could you get 5V with increased amperage(or 10V with halved amperage, I forget which way it works). The 2 separate would work fine until load is placed on the middle port(assuming no connection in the others).

I wonder if there is a reverse of this, 2 diodes facing away from each other?

Just some noob theories, if anyone can enlighten me, that would be great. Worst case I'll probably just get some 1N4004's and try the idea anyway.

Thanks

[dannyf]

You can combine two 5v sources. However, load balancing can be a problem.

I wonder if there is a reverse of this, 2 diodes facing away from each other?

Yes in general.

[kxenos]

Correct. You can have 2 power supplies for example with 5 volts and combine them. If the voltage drop across those diodes is exactly the same and the power supplies are exactly the same voltage then you would have exactly the same current drawn from each power supply. In other words you would have a perfect load balance. But since our world is not perfect and neither the diodes are, you have to expect a small imbalance. You have to remember though that the diodes have a small voltage drop (forward voltage drop in the datasheet). So if you have 5V from the power supplies and the diode voltage drop is 0.4V then you will have 4.6V output voltage. You would also have to consider the power dissipated in the diodes that would be the voltage drop * the current through the diode for each one.
Generally, better load balancing is done with small value resistors but in that case you don't have protection if one of the 2 power supplies stops functioning.

[minime72706]

You can combine two 5v sources. However, load balancing can be a problem.

I wonder if there is a reverse of this, 2 diodes facing away from each other?

Yes in general.

Look at the BAT54 --- varieties include "BAT54" (one diode), BAT54A (common terminal is anode), BAT54C (common terminal is cathode), BAT54S (I imagine means "Series", which basically looks like your standard input protection diode scheme)