I am looking for the safe and cheap solution to driving a mosfet. Right now, I designed in a micrel MIC5020 @ $2. My solenoid runs at 50VDC. I decide to use the micrel part because it handles the 50VDC. After running some test, I realized when i power the gate with 5VDC the mosfet becomes active and my solenoid closes. Realizings that i don't need high voltage to drive the mosfet. I was thinking of just powering the MOSFET with a pin from the 8051 with a series resistor and some diode protection.
Does a series resister and some diode protection sound safe to drive a Mosfet?