Current Limit Techniques
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Sunpower UK's Electronics Glossary - Current Limit Techniques
Current Limit Techniques: One of the advantages of switching power supplies is that they can sense if they are overloaded and do something about it (other than catching on fire or blowing a fuse). When an over current situation is detected there are two possibilities. Some power supplies reduce the voltage so the current stays within safe limits. This is essential for some applications such as battery chargers, heating or electrochemical processing where you don't want to stop the process when the current limit is reached. However, it might be dangerous for cases where you are normally operating below the current limit and over current is always due to a fault. So for the second case the power supply is designed to pulse when it detects an over current situation. Thus it is self-resetting but won't supply a lot of current to a dead short. For obvious reasons this is called "hiccup mode" current limiting.
This Electronics Dictionary is a free service provided by Sunpower UK, and includes an ongoing list of current electronics vocabulary in use today. Sunpower UK sells a bespoke product range of electronics power supplies suitable for all your powersupply needs, be it large or small.
Last Amendment: 25/09/2006 15:33:43
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