DIY edge finder
Touching off easily
In this article, I will concentrate on two ways to create a solid-state inrush current limiter circuit: One copies the relay-approach from Electronics knowledge: Inrush current limiters, just exchanging the relay with a p-channel MOSFET, and adding a more defined time delay. The other one has a “linear” approach turning power on gradually using a PNP power transistor.
As my experiments with USB-PD for AnywhereAmps failed, I have to create a circuit that limits inrush current to my amplifier before trying again.
The two circuits are very similar. They only really differ in two components of the power section. Generally speaking, increasing delay capacitor C4
or increasing charge resistor R9
will prolong the delay time.
The input section features a transient voltage suppressor diode to eliminate reverse current or overvoltage cases.
When switched on, C4
will gradually charge via R9
. When the NPN bipolar transistor Q2
’s threshold voltage is reached, it will slowly reduce voltage behind R11
which will in turn activate M2
, the power path of this circuit. R12
has been added to provide a stable operating point for Q2
.
The linear variant has a PNP power transistor Q1
in the main current path (image below). It is activated via Q2
and the current it can provide is controlled using R10
, which in this case has a relatively low value to allow high emitter-collector currents.
While the switching variant uses a current limiting resistor R8
that is shorted by the p-channel mosfet M2
, it’s voltage-controlled nature does not require special care when selecting R10
. You should just make sure that it’s (negative) gate threshold voltage is well met.
My load is the power amplifier circuitry. To simulate its idle state and the powering-up behavior, I chose a 400Ohm resistor R5
and a 1200uF polarized capacitor C3
. The TVS diode protects from over voltage and reverse currents. I have tried the simulations with capacitor values of up to 10000uF and resistors down to 40Ohm, all with similar and good results.
The blue line in the diagram is what is most relevant: It describes the output voltage of the system over time. Both circuits are tuned to reach target output voltage after 0.2 seconds. Still the curves differ quite a bit showing the different nature of the two approaches.
R10
Q1
’s emitter-collector path.To keep the versatility of this circuit high while at the same time keeping a smooth voltage curve, one could use an operational amplifier to monitor load current, regulating it down to allowed values if needed. The power mosfet could be kept while the disadvantage of the narror ohmic operation band would vanish. The cost would be additional complexity like described in this electronics stackexchange post.
Touching off easily
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Current inrush limiters explained
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