Electrical Circuit Design
In electrical circuit design, there are a lot of things that you need to take into consideration. Naturally, engineers sometimes complicate things more than they need to. Simplicity and logical solutions are the way to go instead.
We even see this in our daily life apart from electrical circuit design. Suppose your motorbike breaks down, and you check the carburetor, electrical system and your battery for hours without making any headway. Then you realize that the problem was not with any of these things so your effort was to no avail. It might have been the fuel gauge that showed the tank as half full when it was all empty.
Easy Solutions for Seemingly Difficult Problems in Electrical Circuit Design
For electrical circuit design, you can sometimes feel that there is a big issue that is taking forever to fix. The solution might be right around the corner and may be an easy one. You just need to find it. An example is of the fly-back diode that can be used to reduce the fluctuations in voltage with printed circuit boards set with mechanical relays.
This flyback diode set on the relay may cause your controller to reset constantly. There might be another reason in your electrical circuit design for the fluctuation. So, you can use a matching technique for noise reduction (EMI) that you used initially with your electrical circuit design when you added a flyback diode.
What is a Flyback Diode and how it works?
For those who have been creating printed circuit boards with mechanical relays, a flyback diode is hardly anything new. It is commonly used in electrical circuit design that is put into the PCB opposite to the polarity of the power supply and in parallel configuration to the inductance coil of the relay.
Voltage fluctuations of a high magnitude are common with PCBs that use relays every time the power supply is disconnected. The diode is incorporated into the electrical circuit design to allow you to reduce these fluctuations.
The fluctuations in this voltage happen because the induction coil voltage builds up until it is at the same level as the power supply. The speed of current change for the inductor gets limited to its time constant.
When you notice a voltage fluctuation in this type of electrical circuit design, it means that the time to reduce the flow of current is more than the time it takes to disconnect the power supply. The polarity of the inductance coil is reversed and the current keeps flowing according to the time it takes for it to dissipate completely.
There is a great voltage potential that is built up at the relay controlling components in the circuit. This is the flyback voltage and can be damaging to the relay control switches. You may have to make replacements to the electrical circuit design more frequently due to this, only adding to your costs.
The diode is of the reverse polarity of the power supply which makes sure that no current reaches the junctions to damage the relays and their controls. The diode lets the current flow with minimal resistance when the power supply is reconnected, solving the flyback voltage problem.
If you have been having problems with your electrical circuit design, you can contact us and we’ll help you with a solution to help you overcome the problem.