Big coil in power supply ?

[little billy]

Hello,

There is a big coil in my power supply near the
banana terminals (from the inside.) The coil is
large in the sense that it is very thick, i.e.
about 1.5mm diamater, but it only has about 8
turns. It appears that a wire from near this coil
goes to the current meter of the supply (it's
a regulated professional one btw). I was just
wondering, is this the current sense resistor, and
if so is there any reason it is wound as a coil?

 

[John Popelish]

little billy wrote:

Hello,

There is a big coil in my power supply near the
banana terminals (from the inside.) The coil is
large in the sense that it is very thick, i.e.
about 1.5mm diamater, but it only has about 8
turns. It appears that a wire from near this coil
goes to the current meter of the supply (it's
a regulated professional one btw). I was just
wondering, is this the current sense resistor, and
if so is there any reason it is wound as a coil?

Almost certainly.
To save space.

The tiny inductance it has may also improve the stability of the
control circuit when the supply is operating in current limit mode.
--
John Popelish

 

[Al Borowski]

little billy wrote:

Hello,

There is a big coil in my power supply near the
banana terminals (from the inside.) The coil is
large in the sense that it is very thick, i.e.
about 1.5mm diamater, but it only has about 8
turns. It appears that a wire from near this coil
goes to the current meter of the supply (it's
a regulated professional one btw). I was just
wondering, is this the current sense resistor, and
if so is there any reason it is wound as a coil?

Sounds to me like an inductor, to filter out high frequency noise on the
output.

I might be mistaken though.

cheers,

Al