J
Joerg
Guest
Hi Chris,
The FET approach is more like a shunt regulator. In mission critical
designs you probably want both, the FET solution to handle brief
overages and a crowbar in case things do not turn back to normal within
a reasonable time. Meaning before plumes of smoke come out ;-)
Regards, Joerg
http://www.analogconsultants.com
Protecting the rails is pretty easy. For example, a big old FET
driven by a reference such as the TLV431 (that one costs under a
quarter a pop). Set the resistor divider to wherever you want the
rails to top off. Just remember that prolonged exposure would cause a
FET to start glowing pretty quickly unless cooled. If you want the
fuse to blow under that condition you can fire a crowbar circuit
instead of holding things down with FETs.
Zener, TVS, MOV are not really to my liking in a situation where the
voltage differential between normal operation and catastrophe is
around a volt or so.
That's my feeling as well. I hadn't considered the FET approach. I
have used crowbars at times. On one buffer, I have 200mA SMD fuses so
if the overload into the output is continuous instead of just ESD, it
will blow to preotect the rest of the system.
The FET approach is more like a shunt regulator. In mission critical
designs you probably want both, the FET solution to handle brief
overages and a crowbar in case things do not turn back to normal within
a reasonable time. Meaning before plumes of smoke come out ;-)
Regards, Joerg
http://www.analogconsultants.com