Your Go-To Circuits for Voltage Protection

[bitbybit]

Keeping components safe from voltage spikes or drops is essential in any power system. What protection methods or circuits have you found to be the most dependable, TVS diodes, crowbar circuits, MOSFET cutoff, or perhaps something custom-made?

 

[Alan]

Great topic! TVS diodes are known for their reliability when it comes to suppressing transient voltages, which is super important. But if you're really looking for serious protection against those nasty overvoltages, you can't overlook crowbar circuits. They provide a level of defense that really puts your mind at ease.

 

[barfle]

Most of my power supplies were pretty standard stuff - transformer, bridge rectifier, filter capacitor and 780x voltage regulator. If I needed more current, an emitter-follower on the regulator and maybe a resistor network on the reference lead if the voltage wasn’t what I could get out of the regulator.

I did have one product where I was very concerned about power loss and memory. I had two LM3900s to detect voltage drop and power loss that provided interrupts to the processor.

 

[Jax_]

for most of my builds, a well placed TVS diode is the hero
they are incredibly fast and take up almost no board space. the trick is picking the right clamping voltage so you don't get nuisance tripping during normal ripples.

 

[soldersoldier]

TVS diodes can truly transform your setup particularly if you select the right clamping voltage. They deliver protection while keeping things compact