This $0.70 Component SAVES your Circuit?! (Surge Protection) EB#59
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- Опубликовано: 1 июн 2024
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In this electronics basics episode, we will be having a closer look at overvoltage/surge protection components. Now a voltage surge only occurs rarely through lightning, inductive switching in your grid or an electrostatic discharge. But if they hit your electronics, they can immediately destroy them. But with the 3 shown components you can easily and for pretty cheap save your circuits. Let's get started!
Thanks to Mouser Electronics for sponsoring this video.
0:00 Overvoltage Problems!
1:25 Intro
2:08 Creating an Overvoltage Pulse for Testing
3:37 Test Circuit for the Experiment
4:04 Protection 1: TVS Diode
7:24 Protection 2: MOV
9:45 Protection 3: GDT
10:27 Comparison between all
10:47 Difference between Cheap/Expensive Surge Protection 
Наука
I had lighting strike the radio antenna of a cellular remote oil well monitor that I had built a long time ago. It skipped right over the lightning arrestor on the antenna cable and blew the ground track off the entire circuit, through the cellular modem, through the serial cable connecting the modem to the PLC, through the PLC circuit board, through the ground wire and into the electrical circuit on the engine skid that was supplying power to the automation panel. Was a hell of a thing. The ENTIRE circuit from top to bottom vaporized. There was nothing left of the tracks at all.
That sounds scary. Thanks for sharing your story :-)
"Well shit"
@@greatscottlab Well, it didn't happen while I was standing next to it. I got a call saying the install wasn't powering on. Remote trouble shooting didn't turn up anything so I had them pull the unit and send it back to me. I took it apart and found dust and vaporized copper.
What brand of PLC? That's not something that you see happen to a PLC very often.
The problem with voltage protection is that it's like walking under the hoover dam with your umbrella open. You should be good, right?
Gosh
I repair control circuits for some industrial equipment, and they regularly use both a TVS diode and GDT in parallel on each line. The TVS diode handles the lower voltage transients, while the GDT protects against higher incidents like lightning surges. It works very well, and it's easy to test and cheap to replace if it does blow.
Thanks for the feedback. Good to know.
Hearing the way each device worked that was my immediate thought "can you use them in parallel to protect against a wider range of voltages?". Good to hear I was on the right track.
If they're in parallel, couldn't a high voltage transient just take the TVS line?
I'm still learning this stuff
@@ryanshea5221 So, electricity always takes the path of least resistance (more or less). Think of each of these devices as a conditional short, it's normally not shorted to ground, but under specific sets of voltages it triggers a short, at which point IT becomes the path of least resistance, and so the voltage spike will take that path rather than flowing through the higher resistance (sensitive) circuit.
Each device has a limited range of voltages and response times it's good for, past a certain point it will fry (or under a certain point it won't trigger), stop conducting, and then you're back to the circuit you're trying to protect being the path of least resistance which you don't want. By putting a bunch of them in parallel you're covering a wider range of potential voltages, and even if multiple of them get fried, it's cheaper and easier to replace these components than the rest of the circuit.
a TVS failing would mean that it does not conduct to ground, so a parallell device that also conducts to ground during a high voltage transient, would take over. Or what did you mean by "take the TVS line"?
Here's a video idea: Signal integrity
When and how to use shielded wires, coaxial wires, differential twisted pairs, ect and avoiding issues like ground loops (like connecting the shield only on one end) ect
Yess. And things like 50 ohm terminations and signal reflections
@@ameliabuns4058 Oh yeah, definitely!
@@iamdarkyoshi although I think Scott's area of expertise is high voltages and mains stuff? so he might not be the best person for this as much as I love the way he explains things.
Based on his stair light PCB layout, running small-signal traces parallel with the PWM-regulated unfiltered LED power traces with the two LED power traces routed about as far apart from each other as possible for maximum EMI, I doubt Scott knows anything about signal integrity. He'd certainly gain a lot from at least looking into the basics.
@@teardowndan5364 well that could be phrased less harshly but yeah.
When designing automotive type electronics that had to meet EMC standards, the electronics had to withstand ESD discharges up to 15kV. Something as simple as a 1000pF cap at the input was often sufficient protection. Signals that couldn't tolerate that much capacitance were good candidates for a TVS diode. For power line transients, which are much longer in duration and contain much more energy, a larger TVS was usually the solution (perhaps in a SMB package). The datasheet will tell you how much energy a TVS package can handle. MOV's weren't used, and I get the feeling that they are more oriented towards mains power where lightning strikes are a risk.
these should be compiled to a playlist "things i should have known before starting electronics". this is a huge lifesaver. good work as always.
Varistors are way slower than TVS diodes and aren't fit for fast transients such as ESD & EFT. Another thing to remember is Kirchoff's law, any current pulse will return to its source. Therefore instead of trying to suppress a pulse it is often more practical to divert it from the sensitive components using spark gaps etc
Thanks for the feedback :-) Maybe I should have included spark gaps as well. Well, I will find space for it in another video.
Seen a park gap do it's job in practice once (that is, after the fact not during it), on my TV's power supply. The comment I talk about it in case you wanna read: ruclips.net/video/MzxBBXpgwrE/видео.html&lc=UgydNWuE3TvVqRYRkm94AaABAg
The board does have an MOV there too I assume to protect against lower voltage surges instead of just lighting strikes or such high voltage stuff. Those two in combination sure did their job.
Spark gaps still leave residual overvoltage which needs to be handled. They are also not suitable for a low transient range. Neither are repeatable or reliable. Mov and tvs coupled with esd suppressor is the way to go.
Is a tvs diode not an esd suppressor? @@ecstazyrm
@demetrisswest What is the path of current in TVS in case of ESD. when circuit is not connected to anything. can u explain a little please.
"Doesn't happen often that lightning strikes near you." I live in Singapore and I've had a thunderstorm every afternoon for the last three days. Yesterday the lightning strike was so close you could hear the crackle before the bang. But at least the humidity stops you getting static shocks from the carpets in the office.
Something you might be able to advise on is the problem that I have, which is when there is a lightning strike nearby my RCD trips, none of my neighbours seem to be affected. I've always thought it was because I have an induction hob and the coil is picking up the EMP from the lightning and creating a current flow in the neutral line, as normally the hob is switched off at a wall switch, (which I assume only isolates the live), and hence causing a differential L to N current flow.
You could probably have used an electric fencing unit to create a known and constant voltage, or a car ignition circuit.
Thanks for the feedback. That sounds scary. And there I think overvoltage protection is a bit more important :-)
@@greatscottlab Yeah when I lived in SE Asia my UPS would last a few months before bulging from an overworked battery due to a lightning strike They never lasted longer than a few months. Plus, aside from Singapore, a lot of countries in SE Asia don't use ground. I added a ground for a house we built, not sure how reliable it is for a big short or overvoltage, but at least it seems to work according to the multimeter.
@@greatscottlab Nearly all power lines in the country (not that it's very big) are buried so I don't think that over voltage events occur very often. I've never had of over voltage protectors on domestic distribution boards.
One time lightning struck pretty close to my Mom's house. My brother got a small shock from the wired headphones he was wearing (plugged into a PC which was grounded). It also tripped a GFCI. Not sure why it tripped, I just chocked it up to high voltage doing funky things.
I lived in Florida, USA for a while. Lightning happened every other day. I lost a computer motherboard to a cable modem conducting a lighting strike from the cable system into it and thine through it into the computer because the lightning arrest system on the building failed. My next computer had optically isolated I/O ports and my replacement cable modem's coax went through a surge suppressor, as did the LAN cable that came off it, isolating any future lighting strikes from the network and my new computer with three layers of protection.
Hi GreatScott. Good video! I would like to add a few things:
9.44 the fuse in series with a varistor that you have drawn is not a thermal fuse, but an ordinary fuse, which would open when a varistor is damaged due to a high surge current. A thermal fuse is usually added in series to the varistor, so that if a varistor gets damaged and it conducts some small current it gets slowly hot - in that case a thermal fuse would open. some manufacturers even include a themal fuse in a varisto case, so the varistor has 3 pins. But you mentioned that the fuse blows when¸ an overvoltage event takes place, which is wrong. this would be a terrible design. actually we have to choose fuses, which have a high I^2t rating so that they DON'T blow during expected surge events.
Your testing is only with ESD pulses, for which TVS diodes are best. Varistors and GDTs are used for surge pulses (indirect lightning strikes and inductive overvoltage events) which contain much more power. the 8/20us pulse is a typical indirect surge testing shape, which has 8 us of a rise time and 20 us of duration. there is also 10/1000us which has much more energy.
ESD protection and surge protection are very different things.
Usually for surge protection we use several of these protection components. for example we start with GDT, then varistor and then with the TVS diode. All three seperated with an inductor. Current and voltage on the device gets smaller with every component.
11.46 this is a thermal fuse and it opens when the varistor gets hot. the failure mode of a varistor is that with every surge pulse it conducts more leakage current. and when this leakage current is smaller than the current fuse in series, the varistor gets very hot and it ca cause a fire. that is why standards determine there has to be a thermal fuse there, which opens when varistor gets too hot. then it is time to change the protection module.
Note that an ESD pulse has a rise time of 1 ns and duration of approx 50 ns. But a surge pulse has a rise time of 8 us and duration of 20 us or more.
The problem with varistors is that the current through the device is increasing quite slowly with voltage rise. But a TVS diode's current increases much quicker with increasing voltage. at 7.58 you drew the correct V/I characteristic. but when you dig in a datasheet you see that the current rise in varistors is very slow. For example the varistor you showed MOV-20D681K conducts
1000A at 1600V and 1A at 800V. so it need additional 800V to get from 1A to 1000A.
Usually a varistor is not used as a ESD protection device. I think it protected your circuit due to varistors parasitic capacitance, which conducts ESD current and not really due to the varistor voltage limiting.
You used the term “power”, but “energy” is a better term for these discharge events.
@@stevebabiak6997 true. Usually I’m checking max peak power capability in datasheets at a specific pulse time.
I'm familiar with GDT as a "Comgap". As in communications gap. Back in the landline days, they were a required component (in Canada at least) across tip and ring on a phone line. Every modem had one for example. It was to supress lightning strike level voltages from reaching the consumer. If it happened to protect a circuit, that was just a side effect. They were often used in combination with a MOV. Old-school rotary phones generally didn't need them as the ringer coil would take the punishment instead.
Thank you for the video! The MOV surprised me in this experiement, I didn't expect it will protect against sparks due to its slower reaction. I designed an off-line converter with an LNK-304 and lacked the mov. When my father plugged in a washing machine to the nearest socket the IC blown away. Never lack the MOV!
Thanks for the feedback :-)
As a notebook repairman, I am very familiar with diode arrays, it is very common to find them protecting the USB, HDMI and other connectors on the boards, many versions of notebooks for home use differ from the corporate versions in that although they have the tracks, They do not have the chip installed, this small saving makes the notebook much more delicate, plus now all those connections go directly to the SOC, system on chip, practically killing the processor in the event of any incident.
This might be one of the most practical ESD - TVS based circuit protection video!
I mean there are so many nuances of using TVS diode, routing them to the ground plane, ensuring low inductance to ground etc. This video gave me practical insight into the core fact that TVS diodes convert the ESD events into heat - boom seeing it practically save the circuit - made my day.
A thing I like to do to protect low current inputs is a high value series resistor and a capacitor to gnd behind it. The resistor limits the current and the capacitor just eats the charge, so there is nothing left that the internal protection can't handle. Great for button inputs, as this also covers debouncing or acts as a low pass for "slow" analog inputs
9:37
Quick correction, that isn't a thermal fuse, it's just a standard electrical fuse.
A thermal fuse is tripped when the temperature of a component gets too high.
For example on motors to stop the windings from burning, electric heaters to stop your house from burning, hotplates to stop the hotplate from burning and so on.
The resettable thermal fuses are usually found on components like electric heaters, hotplates, dehumidifiers and other devices, though are a first line of defense, they reset after the temperature drops (though microcontrollers have taken their place in some applications) but they'll also be found as second line of defense devices on industrial electronics (or higher end consumer stuff) where you have a uC and temperature probe (thermistor or thermocouple) monitoring the temp, but if the uC crashes, the resettable thermal fuse cuts the circuit, then if that fails a thermal fuse (attached using thermal paste) blows, giving the device 2 chances to recover and one chance to need fairly simple repairs.
One of the most useful channels on YT thanks GreatScot this is really a great video.
Love this. Been researching ESD protection options and came across TVS diodes recently. This video really sold me
Thank you for this video, i love almost every video Great Scott produces.
MOVs are commonly used with a few other components in AC power supplies such as class Y capacitors. I would love to see these covered in similar videos. Please and thank you.
I never knew about transient voltage suppression components. Thanks for walking us through-it was very interesting!
Thanks for another clear and informative video Scott
Great video, Scott. Packed with loads of interesting info. Thanks for sharing.
Man, I've been a fan of yours long enough to know your real name. Haha, I think it's about 10 years that I have been a subscriber (when you still responded to messages on facebook within 24hrs, haha). I started watching you when I was in high school at 14 years old. Actually, you played a very big role in me studying BEng Electronic Engineering. I am now 24 working as an electronic engineer. I recently did an ADC protection design for one of our products where I used TVS diodes. I actually learnt what those are from you years ago. If I ever find myself in Germany, I'd really like to have lunch with you. I don't think you realise how much of an effect your videos have on some individuals. Much love from South Africa.
I wonder how effective spark gaps are, given they're pretty much free to add to a PCB. Our TV's power supply got quite a few of those, and after a lighting strike nearby, the cable TV box burned and it made the favor of killing the TV's motherboard through HDMI, along with the Switch dock on that same TV. Replacing the motherboard made it work again, but after a while the power supply also went bad, and I could see on the mains pins a tiny welding like dot on the metal casing (clearly an arc mark), along with a missing spike on the spark gap PCB track.
It was already more than 10 years old at this point and it still survived that lighting strike.
Thanks for the feedback. Interesting story. I should put spark gaps on my to do list for videos.
Spark gaps definitely have a role in protecting electronic circuits from discharges of energy. In the world of color CRT displays, it was very common to have spark gaps integrated into the CRT connector socket as part of the protection for the video output circuits. The socket would also use a thin but wide grounding “wire” (strap) that would typically get connected to the outside coating on the CRT funnel, to have a low impedance ground return for any arcing that bridged the spark gaps.
Nice video, very informative. There is one thing I was missing. When adding such a protection to your pcb, you should pay attention to your layout and routing. You must route your wire through the pads of the tvs/mov to get the best results. And ideally they should be close to the connector.
This video is really helpful. I suffered a power spike a couple years ago when the transformer outside my house blew up. lost a few appliances, namely my robot vacuum, looking at the board there were large scorch marks and some exploded components, after some research I discovered it was a varistor. easy enough to replace and still working to this day
It's very educational to have all of these in one video. Well done.
Good video. I want also mention, for low speed input lines often simple ceramic capacitors are used to protect the input from ESD loads. Usually 10 to 100nF are used.
Interesting, educational and entertaining as always! Thanks for making and sharing!!!
I would like to add some observations and know more. I have seen many SMPS with MOV for protection. First failed component I always saw is MOV with dark discolored and often cracked like 2 separate disks for each terminal. It happened over a few years in India and often with power surges. Specifically they open circuit after 3-5 power surges. Which is around 2 months of time. I tried observing this because another SMPS had a fuse installed instead of MOV with almost same rating. These SMPS were used to power small LED panels for a business display sign with a LED driver always.
Ngl, this is the first time I've heard of a MOV, and the timing couldn't be more perfect!
Glad to hear it👍
FWIW, there are a lot of tutorials on how to add these to power strips, like one that your computer system is connected to.
The better 'strips' have these, however seems to be pretty easy to add higher spec'd ones to your existing ones pretty cheaply.
Wonder if there is a 'standard' which incorporates both the MOV and TSV in series to eke out most protection...
I installed on every circuit with expensive Elektronik, a surge protector to my outlets. Inside they have a couple MOVs and one GDT.
nice video greatscott. thanks for sharing.
Love it, thanks for these practical helper videos
Thank you for the deep-dive and clarifying these parts. What is the best practice for TVS application in a digital circuit? Just on the power rails? Power rails and any connections that touch the outside of the product housing? What about cap touch LCDs that get touched (obviously) - their power rail too?
Good content! Thanks for sharing
I built a home energy monitor using CT clamps, and I learned they incorporate a TVS diode inside the clamp. Because without any load on the other end of the clamp, the 100A of current on my main line running through the core can generate theoretically millions of volts, and the whole thing just explodes in a puff of smoke without even touching any metal wires.
I learned about their existence because I didn't understand any of this and unplugged my CT clamps from their load while current was running through them. The TVS diodes did their job, shunting the voltage to I think 22 volts, and making a hell of a racket, both noise and vibration, while they did so. Both clamps were unharmed and continue working accurately to this day.
Wait a moment... That isn't ElectroBoom job?
He didn't do this video topic yet. So I had to do it ;-)
@@greatscottlab when a collab? Or is too much a trip on German hotels?
@@s0ygecko Forbidden on grounds of safety.
@@s0ygeckothe only things that will trip are the RCDs...
@ElectrBOOM can reclaim his job? 🤣
This turned up at the moment I needed it.
Very interesting and informative. thank you for the great videos keep it up
Awesome! Thanks a bunch for another lesson, dude! 😃
Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊
Thanks. You too :-)
Amazing video, learned alot!
Fantastic video, thanks for sharing!
Thanks for sharing a great video and topic
Nice video 😎
Off topic: you make new coilgun with capacitors and igbt/scr ? 🙃
Very interesting video. Definitely learned something.
Very nice video!
One overvoltage protection circuit (not sure if it'd be a surge protection then?) that I found interesting is the crowbar circuit. I saw it first on the output side of a 3.3V PSU, but don't know too much about their effectiveness, are those too slow to act as surge protection?
When using a MOV on high side of power supply, you need to take account their failure mode: slowly conductive.
So either couple them with thermal fuse close to them, or a combo MOV+ThFuse, or you can end up with a fire event in case of repetitive surges.
Thanks, sometimes I think you are looking over my shoulder with the timeliness of your videos. Right now, I was designing a circuit that needed this type of protection, and here you are with helpful advice.😀
Excellent video , could you put all 3 in parallel? That would give speed and high energy?
Very interesting. Thanks for an informative video. This isn't something you often think about when building a circuit.
Glad you enjoyed it
Hey GreatScott!! I would love to see a video about ferraite cores.. how do they work and when/how to use them 😊 i think its a quite intersting topic
Hi Scott love your videos. Are you maybe able to make one about zigbee and possible ZigBee Circuts? I find the tech really facinating but doesnt quiet understand how to use it myself... LG
Awesome!!! Thank you!
Glad you liked it😁
I used some components like the GDT to protect a lora antenna coax from high transient voltages, probably will not know if it really works until it doesn't. I think it was suggested to replace them occasionally as repeated spikes can make them fail. I imagine that a passing thunderstorm could induce significant spikes even without a lightning strike. I really appreciate the information you provide, Thank you.
As far as your microcontroller supply line goes, simply adding the 100n decoupling cap that should be there anyway will pretty much protect it against ESD. The pulse is high voltage but very low energy (standard ESD model often uses 150pF) and thus the decoupling cap will act as a capacitive divider and "eats" the ESD pulse.
Thank you @greatscottlab
This video was very educational. What book would you recommend getting similar information for electronic tinkerers? I typically find very theoretical books on electronics or super simple books which mostly around: how to tinker with arduino with components.
I saw a video from Adrian Black once, where he exchanged elcos agains ceramic caps and worked with a conversion table. I really would like all these practical helps in a single source like a book or similar.
I have experienced two direct strikes on antennas fitted with lightning arresters and direct grounding wiring. The equipment survived without damage but proper protection is a bulky affair with thick cabling required to provide a low impedance path to ground. All the power circuit protection devices tripped, but no damage was done and everything worked after the tripped breakers were reset.
Nice informative video once again
Great video!
Great info!
Small Neon Bulb can also serves as surge & lightning protector and suitable for small outdoor antennas. Its break over voltage is about 90v
Hi Great Scott!
Very interesting program.
Great that you opened the two overprotection circuits. Interesting to see what they are doing to protect from the surge.
HOWEVER, the really interesting teardown would be the OBO Bettermann Surge Protector. I have been wondering for many years what is the magic in there and why they are pretty much the only source for this class of surge protector and what they use in there to justify such a steep price. Last time I looked at them some 20 years ago they were over 300 € each. So, if your budget for a program stretches tgatbfar could you examine the OBO device.
BTW the OBO device is the one that is use by pretty much all the railways around the world for serious surge protection.
So, what is their magic sauce?
This is probably the best video I've seen about a concept I knew about but hadn't delved into. You mentioned that a MOV is often alongside a fuse in a power supply that blows when such an event occurs. I'm wondering what the fuse adds in such a circuit beyond fragility. Is it for non-transient high voltage events?
That was Great, Scott!
TVS packs are the electronics tinkers best friend!! In many years since I first used one I do not think any of my projects have ever been without one. Though I have moved in the last few months to a new location there are so many things they want me to do here. First was the safety light in the stairs and then the active emergency LED lights in various rooms that are going through a minor upgrade. But the use of the TVS ane other types of protection devices is common in this lab.
Peace
We used to add MOVs to anything with an inductive load (PLC control systems working at 24VDC). Even contactors or solenoid valves can be a problem. Inductive spikes were a particular problem with high speed counters or servo-motors which use incremental encoders. An extra count here and there can really foul things up for the position of a pick and place robot.
Thanks for the video. What would be equivalent protection chip for 3.3V? Many of us are switching to ESP32.
We usually work in solar systems and we use surges all the time in both AC (grid input) and DC (pv input) but not these types it is similar to the red one but a glass insulator breaks open and allows everything to flow to ground instead of dissipating as heat and it is connected in parallel with the circuit. AGAIN IT IS USED FOR DIRECT LIGHTNING STRIKES AND CAN ONLY POP ONCE BEFORE DISPOSAL.
I dicovered TVS and varistors while reasearching for a DIY TIG welder, they seem to be used at the output of the Diode rectifier to avoid the HF/HV starter from blowing the diodes
Just woke up and learnt something about overvoltage protection. This will be a great day!
The GDT can create a lot of interference and scramble sensitive logic circuits digital logic since when the tube fires, the voltage across it collapses very quickly to a lower voltage, creating EMC surges. TVS diodes and MOVs tend to create much less EMC interference because they clamp the voltage and don't exhibit the voltage collapsing effect. So whenever we have to use a GDT (for example, when extremely low leakage current and stray capacitance is critical), we have to incorporate other protective devices in such a way to minimize the EMC surges.
Increasing the gap voltage doesn't change the voltage applied to the board by much since most of the extra voltage simply gets lost in the arc. It does increase the peak discharge current though. As for why the MOV manages to save the circuit despite having much higher voltage, that is down to your generator having pFs of output capacitance discharging into the MOV's nF of parasitic capacitance, forming a capacitive voltage divider that drags the discharge voltage low enough to save the input pin from excess ESD current. Also, IO pins have their own internal protection from the output FETs' body diodes that can usually handle human-body-model ESD as-is as long as the chip has a path from power+ground pins (depending on ESD polarity) to actual ground. Chips on an assembled grounded PCB can be surprisingly difficult to kill as Linus demonstrated in his Electroboom special.
I think you are the only one in this comment section who actually knows stuff.
The main reason the MOV is protected by a fuse in series is not because the fuse will blow in the case of an overvoltage event. As the MOV starts to age due to surges, its resistance decreases, which in turn increases the current flow through the MOV, leading it to heat up and you end up in a vicious circle that will end in the MOV bursting or cathing fire and the circuit, without the fuse, drawing way more amps than anticipated. In order to protect that from happening, the MOVs are now protected by a fuse.
I have learned something new, never heard of HV protection and I am into electronics for more than 20 years.
Thanks 👍
Hi Scott
This video is really interested, I am about to built a PoE injector for my wireless point to point device , I wonder if I added the GDT over the data line is that will effect the data rate ? the connection speed of the data is 1Gbps , is that make work in less data rate ?
GDT is used in telecom wire communications mostly great scott
That was a really interesting video.
What I'm wondering now is how I can determine where I would add a TVS in my circuit. How can I determine where it makes sense to protect from these voltage spikes? Do I just add a diode to every IC input?
The general rule I've seen is to add ESD protection anywhere a signal leaves the board in a manner which may be connected or disconnected while energized (based on the theory that the inductance of cables, etc. is likely to cause ESD beyond what ordinary decoupling capacitors will suppress).
My rule is to add ESD protection to all signals which leave the board, at every connector of said signal if board space allows and at one if board space is tight, and to massively oversize ESD protection on power circuits or others in the same connector (this can save your board from being fried if you, say, incorrectly assembly a wiring harness providing power to your board and flip, say, the 5V and 12V rails, assuming you inspect your board with a thermal camera shortly after powering it up the first time). TVS diodes are cheap and very easy to integrate so I choose the safest option where possible.
Then again, for cheaper boards this may not be worth it, and as others have mentioned here, good design practices surrounding decoupling capacitors will stop most ESD from being a problem. Different ICs also very significantly with respect to their internal ESD protection, some (such as low-cost microcontrollers) may be easily damaged while others (such as industrial-grade differential line drivers) may be extremely robust. Checking the datasheet is always a good idea if you're producing a quantity of boards where the cost of ESD protection would make a difference.
Thank you for this informative video.
Hopefully it solves my home made MPT Solar Controller which has failed twice now, due to local lightning strike ⚡
Thank you. I have a Ethernet switch had on solar power and the 12 volt regulator went bad and it did about 24 volts then and 2 surface mounted components right by the power input blow up L2 and L3. From this video I order 2 SZSMF4L12AT3G Zen TVS 400W 12V UNI from mouser. I hope that fixes it. Looked up "12 volt TVS diode" I guess for 12 volts it should be 12 volts right or maybe a little more for leeway? Thank you.
I learned something new through your video
At 6:12 there is a mistake: increasing the air gap doesn't increase the voltage across the board but only the voltage across the air gap, doing this just increases resistance and reduces the current.
Great video
Danke vielmals für das Video. Genau das war gerade Thema in unserem Repair-Café (der Kollege konnte die TVS nicht identifizieren) und ich frage mich selber schon länger, welche Optionen ich zur Absicherung einer Schaltung noch hätte.
I will stay tuned :-) - Liebe Grüsse allen Klein und Gross
It probably should be mentioned that MOVs have a limited number of "hits" they can take. Or to put it another way, they get less effective each time they are activated. It would be very informative and intuition-building to see you demonstrate that effect!
Spark gaps on PCBs are also commonly found in the primaries of power supplies for this purpose. Thought they deserve an honorable mention :))
Question is what pins/components need TVS protection? Does each signal on a PCB need protection?
GreatScott: While such events are rare, they can immediately destroy your electronics... which we definitely want to avoid.
Electroboom: Say what now?
Thanks. The amount of boards that blow.... and now i know what those funny things are - i thought they were caps but didnt behave like caps.
great channel :D
I've used MOVs before, but didn't know about TVSs. Thanks.
I was wondering about your estimation of generator voltages. When I did experiments with other static generators, we estimated our gap voltages at 10kV/cm. 4 inches was 100kV. I'm not sure which is more accurate, yours or ours. Of course we were in a fairly dry climate.
Also, did you notice a change in spark frequency when you increased the distance (voltage)? It seems to me that it should take longer to to build enough charge to jump a larger gap, implying that the frequency should go down. Did you notice that phenomenon?
I got the kV/cm rating back in university. It is also just guessing because it depends on lots of factors. And yes; the bigger the distance, the longer it took to charge up.
In the UK it's about 10Kv per cm as you say
When you mentioned the disadvantages of the TVS diode, you said leakage current and parasitic capacitance. But don't these also exist in normal wire? Maybe to a smaller degree?
what printer do you use and how many pages do you print a month??
Haha, I just got a bunch of 6 leg micro packages in and spent hours manually soldering those legs without a breakout board!
Broke 3 legs off before I could get one working and said f this and ordered break out boards.
Oh boy.....
You shouldn't directly solder the wires lol, add thin copper wires as extension and accommodation for twisting and turning.
It's easy once you know the trick😉
@@gentleclash exactly what I did. :)
TVS makes me think of a crowbar protection diode. Or are they the same? Interesting video.
question. does the cheap SPD have an LED in series (leak current) with MOV? if so would it not work in reverse flow and not react fast enough?
Is there a video of you making the HV generator?
@GreatScott -- I don't know how deep on this topic you're interested in going, but -- in light of your summary at 10:31, it would be interesting to explore how to use these components in combinations. (Along with "spark gap" which is essentially DIY GDT.) It might seem using these in some combination might handle multiple over-voltage/arc scenarios, but does the right protector step in at the right time or voltage to avoid the other protector getting overstressed?
Fun fact: some CRT display video output amplifiers used neon bulbs to protect against the CRT arcing through the video output electronics. Quite like a GDT as shown in this video, but you could see them flash occasionally while in action.
9:14 Why was the LED still blinking after you removed the protection and shocked the circuit again?
Are you sure about the annotation at 2:49? I've always heard OL as "Open Line", which also makes more sense than "overload", since nothing is overloaded, and two probes with no conductivity between them definitely constitutes an open line.
Could you use the insulation tester to charge a high voltage capacitor, and then output through a known resistance to limit current?
Agree