Design of a Current Transducer and Over-Current Fault Detection Circuit for Power Strip Applications

Abstract

For the over-heat protection purpose in power strip devices, over-current detection/protection circuits, such as bimetal, switching circuit, and microprocessor-based relay circuit, have been widely setup in high-end products. Most of these circuits are connected to the power line in parallel and, thus, they are sensitive to the line voltage and current distortion. Moreover, these protection circuits are often costly and, therefore, it is hard to meet the commercial requirements. A low-cost over-current detection circuit with the contactless current transducer is designed and tested in this paper. The detection circuit is galvanically isolated from the power line and, thus, less sensitive to the line voltage distortion. The experimental results show that the proposed circuit accurately operates despite of its simple structure and low-cost electronic parts. 키워드Over-Current Fault Detection Circuit, Secondary Induced Current, Analog Comparator, Current Transducer