Ultra Fast Acting Electronic Circuit Breaker

Electronic Circuit Breaker Project

Voltage variations have always been a trouble and are liable for most of the breakdown in AC appliances. Be it a usual home appliance such as a Toaster or a high-performance industrial apparatus like a CNC; everything has a rated voltage only on which it will run without any problem at its maximum efficiency. Unfortunately, our Industrial Lines be unsuccessful to offer us that rated voltage due to a variety of reasons, hence in this project we are going to make a simple electronic circuit breaker which could activate a relay to detach the load when a high or low voltage detected.

Ultra Fast Acting Electronic Circuit Breaker

The hardware equipment of the proposed system include Power supply block, Microcontroller (at89s52/at89c51), Relay, LCD, MOSFET, LM358, Pot (10k), 1N4007, Led, Resistors & capacitors.

Block Diagram of Electronic Circuit Breaker

Embedded Systems

It is defined as, a combination of hardware and software which jointly form a larger machine. The best example of an embedded system is a “microprocessor” that controls an automobile engine. This is designed to run on its own without human interference and may be necessary to react to events in real time.

Microcontroller

The features of the microcontroller include the following

• Well-suited with MCS®-51 Products
• 8K Bytes of ISP (In-System Programmable) Flash Memory
• Operating Range is 4.0V to 5.5V
• Crystal Frequency is 11.0592MHZ
• Three-level Program Memory Lock
• Internal RAM is 256 x 8-bit
• 32-Programmable I/O Lines
• 16-bit Timer/Counters-3
• 8-Interrupt Sources
• Full Duplex UART Serial ChannelWatchdog Timer

LM 358 (Comparator)

• Internally frequency compensated for unity gain.
• Large dc voltage gain: 100 Db.
• Wide bandwidth (unity gain): 1 MHz (temperature compensated)
• Wide power supply range: Single supply: 3V to 32V or dual supplies: ±1.5V to ±16V
• Very low supply current drain (500 µA)-essentially independent of supply voltage.
• Low input offsets voltage: 2 mV
• Input common-mode voltage range includes ground.
• Differential input voltage range equal to the power supply voltage.

LM 358 Pin Diagram

• Pin1- Output 1
• Pin 2 – Inverting input
• Pin 3 – Non-inverting input
• Pin 4 – VCC-
• Pin 5 – Non-inverting input 2
• Pin 6 – Inverting input 2
• Pin 7 – Output 2
• Pin 8 – VCC+

MOSFET

The term MOSFET stands for Metal–Oxide–Semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOS-FET, or MOS FET)It is a device used for switching or amplifying electronic Signals

BC547

The BC547 is an NPN-Epitaxial Silicon Transistor. This is a general-purpose transistor in small plastic packages.It is used in general-purpose switching and amplification BC847/BC547 series 45 V, 100 mA NPN general-purpose transistors.Whenever basely is high, then current starts flowing through base and emitter and after that only current will pass from collector to emitter.

Relay

• It is an electromagnetic switch
• Used to  control the electrical devices
• Copper core magnetic flux plays the main role here

Electronic Circuit Breaker Project Working

The project is intended to shut down the power supply when it is overloaded. Usual circuit breaker like MCB is based on thermal bimetal lever trip machine. It is very slow and the trip time is reliant upon the percentage of overload.

The proposed project senses the flow of current through a series element and the equivalent voltage drop is evaluated against the preset voltage comparative to the current by a level comparator to produce an output for the load to trip.

Electronic Circuit Breaker Project Kit by Edgefxkits.com

The electronic circuit breaker concept comes into focus realized that conventional circuit breakers like MCBs take a longer time to journey. so, for responsive loads, it is very significant to trigger the tripping mechanism at the shortest possible time, preferably immediately.

This project demonstrates fast tripping mechanism as against the slow one like MCB. The electronic circuit breaker is based on the voltage drop across a series element proportional to the load current, typically a low-value resistor.

This voltage is sensed and rectified to DC which is and then compared with a preset voltage by a level comparator to generate an output that drives a relay through a MOSFET to trip the load. The unit is extremely fast and overcomes the drawback of the thermal type. It uses a microcontroller from 8051 families.

Further the project can be enhanced by using a CT for galvanic isolation between mains and control circuit. Power electronic devices such as thyristors / IGBTs can be used for ultra-fast operation compared to all the methods.

Thus, this is all about Ultra Fast Acting Electronic Circuit Breaker. We hope that you have got a better understanding of this concept or to implement any electrical projects, please give your feedback by commenting on the comment section below. Here is a question for you, what are the applications of the circuit breaker?