I'm always hesitant to challenge anything Jim VE7RF says about amps,
because he's almost always right, but here I have to respectfully
disagree with a couple (not all!) of his points. I, too, call
protective diodes "back EMF" diodes, because their purpose is to clamp
the inductive voltage spike that occurs when a relay coil is interrupted
too quickly. As Jim notes, that voltage spike can be much larger than
the relay operating voltage and can quickly fry, e.g., a switching
transistor that operates the relay.
In the olden days, builders just put a diode directly across the relay
coil (cathode connected to the positive coil terminal), and this clamped
the inductive spike to about 1V, which is the forward, turn-voltage of
the diode. The breakdown voltage rating of the diode only needs to be
greater than the coil voltage rating, so fast signals diodes like the
1N914, or 1N4148 diodes work fine.
The problem with this simple approach is, as Jim noted, the diode alone
slows the relay's release time. The forward-connected diode acts like a
low value resistor R when the back EMF drives it into conduction. The
current through the coil decays with a time constant of L/R, where L is
the coil inductance. Depending on the diode and coil inductance, this
time constant, which determines how long it takes for the relay contacts
to open, can be many msec.
Jim's fix is to put a resistor in series with the diode. This raises the
R in L/R and shortens the release time somewhat. Unfortunately, it only
partially clamps the reverse voltage spike, so breakdown of the
switching transistor can still happen unless R is chosen carefully. The
trick to pick a series resistor that is as large as possible without
exceeding the breakdown voltage of the transistor. I've tried this, but
under best of circumstances, I still end up with an undesirably long
release time. It's a tradeoff between zapping the transistor or
excessively delaying the release time.
My solution is to put a small 24V zener diode in series with the
clamping diode. This automatically limits the back EMF to 25V (24V from
the zener, 1V from the forward-biased diode). I've done numerous
workbench tests and find this is the best compromise solution I could
come up with. It still delays the release time slightly, but much less
than a resistor-diode combo.
Two final points: First, none of this discussion pertains to the closing
time of the relay contacts. When the relay coil is keyed up, an
inductive EMF fights the buildup of current through the coil, but
doesn't generate destructive voltages.(The exception is if you try to
switch the relay on with a high impedance current source, but nobody
would do that.)
And lastly, there's no need to use a big rectifier diode (1N5408, etc.)
to clamp a relay coil, and especially no need to series several diodes
to increase their breakdown voltage. The diode is always forward-biased
by the inductive spike, so its breakdown voltage is immaterial, so long
as it is at least 100V or so. The momentary peak current through the
diode will never exceed the steady-state current of the relay, which is
100 mA or so. Thus a single small 1/2W zener (1N5252) and a small signal
diode (1n4148) will work just fine.
73,
Jim W8ZR
On 12/23/2017 10:26 AM, Jim Thomson wrote:
Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2017 10:51:57 -0500
From: Brad Denison<brad.denison@gmail.com>
To:topband@contesting.com
Subject: Topband: Detuning Relay Flyback Diode
## I call em back emf diodes. Use a single 1N5408 or 6A10 diode, reverse
connected across the 12 vdc winding. Heres the simple fix to SPEED UP up the
RLS. Wire a resistor in series with the back emf diode, EITHER LEG, the
value of this resistor will be equal to 2 to 3 times the DC resistance of the
12 vdc coil.
## IE: resistor in series with a rvs connected diode..and the entire mess is
in parallel
with the 12 vdc coil. Use a peak reading dvm, like a fluke 87-A to measure
the
actual back emf, without the diode + resistor installed. If the back emf is in
excess
of 1kv, then use 2 x diodes in series + the resistor..across the winding.
## What ever you are using to key the relay coil, will be fried by the back
emf of the
vac relay, if no suppression device used.
## I have tested the above technique,and it works good. Simple and effective.
## On a side note, I use the above diode + resistor combo on the INPUT vac
relay
on my hb amps. On the OUTPUT vac relay, I use just the diode. I want the
input +
output relay to operate fast, but want the output relay to have a longer rls.
You can also
fine tune the rls time by juggling the value of the resistor in series with the
diode. The
higher the value, the faster the rls.
Jim VE7RF
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