Over Voltage Transient Protection Network Design

Abstract

Transient over-voltage caused by lighting, switching large inductive loads,couples on to data communication or instrumentation signal lines and introduce series fault alarm conditions and damage instrumentation electronics. Most of the semi-conductor devices and other sensitive electronic equipment are easily damaged with transients of high amplitude with fast rise time, with threshold energy levels in the range of micro joules to mill joules. Hence, it is very essential to protect the system by hardening the input power supply lines,input/output data and communication lines utilizing various transient suppression techniques to make the system immune to transients. If an electronic system designer intend to build a protection circuit a custom design will be desirable, as the interface or inter-connection could be more effective for the intended environment.