This circuit has been designed, built and evaluated by me to use as a protector for my home refrigerator. This is designed around readily available semi-conductor devices such as standard bipolar medium power NPN transistor (D313/SL100/C1061), an 8-pin type 741 op-amp and NE555 timer IC. Its salient feature is that no relay hunting is employed. This draw back is commonly found in the proctors available in the market.
The complete circuit is consisting of various stages. They are: - Dual rail power supply, Reference voltage source, Voltage comparators for hi/low cut offs, Time delay stage and Relay driver stage. Lets now look at the step-by-step design details.
Dual rail power supply.
This is a conventional type of power supply as shown in Figure 1. The power is applied through the step-down transformer (230/12-0-12V/500mA). The DC proportional to the charging input voltage is obtained from bridge rectifier. Two electrolytics are there to bypass any spikes present. Bridge is capable of handling currents up to 1 Amp.
Output is given by: -
V(out) = 0.71 X V (secondary)
= 0.71 X 24V
= 17.04 V
(This equation is similar for the negative rail as well)