Triac Efficiency...

On Mon, 5 Jun 2023 17:08:21 -0700 (PDT), Lasse Langwadt Christensen
<langwadt@fonz.dk> wrote:

mandag den 5. juni 2023 kl. 20.01.47 UTC+2 skrev John Larkin:
On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 18:54:16 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 18:50:38 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 09:21:32 -0700, John Larkin
jla...@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 5 Jun 2023 12:10:05 -0400, Phil Hobbs
pcdhSpamM...@electrooptical.net> wrote:

On 2023-06-04 23:05, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 00:03:20 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:

On Sun, 4 Jun 2023 15:45:44 -0700 (PDT), Ricky
gnuarm.del...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sunday, June 4, 2023 at 6:13:39?PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
On Sun, 04 Jun 2023 22:34:00 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:
Greetings, gentlemen,

As we all know, to get maximum efficiency out of a MOSFET, it needs to
be driven hard and fast and spend as little time between fully on and
fully off as possible. Does that same principle extend to Triacs? And
if so, how can that best be implemented when one has to use AC to
drive the gate?

CD.
Once a triac fires, the gate drive doesn\'t matter any more.

But they do need a hard, fast drive to fire properly, long enough to
let the drain current rise above the latch limit.

AC gate drive will be slow-rise, which could just possibly damage the
triac if the load current is high.

That should be on the data sheets.

I believe that is why a diac is typically used in the control circuit.

I thought diacs were sometimes used because triacs don\'t fire
symetrically, but I could be wrong.
So, as regards AC drive, is a higher frequency drive signal a safer
bet? Also, the load is AC too, so the thing will turn off at every
zero-crossing point, which makes life more complicated. :-(

With an AC load, an AC gate drive is probably OK. The triac will turn
on before the voltage gets too high, so the spreading damage mechanism
won\'t happen much.

The bad case is when there\'s a lot of voltage across the device with a
lot of instantaneous current behind it, and it gets a slow, wimpy
trigger.

Post your proposed circuit and we can discuss it.

I still call the terminals anode, gate, cathode. I can never remember
what\'s MT1 and MT2. Top and bottom would be OK too.


The triac is one of those parts where folks get confused by fossilized
analogies.

A triac is a bidirectional thyristor, but it does not behave like two
SCRs in antiparallel. SCR triggering only works in one quadrant, for a
start, so two antiparallel SCRs would be a two-quadrant device, whereas
triacs trigger in all four quadrants.

The triggering also isn\'t that symmetrical, because the structures
aren\'t--the second and fourth quadrant triggering mechanisms are fairly
different, and the four-layer stacks aren\'t well separated, as they
would be in two SCRs.

Triacs are also very slow even compared with SCRs, which are pretty poky
devices by modern standards.

Someplace I have a paper that goes into the details of real triac
operation--iirc it\'s a good read, but I\'m not laying my hands on it at
the moment.

(I haven\'t actually used a triac since I was a teenager, so this is just
out of general interest.)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I haven\'t designed in a triac for maybe 15 years now. I used a couple
of triacs to soft-start a giant power supply that had a 60 Hz power
transformer. Switch in a giant resistor on the primary side, wait a
second, then short it out. That was hard on resistors but prevented
the occasional 1000 amp startup surge. And allowed a little C&K power
switch on the front panel.

The customer insisted that we not use a switching power supply!

Real relays are usually cheaper than triacs, easier to drive, and
don\'t need heat sinks.

Yes, but you can\'t fire them on and off anything like as fast and they
don\'t have the same longevity AFAIK.

Plus a relay capable of switching 16A is going to be a hog, take up
loads of space compared to a triac and cost a hell of a lot more, I
would imagine.
It\'s easy to look up. Digikey has 15 amp relays starting around 60
cents.

The triac will need a heat sink, which will be big and cost more than
the triac.

yeh, this one looks nice at 8A, until you look at figure 2

https://files.seeedstudio.com/wiki/Grove-Solid_State_Relay/res/S208t02_datasheet.pdf

There\'s a shop in Fremont that will anodize infinite heat sinks.
 
On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 15:45:11 -0700, John Larkin
<jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 23:00:29 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 13:32:08 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 19:32:40 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 11:01:33 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 18:54:16 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 18:50:38 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 09:21:32 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 5 Jun 2023 12:10:05 -0400, Phil Hobbs
pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

On 2023-06-04 23:05, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 00:03:20 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Sun, 4 Jun 2023 15:45:44 -0700 (PDT), Ricky
gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sunday, June 4, 2023 at 6:13:39?PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
On Sun, 04 Jun 2023 22:34:00 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:
Greetings, gentlemen,

As we all know, to get maximum efficiency out of a MOSFET, it needs to
be driven hard and fast and spend as little time between fully on and
fully off as possible. Does that same principle extend to Triacs? And
if so, how can that best be implemented when one has to use AC to
drive the gate?

CD.
Once a triac fires, the gate drive doesn\'t matter any more.

But they do need a hard, fast drive to fire properly, long enough to
let the drain current rise above the latch limit.

AC gate drive will be slow-rise, which could just possibly damage the
triac if the load current is high.

That should be on the data sheets.

I believe that is why a diac is typically used in the control circuit.

I thought diacs were sometimes used because triacs don\'t fire
symetrically, but I could be wrong.
So, as regards AC drive, is a higher frequency drive signal a safer
bet? Also, the load is AC too, so the thing will turn off at every
zero-crossing point, which makes life more complicated. :-(

With an AC load, an AC gate drive is probably OK. The triac will turn
on before the voltage gets too high, so the spreading damage mechanism
won\'t happen much.

The bad case is when there\'s a lot of voltage across the device with a
lot of instantaneous current behind it, and it gets a slow, wimpy
trigger.

Post your proposed circuit and we can discuss it.

I still call the terminals anode, gate, cathode. I can never remember
what\'s MT1 and MT2. Top and bottom would be OK too.


The triac is one of those parts where folks get confused by fossilized
analogies.

A triac is a bidirectional thyristor, but it does not behave like two
SCRs in antiparallel. SCR triggering only works in one quadrant, for a
start, so two antiparallel SCRs would be a two-quadrant device, whereas
triacs trigger in all four quadrants.

The triggering also isn\'t that symmetrical, because the structures
aren\'t--the second and fourth quadrant triggering mechanisms are fairly
different, and the four-layer stacks aren\'t well separated, as they
would be in two SCRs.

Triacs are also very slow even compared with SCRs, which are pretty poky
devices by modern standards.

Someplace I have a paper that goes into the details of real triac
operation--iirc it\'s a good read, but I\'m not laying my hands on it at
the moment.

(I haven\'t actually used a triac since I was a teenager, so this is just
out of general interest.)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I haven\'t designed in a triac for maybe 15 years now. I used a couple
of triacs to soft-start a giant power supply that had a 60 Hz power
transformer. Switch in a giant resistor on the primary side, wait a
second, then short it out. That was hard on resistors but prevented
the occasional 1000 amp startup surge. And allowed a little C&K power
switch on the front panel.

The customer insisted that we not use a switching power supply!

Real relays are usually cheaper than triacs, easier to drive, and
don\'t need heat sinks.

Yes, but you can\'t fire them on and off anything like as fast and they
don\'t have the same longevity AFAIK.

Plus a relay capable of switching 16A is going to be a hog, take up
loads of space compared to a triac and cost a hell of a lot more, I
would imagine.

It\'s easy to look up. Digikey has 15 amp relays starting around 60
cents.

Yeahbut I don\'t want to order a million of them to get that price.

Please do not go the the Digikey site. The shock may be harmful to
your health.

Whereas Mouser is harmful to my wealth. Nothing to choose from there
at all for under 15 bux.

My very first search hit:

https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Amphenol-Anytek/AWHSH112DM00G?qs=rSMjJ%252B1ewcRkINR7MLX27w%3D%3D

They also stock several 20 amp relays under $3.

Not in Yurp I\'m afraid. Looks like all real choice stuff is only
available in the US, despite the fact that Mouser claims to have bases
elsewhere, it\'s clear they haven\'t.
 
On Tue, 06 Jun 2023 07:57:38 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com>
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 15:45:11 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 23:00:29 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 13:32:08 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 19:32:40 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 11:01:33 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 18:54:16 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 18:50:38 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 09:21:32 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 5 Jun 2023 12:10:05 -0400, Phil Hobbs
pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

On 2023-06-04 23:05, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 00:03:20 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Sun, 4 Jun 2023 15:45:44 -0700 (PDT), Ricky
gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sunday, June 4, 2023 at 6:13:39?PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
On Sun, 04 Jun 2023 22:34:00 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:
Greetings, gentlemen,

As we all know, to get maximum efficiency out of a MOSFET, it needs to
be driven hard and fast and spend as little time between fully on and
fully off as possible. Does that same principle extend to Triacs? And
if so, how can that best be implemented when one has to use AC to
drive the gate?

CD.
Once a triac fires, the gate drive doesn\'t matter any more.

But they do need a hard, fast drive to fire properly, long enough to
let the drain current rise above the latch limit.

AC gate drive will be slow-rise, which could just possibly damage the
triac if the load current is high.

That should be on the data sheets.

I believe that is why a diac is typically used in the control circuit.

I thought diacs were sometimes used because triacs don\'t fire
symetrically, but I could be wrong.
So, as regards AC drive, is a higher frequency drive signal a safer
bet? Also, the load is AC too, so the thing will turn off at every
zero-crossing point, which makes life more complicated. :-(

With an AC load, an AC gate drive is probably OK. The triac will turn
on before the voltage gets too high, so the spreading damage mechanism
won\'t happen much.

The bad case is when there\'s a lot of voltage across the device with a
lot of instantaneous current behind it, and it gets a slow, wimpy
trigger.

Post your proposed circuit and we can discuss it.

I still call the terminals anode, gate, cathode. I can never remember
what\'s MT1 and MT2. Top and bottom would be OK too.


The triac is one of those parts where folks get confused by fossilized
analogies.

A triac is a bidirectional thyristor, but it does not behave like two
SCRs in antiparallel. SCR triggering only works in one quadrant, for a
start, so two antiparallel SCRs would be a two-quadrant device, whereas
triacs trigger in all four quadrants.

The triggering also isn\'t that symmetrical, because the structures
aren\'t--the second and fourth quadrant triggering mechanisms are fairly
different, and the four-layer stacks aren\'t well separated, as they
would be in two SCRs.

Triacs are also very slow even compared with SCRs, which are pretty poky
devices by modern standards.

Someplace I have a paper that goes into the details of real triac
operation--iirc it\'s a good read, but I\'m not laying my hands on it at
the moment.

(I haven\'t actually used a triac since I was a teenager, so this is just
out of general interest.)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I haven\'t designed in a triac for maybe 15 years now. I used a couple
of triacs to soft-start a giant power supply that had a 60 Hz power
transformer. Switch in a giant resistor on the primary side, wait a
second, then short it out. That was hard on resistors but prevented
the occasional 1000 amp startup surge. And allowed a little C&K power
switch on the front panel.

The customer insisted that we not use a switching power supply!

Real relays are usually cheaper than triacs, easier to drive, and
don\'t need heat sinks.

Yes, but you can\'t fire them on and off anything like as fast and they
don\'t have the same longevity AFAIK.

Plus a relay capable of switching 16A is going to be a hog, take up
loads of space compared to a triac and cost a hell of a lot more, I
would imagine.

It\'s easy to look up. Digikey has 15 amp relays starting around 60
cents.

Yeahbut I don\'t want to order a million of them to get that price.

Please do not go the the Digikey site. The shock may be harmful to
your health.

Whereas Mouser is harmful to my wealth. Nothing to choose from there
at all for under 15 bux.

My very first search hit:

https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Amphenol-Anytek/AWHSH112DM00G?qs=rSMjJ%252B1ewcRkINR7MLX27w%3D%3D

They also stock several 20 amp relays under $3.

Not in Yurp I\'m afraid. Looks like all real choice stuff is only
available in the US, despite the fact that Mouser claims to have bases
elsewhere, it\'s clear they haven\'t.

Strange. Many of the relays are manufactured in yurpville. And surely
you can import Chinese relays as easily as we can.
 
On 6/5/2023 10:03 PM, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 5 Jun 2023 17:08:21 -0700 (PDT), Lasse Langwadt Christensen
langwadt@fonz.dk> wrote:

mandag den 5. juni 2023 kl. 20.01.47 UTC+2 skrev John Larkin:
On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 18:54:16 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 18:50:38 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 09:21:32 -0700, John Larkin
jla...@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 5 Jun 2023 12:10:05 -0400, Phil Hobbs
pcdhSpamM...@electrooptical.net> wrote:

On 2023-06-04 23:05, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 00:03:20 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:

On Sun, 4 Jun 2023 15:45:44 -0700 (PDT), Ricky
gnuarm.del...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sunday, June 4, 2023 at 6:13:39?PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
On Sun, 04 Jun 2023 22:34:00 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:
Greetings, gentlemen,

As we all know, to get maximum efficiency out of a MOSFET, it needs to
be driven hard and fast and spend as little time between fully on and
fully off as possible. Does that same principle extend to Triacs? And
if so, how can that best be implemented when one has to use AC to
drive the gate?

CD.
Once a triac fires, the gate drive doesn\'t matter any more.

But they do need a hard, fast drive to fire properly, long enough to
let the drain current rise above the latch limit.

AC gate drive will be slow-rise, which could just possibly damage the
triac if the load current is high.

That should be on the data sheets.

I believe that is why a diac is typically used in the control circuit.

I thought diacs were sometimes used because triacs don\'t fire
symetrically, but I could be wrong.
So, as regards AC drive, is a higher frequency drive signal a safer
bet? Also, the load is AC too, so the thing will turn off at every
zero-crossing point, which makes life more complicated. :-(

With an AC load, an AC gate drive is probably OK. The triac will turn
on before the voltage gets too high, so the spreading damage mechanism
won\'t happen much.

The bad case is when there\'s a lot of voltage across the device with a
lot of instantaneous current behind it, and it gets a slow, wimpy
trigger.

Post your proposed circuit and we can discuss it.

I still call the terminals anode, gate, cathode. I can never remember
what\'s MT1 and MT2. Top and bottom would be OK too.


The triac is one of those parts where folks get confused by fossilized
analogies.

A triac is a bidirectional thyristor, but it does not behave like two
SCRs in antiparallel. SCR triggering only works in one quadrant, for a
start, so two antiparallel SCRs would be a two-quadrant device, whereas
triacs trigger in all four quadrants.

The triggering also isn\'t that symmetrical, because the structures
aren\'t--the second and fourth quadrant triggering mechanisms are fairly
different, and the four-layer stacks aren\'t well separated, as they
would be in two SCRs.

Triacs are also very slow even compared with SCRs, which are pretty poky
devices by modern standards.

Someplace I have a paper that goes into the details of real triac
operation--iirc it\'s a good read, but I\'m not laying my hands on it at
the moment.

(I haven\'t actually used a triac since I was a teenager, so this is just
out of general interest.)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I haven\'t designed in a triac for maybe 15 years now. I used a couple
of triacs to soft-start a giant power supply that had a 60 Hz power
transformer. Switch in a giant resistor on the primary side, wait a
second, then short it out. That was hard on resistors but prevented
the occasional 1000 amp startup surge. And allowed a little C&K power
switch on the front panel.

The customer insisted that we not use a switching power supply!

Real relays are usually cheaper than triacs, easier to drive, and
don\'t need heat sinks.

Yes, but you can\'t fire them on and off anything like as fast and they
don\'t have the same longevity AFAIK.

Plus a relay capable of switching 16A is going to be a hog, take up
loads of space compared to a triac and cost a hell of a lot more, I
would imagine.
It\'s easy to look up. Digikey has 15 amp relays starting around 60
cents.

The triac will need a heat sink, which will be big and cost more than
the triac.

yeh, this one looks nice at 8A, until you look at figure 2

https://files.seeedstudio.com/wiki/Grove-Solid_State_Relay/res/S208t02_datasheet.pdf

There\'s a shop in Fremont that will anodize infinite heat sinks.

But it takes forever.
 
On Tue, 06 Jun 2023 07:01:39 -0700, John Larkin
<jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Tue, 06 Jun 2023 07:57:38 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 15:45:11 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 23:00:29 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 13:32:08 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 19:32:40 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 11:01:33 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 18:54:16 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 18:50:38 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 09:21:32 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 5 Jun 2023 12:10:05 -0400, Phil Hobbs
pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

On 2023-06-04 23:05, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 00:03:20 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Sun, 4 Jun 2023 15:45:44 -0700 (PDT), Ricky
gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sunday, June 4, 2023 at 6:13:39?PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
On Sun, 04 Jun 2023 22:34:00 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:
Greetings, gentlemen,

As we all know, to get maximum efficiency out of a MOSFET, it needs to
be driven hard and fast and spend as little time between fully on and
fully off as possible. Does that same principle extend to Triacs? And
if so, how can that best be implemented when one has to use AC to
drive the gate?

CD.
Once a triac fires, the gate drive doesn\'t matter any more.

But they do need a hard, fast drive to fire properly, long enough to
let the drain current rise above the latch limit.

AC gate drive will be slow-rise, which could just possibly damage the
triac if the load current is high.

That should be on the data sheets.

I believe that is why a diac is typically used in the control circuit.

I thought diacs were sometimes used because triacs don\'t fire
symetrically, but I could be wrong.
So, as regards AC drive, is a higher frequency drive signal a safer
bet? Also, the load is AC too, so the thing will turn off at every
zero-crossing point, which makes life more complicated. :-(

With an AC load, an AC gate drive is probably OK. The triac will turn
on before the voltage gets too high, so the spreading damage mechanism
won\'t happen much.

The bad case is when there\'s a lot of voltage across the device with a
lot of instantaneous current behind it, and it gets a slow, wimpy
trigger.

Post your proposed circuit and we can discuss it.

I still call the terminals anode, gate, cathode. I can never remember
what\'s MT1 and MT2. Top and bottom would be OK too.


The triac is one of those parts where folks get confused by fossilized
analogies.

A triac is a bidirectional thyristor, but it does not behave like two
SCRs in antiparallel. SCR triggering only works in one quadrant, for a
start, so two antiparallel SCRs would be a two-quadrant device, whereas
triacs trigger in all four quadrants.

The triggering also isn\'t that symmetrical, because the structures
aren\'t--the second and fourth quadrant triggering mechanisms are fairly
different, and the four-layer stacks aren\'t well separated, as they
would be in two SCRs.

Triacs are also very slow even compared with SCRs, which are pretty poky
devices by modern standards.

Someplace I have a paper that goes into the details of real triac
operation--iirc it\'s a good read, but I\'m not laying my hands on it at
the moment.

(I haven\'t actually used a triac since I was a teenager, so this is just
out of general interest.)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I haven\'t designed in a triac for maybe 15 years now. I used a couple
of triacs to soft-start a giant power supply that had a 60 Hz power
transformer. Switch in a giant resistor on the primary side, wait a
second, then short it out. That was hard on resistors but prevented
the occasional 1000 amp startup surge. And allowed a little C&K power
switch on the front panel.

The customer insisted that we not use a switching power supply!

Real relays are usually cheaper than triacs, easier to drive, and
don\'t need heat sinks.

Yes, but you can\'t fire them on and off anything like as fast and they
don\'t have the same longevity AFAIK.

Plus a relay capable of switching 16A is going to be a hog, take up
loads of space compared to a triac and cost a hell of a lot more, I
would imagine.

It\'s easy to look up. Digikey has 15 amp relays starting around 60
cents.

Yeahbut I don\'t want to order a million of them to get that price.

Please do not go the the Digikey site. The shock may be harmful to
your health.

Whereas Mouser is harmful to my wealth. Nothing to choose from there
at all for under 15 bux.

My very first search hit:

https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Amphenol-Anytek/AWHSH112DM00G?qs=rSMjJ%252B1ewcRkINR7MLX27w%3D%3D

They also stock several 20 amp relays under $3.

Not in Yurp I\'m afraid. Looks like all real choice stuff is only
available in the US, despite the fact that Mouser claims to have bases
elsewhere, it\'s clear they haven\'t.

Strange. Many of the relays are manufactured in yurpville. And surely
you can import Chinese relays as easily as we can.

I would have thought so, too. But I have only checked out the US
companies I buy parts from and no other sources. I suppose I should
check RS; I\'ll do that later.
Anyway, the point is, you win. I didn\'t know you couid get small cheap
relays like the ones you linked to capable of switching 15A @ 230V so
once again you\'ve disabused me of my ignorance, for which I thank you.
 
tirsdag den 6. juni 2023 kl. 05.03.52 UTC+2 skrev John Larkin:
On Mon, 5 Jun 2023 17:08:21 -0700 (PDT), Lasse Langwadt Christensen
lang...@fonz.dk> wrote:

mandag den 5. juni 2023 kl. 20.01.47 UTC+2 skrev John Larkin:
On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 18:54:16 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 18:50:38 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 09:21:32 -0700, John Larkin
jla...@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 5 Jun 2023 12:10:05 -0400, Phil Hobbs
pcdhSpamM...@electrooptical.net> wrote:

On 2023-06-04 23:05, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 00:03:20 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:

On Sun, 4 Jun 2023 15:45:44 -0700 (PDT), Ricky
gnuarm.del...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sunday, June 4, 2023 at 6:13:39?PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
On Sun, 04 Jun 2023 22:34:00 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:
Greetings, gentlemen,

As we all know, to get maximum efficiency out of a MOSFET, it needs to
be driven hard and fast and spend as little time between fully on and
fully off as possible. Does that same principle extend to Triacs? And
if so, how can that best be implemented when one has to use AC to
drive the gate?

CD.
Once a triac fires, the gate drive doesn\'t matter any more.

But they do need a hard, fast drive to fire properly, long enough to
let the drain current rise above the latch limit.

AC gate drive will be slow-rise, which could just possibly damage the
triac if the load current is high.

That should be on the data sheets.

I believe that is why a diac is typically used in the control circuit.

I thought diacs were sometimes used because triacs don\'t fire
symetrically, but I could be wrong.
So, as regards AC drive, is a higher frequency drive signal a safer
bet? Also, the load is AC too, so the thing will turn off at every
zero-crossing point, which makes life more complicated. :-(

With an AC load, an AC gate drive is probably OK. The triac will turn
on before the voltage gets too high, so the spreading damage mechanism
won\'t happen much.

The bad case is when there\'s a lot of voltage across the device with a
lot of instantaneous current behind it, and it gets a slow, wimpy
trigger.

Post your proposed circuit and we can discuss it.

I still call the terminals anode, gate, cathode. I can never remember
what\'s MT1 and MT2. Top and bottom would be OK too.


The triac is one of those parts where folks get confused by fossilized
analogies.

A triac is a bidirectional thyristor, but it does not behave like two
SCRs in antiparallel. SCR triggering only works in one quadrant, for a
start, so two antiparallel SCRs would be a two-quadrant device, whereas
triacs trigger in all four quadrants.

The triggering also isn\'t that symmetrical, because the structures
aren\'t--the second and fourth quadrant triggering mechanisms are fairly
different, and the four-layer stacks aren\'t well separated, as they
would be in two SCRs.

Triacs are also very slow even compared with SCRs, which are pretty poky
devices by modern standards.

Someplace I have a paper that goes into the details of real triac
operation--iirc it\'s a good read, but I\'m not laying my hands on it at
the moment.

(I haven\'t actually used a triac since I was a teenager, so this is just
out of general interest.)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I haven\'t designed in a triac for maybe 15 years now. I used a couple
of triacs to soft-start a giant power supply that had a 60 Hz power
transformer. Switch in a giant resistor on the primary side, wait a
second, then short it out. That was hard on resistors but prevented
the occasional 1000 amp startup surge. And allowed a little C&K power
switch on the front panel.

The customer insisted that we not use a switching power supply!

Real relays are usually cheaper than triacs, easier to drive, and
don\'t need heat sinks.

Yes, but you can\'t fire them on and off anything like as fast and they
don\'t have the same longevity AFAIK.

Plus a relay capable of switching 16A is going to be a hog, take up
loads of space compared to a triac and cost a hell of a lot more, I
would imagine.
It\'s easy to look up. Digikey has 15 amp relays starting around 60
cents.

The triac will need a heat sink, which will be big and cost more than
the triac.

yeh, this one looks nice at 8A, until you look at figure 2

https://files.seeedstudio.com/wiki/Grove-Solid_State_Relay/res/S208t02_datasheet.pdf
There\'s a shop in Fremont that will anodize infinite heat sinks.

it takes forever and the bill is infinite? ;)
 
On Tue, 06 Jun 2023 18:32:25 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com>
wrote:

On Tue, 06 Jun 2023 07:01:39 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Tue, 06 Jun 2023 07:57:38 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 15:45:11 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 23:00:29 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 13:32:08 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 19:32:40 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 11:01:33 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 18:54:16 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 18:50:38 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 09:21:32 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 5 Jun 2023 12:10:05 -0400, Phil Hobbs
pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

On 2023-06-04 23:05, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 00:03:20 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Sun, 4 Jun 2023 15:45:44 -0700 (PDT), Ricky
gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sunday, June 4, 2023 at 6:13:39?PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
On Sun, 04 Jun 2023 22:34:00 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:
Greetings, gentlemen,

As we all know, to get maximum efficiency out of a MOSFET, it needs to
be driven hard and fast and spend as little time between fully on and
fully off as possible. Does that same principle extend to Triacs? And
if so, how can that best be implemented when one has to use AC to
drive the gate?

CD.
Once a triac fires, the gate drive doesn\'t matter any more.

But they do need a hard, fast drive to fire properly, long enough to
let the drain current rise above the latch limit.

AC gate drive will be slow-rise, which could just possibly damage the
triac if the load current is high.

That should be on the data sheets.

I believe that is why a diac is typically used in the control circuit.

I thought diacs were sometimes used because triacs don\'t fire
symetrically, but I could be wrong.
So, as regards AC drive, is a higher frequency drive signal a safer
bet? Also, the load is AC too, so the thing will turn off at every
zero-crossing point, which makes life more complicated. :-(

With an AC load, an AC gate drive is probably OK. The triac will turn
on before the voltage gets too high, so the spreading damage mechanism
won\'t happen much.

The bad case is when there\'s a lot of voltage across the device with a
lot of instantaneous current behind it, and it gets a slow, wimpy
trigger.

Post your proposed circuit and we can discuss it.

I still call the terminals anode, gate, cathode. I can never remember
what\'s MT1 and MT2. Top and bottom would be OK too.


The triac is one of those parts where folks get confused by fossilized
analogies.

A triac is a bidirectional thyristor, but it does not behave like two
SCRs in antiparallel. SCR triggering only works in one quadrant, for a
start, so two antiparallel SCRs would be a two-quadrant device, whereas
triacs trigger in all four quadrants.

The triggering also isn\'t that symmetrical, because the structures
aren\'t--the second and fourth quadrant triggering mechanisms are fairly
different, and the four-layer stacks aren\'t well separated, as they
would be in two SCRs.

Triacs are also very slow even compared with SCRs, which are pretty poky
devices by modern standards.

Someplace I have a paper that goes into the details of real triac
operation--iirc it\'s a good read, but I\'m not laying my hands on it at
the moment.

(I haven\'t actually used a triac since I was a teenager, so this is just
out of general interest.)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I haven\'t designed in a triac for maybe 15 years now. I used a couple
of triacs to soft-start a giant power supply that had a 60 Hz power
transformer. Switch in a giant resistor on the primary side, wait a
second, then short it out. That was hard on resistors but prevented
the occasional 1000 amp startup surge. And allowed a little C&K power
switch on the front panel.

The customer insisted that we not use a switching power supply!

Real relays are usually cheaper than triacs, easier to drive, and
don\'t need heat sinks.

Yes, but you can\'t fire them on and off anything like as fast and they
don\'t have the same longevity AFAIK.

Plus a relay capable of switching 16A is going to be a hog, take up
loads of space compared to a triac and cost a hell of a lot more, I
would imagine.

It\'s easy to look up. Digikey has 15 amp relays starting around 60
cents.

Yeahbut I don\'t want to order a million of them to get that price.

Please do not go the the Digikey site. The shock may be harmful to
your health.

Whereas Mouser is harmful to my wealth. Nothing to choose from there
at all for under 15 bux.

My very first search hit:

https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Amphenol-Anytek/AWHSH112DM00G?qs=rSMjJ%252B1ewcRkINR7MLX27w%3D%3D

They also stock several 20 amp relays under $3.

Not in Yurp I\'m afraid. Looks like all real choice stuff is only
available in the US, despite the fact that Mouser claims to have bases
elsewhere, it\'s clear they haven\'t.

Strange. Many of the relays are manufactured in yurpville. And surely
you can import Chinese relays as easily as we can.

I would have thought so, too. But I have only checked out the US
companies I buy parts from and no other sources. I suppose I should
check RS; I\'ll do that later.
Anyway, the point is, you win. I didn\'t know you couid get small cheap
relays like the ones you linked to capable of switching 15A @ 230V so
once again you\'ve disabused me of my ignorance, for which I thank you.

Not a matter of winning, but sharing things that we know.

Relays can be cool, for power and signal switching.

No semiconductor can approach the relay switch figure of merit
Ron*Coff, which has the units of time.
 
On Tue, 6 Jun 2023 10:43:19 -0700 (PDT), Lasse Langwadt Christensen
<langwadt@fonz.dk> wrote:

tirsdag den 6. juni 2023 kl. 05.03.52 UTC+2 skrev John Larkin:
On Mon, 5 Jun 2023 17:08:21 -0700 (PDT), Lasse Langwadt Christensen
lang...@fonz.dk> wrote:

mandag den 5. juni 2023 kl. 20.01.47 UTC+2 skrev John Larkin:
On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 18:54:16 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 18:50:38 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 09:21:32 -0700, John Larkin
jla...@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 5 Jun 2023 12:10:05 -0400, Phil Hobbs
pcdhSpamM...@electrooptical.net> wrote:

On 2023-06-04 23:05, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 00:03:20 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:

On Sun, 4 Jun 2023 15:45:44 -0700 (PDT), Ricky
gnuarm.del...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sunday, June 4, 2023 at 6:13:39?PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
On Sun, 04 Jun 2023 22:34:00 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:
Greetings, gentlemen,

As we all know, to get maximum efficiency out of a MOSFET, it needs to
be driven hard and fast and spend as little time between fully on and
fully off as possible. Does that same principle extend to Triacs? And
if so, how can that best be implemented when one has to use AC to
drive the gate?

CD.
Once a triac fires, the gate drive doesn\'t matter any more.

But they do need a hard, fast drive to fire properly, long enough to
let the drain current rise above the latch limit.

AC gate drive will be slow-rise, which could just possibly damage the
triac if the load current is high.

That should be on the data sheets.

I believe that is why a diac is typically used in the control circuit.

I thought diacs were sometimes used because triacs don\'t fire
symetrically, but I could be wrong.
So, as regards AC drive, is a higher frequency drive signal a safer
bet? Also, the load is AC too, so the thing will turn off at every
zero-crossing point, which makes life more complicated. :-(

With an AC load, an AC gate drive is probably OK. The triac will turn
on before the voltage gets too high, so the spreading damage mechanism
won\'t happen much.

The bad case is when there\'s a lot of voltage across the device with a
lot of instantaneous current behind it, and it gets a slow, wimpy
trigger.

Post your proposed circuit and we can discuss it.

I still call the terminals anode, gate, cathode. I can never remember
what\'s MT1 and MT2. Top and bottom would be OK too.


The triac is one of those parts where folks get confused by fossilized
analogies.

A triac is a bidirectional thyristor, but it does not behave like two
SCRs in antiparallel. SCR triggering only works in one quadrant, for a
start, so two antiparallel SCRs would be a two-quadrant device, whereas
triacs trigger in all four quadrants.

The triggering also isn\'t that symmetrical, because the structures
aren\'t--the second and fourth quadrant triggering mechanisms are fairly
different, and the four-layer stacks aren\'t well separated, as they
would be in two SCRs.

Triacs are also very slow even compared with SCRs, which are pretty poky
devices by modern standards.

Someplace I have a paper that goes into the details of real triac
operation--iirc it\'s a good read, but I\'m not laying my hands on it at
the moment.

(I haven\'t actually used a triac since I was a teenager, so this is just
out of general interest.)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I haven\'t designed in a triac for maybe 15 years now. I used a couple
of triacs to soft-start a giant power supply that had a 60 Hz power
transformer. Switch in a giant resistor on the primary side, wait a
second, then short it out. That was hard on resistors but prevented
the occasional 1000 amp startup surge. And allowed a little C&K power
switch on the front panel.

The customer insisted that we not use a switching power supply!

Real relays are usually cheaper than triacs, easier to drive, and
don\'t need heat sinks.

Yes, but you can\'t fire them on and off anything like as fast and they
don\'t have the same longevity AFAIK.

Plus a relay capable of switching 16A is going to be a hog, take up
loads of space compared to a triac and cost a hell of a lot more, I
would imagine.
It\'s easy to look up. Digikey has 15 amp relays starting around 60
cents.

The triac will need a heat sink, which will be big and cost more than
the triac.

yeh, this one looks nice at 8A, until you look at figure 2

https://files.seeedstudio.com/wiki/Grove-Solid_State_Relay/res/S208t02_datasheet.pdf
There\'s a shop in Fremont that will anodize infinite heat sinks.

it takes forever and the bill is infinite? ;)

Oh, don\'t get technical. I hate it when people get technical.

Actually, you don\'t often need an infinite heat sink. The thermal
spreading resistance eventually dominates.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/zf1a1lds726f2y2682v7z/Infinite_Sheet.jpg?raw=1
 
On Tuesday, June 6, 2023 at 1:43:24 PM UTC-4, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
tirsdag den 6. juni 2023 kl. 05.03.52 UTC+2 skrev John Larkin:
On Mon, 5 Jun 2023 17:08:21 -0700 (PDT), Lasse Langwadt Christensen
lang...@fonz.dk> wrote:

mandag den 5. juni 2023 kl. 20.01.47 UTC+2 skrev John Larkin:
On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 18:54:16 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 18:50:38 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 09:21:32 -0700, John Larkin
jla...@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 5 Jun 2023 12:10:05 -0400, Phil Hobbs
pcdhSpamM...@electrooptical.net> wrote:

On 2023-06-04 23:05, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 00:03:20 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:

On Sun, 4 Jun 2023 15:45:44 -0700 (PDT), Ricky
gnuarm.del...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sunday, June 4, 2023 at 6:13:39?PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
On Sun, 04 Jun 2023 22:34:00 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:
Greetings, gentlemen,

As we all know, to get maximum efficiency out of a MOSFET, it needs to
be driven hard and fast and spend as little time between fully on and
fully off as possible. Does that same principle extend to Triacs? And
if so, how can that best be implemented when one has to use AC to
drive the gate?

CD.
Once a triac fires, the gate drive doesn\'t matter any more.

But they do need a hard, fast drive to fire properly, long enough to
let the drain current rise above the latch limit.

AC gate drive will be slow-rise, which could just possibly damage the
triac if the load current is high.

That should be on the data sheets.

I believe that is why a diac is typically used in the control circuit.

I thought diacs were sometimes used because triacs don\'t fire
symetrically, but I could be wrong.
So, as regards AC drive, is a higher frequency drive signal a safer
bet? Also, the load is AC too, so the thing will turn off at every
zero-crossing point, which makes life more complicated. :-(

With an AC load, an AC gate drive is probably OK. The triac will turn
on before the voltage gets too high, so the spreading damage mechanism
won\'t happen much.

The bad case is when there\'s a lot of voltage across the device with a
lot of instantaneous current behind it, and it gets a slow, wimpy
trigger.

Post your proposed circuit and we can discuss it.

I still call the terminals anode, gate, cathode. I can never remember
what\'s MT1 and MT2. Top and bottom would be OK too.


The triac is one of those parts where folks get confused by fossilized
analogies.

A triac is a bidirectional thyristor, but it does not behave like two
SCRs in antiparallel. SCR triggering only works in one quadrant, for a
start, so two antiparallel SCRs would be a two-quadrant device, whereas
triacs trigger in all four quadrants.

The triggering also isn\'t that symmetrical, because the structures
aren\'t--the second and fourth quadrant triggering mechanisms are fairly
different, and the four-layer stacks aren\'t well separated, as they
would be in two SCRs.

Triacs are also very slow even compared with SCRs, which are pretty poky
devices by modern standards.

Someplace I have a paper that goes into the details of real triac
operation--iirc it\'s a good read, but I\'m not laying my hands on it at
the moment.

(I haven\'t actually used a triac since I was a teenager, so this is just
out of general interest.)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I haven\'t designed in a triac for maybe 15 years now. I used a couple
of triacs to soft-start a giant power supply that had a 60 Hz power
transformer. Switch in a giant resistor on the primary side, wait a
second, then short it out. That was hard on resistors but prevented
the occasional 1000 amp startup surge. And allowed a little C&K power
switch on the front panel.

The customer insisted that we not use a switching power supply!

Real relays are usually cheaper than triacs, easier to drive, and
don\'t need heat sinks.

Yes, but you can\'t fire them on and off anything like as fast and they
don\'t have the same longevity AFAIK.

Plus a relay capable of switching 16A is going to be a hog, take up
loads of space compared to a triac and cost a hell of a lot more, I
would imagine.
It\'s easy to look up. Digikey has 15 amp relays starting around 60
cents.

The triac will need a heat sink, which will be big and cost more than
the triac.

yeh, this one looks nice at 8A, until you look at figure 2

https://files.seeedstudio.com/wiki/Grove-Solid_State_Relay/res/S208t02_datasheet.pdf
There\'s a shop in Fremont that will anodize infinite heat sinks.
it takes forever and the bill is infinite? ;)

Yeah, I\'d like to see how they calculate the fees on late payment. Let\'s see... 2% of infinity is infinity, so now you owe 2 * infinity which is infinity. Huh, the outstanding balance didn\'t change.

--

Rick C.

++ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
++ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209
 
On 6/6/2023 1:37 PM, John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 06 Jun 2023 18:32:25 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Tue, 06 Jun 2023 07:01:39 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Tue, 06 Jun 2023 07:57:38 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 15:45:11 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 23:00:29 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 13:32:08 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 19:32:40 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 11:01:33 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 18:54:16 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 18:50:38 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 09:21:32 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 5 Jun 2023 12:10:05 -0400, Phil Hobbs
pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

On 2023-06-04 23:05, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 00:03:20 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Sun, 4 Jun 2023 15:45:44 -0700 (PDT), Ricky
gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sunday, June 4, 2023 at 6:13:39?PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
On Sun, 04 Jun 2023 22:34:00 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:
Greetings, gentlemen,

As we all know, to get maximum efficiency out of a MOSFET, it needs to
be driven hard and fast and spend as little time between fully on and
fully off as possible. Does that same principle extend to Triacs? And
if so, how can that best be implemented when one has to use AC to
drive the gate?

CD.
Once a triac fires, the gate drive doesn\'t matter any more.

But they do need a hard, fast drive to fire properly, long enough to
let the drain current rise above the latch limit.

AC gate drive will be slow-rise, which could just possibly damage the
triac if the load current is high.

That should be on the data sheets.

I believe that is why a diac is typically used in the control circuit.

I thought diacs were sometimes used because triacs don\'t fire
symetrically, but I could be wrong.
So, as regards AC drive, is a higher frequency drive signal a safer
bet? Also, the load is AC too, so the thing will turn off at every
zero-crossing point, which makes life more complicated. :-(

With an AC load, an AC gate drive is probably OK. The triac will turn
on before the voltage gets too high, so the spreading damage mechanism
won\'t happen much.

The bad case is when there\'s a lot of voltage across the device with a
lot of instantaneous current behind it, and it gets a slow, wimpy
trigger.

Post your proposed circuit and we can discuss it.

I still call the terminals anode, gate, cathode. I can never remember
what\'s MT1 and MT2. Top and bottom would be OK too.


The triac is one of those parts where folks get confused by fossilized
analogies.

A triac is a bidirectional thyristor, but it does not behave like two
SCRs in antiparallel. SCR triggering only works in one quadrant, for a
start, so two antiparallel SCRs would be a two-quadrant device, whereas
triacs trigger in all four quadrants.

The triggering also isn\'t that symmetrical, because the structures
aren\'t--the second and fourth quadrant triggering mechanisms are fairly
different, and the four-layer stacks aren\'t well separated, as they
would be in two SCRs.

Triacs are also very slow even compared with SCRs, which are pretty poky
devices by modern standards.

Someplace I have a paper that goes into the details of real triac
operation--iirc it\'s a good read, but I\'m not laying my hands on it at
the moment.

(I haven\'t actually used a triac since I was a teenager, so this is just
out of general interest.)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I haven\'t designed in a triac for maybe 15 years now. I used a couple
of triacs to soft-start a giant power supply that had a 60 Hz power
transformer. Switch in a giant resistor on the primary side, wait a
second, then short it out. That was hard on resistors but prevented
the occasional 1000 amp startup surge. And allowed a little C&K power
switch on the front panel.

The customer insisted that we not use a switching power supply!

Real relays are usually cheaper than triacs, easier to drive, and
don\'t need heat sinks.

Yes, but you can\'t fire them on and off anything like as fast and they
don\'t have the same longevity AFAIK.

Plus a relay capable of switching 16A is going to be a hog, take up
loads of space compared to a triac and cost a hell of a lot more, I
would imagine.

It\'s easy to look up. Digikey has 15 amp relays starting around 60
cents.

Yeahbut I don\'t want to order a million of them to get that price.

Please do not go the the Digikey site. The shock may be harmful to
your health.

Whereas Mouser is harmful to my wealth. Nothing to choose from there
at all for under 15 bux.

My very first search hit:

https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Amphenol-Anytek/AWHSH112DM00G?qs=rSMjJ%252B1ewcRkINR7MLX27w%3D%3D

They also stock several 20 amp relays under $3.

Not in Yurp I\'m afraid. Looks like all real choice stuff is only
available in the US, despite the fact that Mouser claims to have bases
elsewhere, it\'s clear they haven\'t.

Strange. Many of the relays are manufactured in yurpville. And surely
you can import Chinese relays as easily as we can.

I would have thought so, too. But I have only checked out the US
companies I buy parts from and no other sources. I suppose I should
check RS; I\'ll do that later.
Anyway, the point is, you win. I didn\'t know you couid get small cheap
relays like the ones you linked to capable of switching 15A @ 230V so
once again you\'ve disabused me of my ignorance, for which I thank you.

Not a matter of winning, but sharing things that we know.

Relays can be cool, for power and signal switching.

No semiconductor can approach the relay switch figure of merit
Ron*Coff, which has the units of time.

Not only that, but latching relays draw infinitesimally small power.
Right, John?
 
On 6/6/2023 2:56 PM, Ricky wrote:
On Tuesday, June 6, 2023 at 1:43:24 PM UTC-4, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
tirsdag den 6. juni 2023 kl. 05.03.52 UTC+2 skrev John Larkin:
On Mon, 5 Jun 2023 17:08:21 -0700 (PDT), Lasse Langwadt Christensen
lang...@fonz.dk> wrote:

mandag den 5. juni 2023 kl. 20.01.47 UTC+2 skrev John Larkin:
On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 18:54:16 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 18:50:38 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 09:21:32 -0700, John Larkin
jla...@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 5 Jun 2023 12:10:05 -0400, Phil Hobbs
pcdhSpamM...@electrooptical.net> wrote:

On 2023-06-04 23:05, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 00:03:20 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:

On Sun, 4 Jun 2023 15:45:44 -0700 (PDT), Ricky
gnuarm.del...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sunday, June 4, 2023 at 6:13:39?PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
On Sun, 04 Jun 2023 22:34:00 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:
Greetings, gentlemen,

As we all know, to get maximum efficiency out of a MOSFET, it needs to
be driven hard and fast and spend as little time between fully on and
fully off as possible. Does that same principle extend to Triacs? And
if so, how can that best be implemented when one has to use AC to
drive the gate?

CD.
Once a triac fires, the gate drive doesn\'t matter any more.

But they do need a hard, fast drive to fire properly, long enough to
let the drain current rise above the latch limit.

AC gate drive will be slow-rise, which could just possibly damage the
triac if the load current is high.

That should be on the data sheets.

I believe that is why a diac is typically used in the control circuit.

I thought diacs were sometimes used because triacs don\'t fire
symetrically, but I could be wrong.
So, as regards AC drive, is a higher frequency drive signal a safer
bet? Also, the load is AC too, so the thing will turn off at every
zero-crossing point, which makes life more complicated. :-(

With an AC load, an AC gate drive is probably OK. The triac will turn
on before the voltage gets too high, so the spreading damage mechanism
won\'t happen much.

The bad case is when there\'s a lot of voltage across the device with a
lot of instantaneous current behind it, and it gets a slow, wimpy
trigger.

Post your proposed circuit and we can discuss it.

I still call the terminals anode, gate, cathode. I can never remember
what\'s MT1 and MT2. Top and bottom would be OK too.


The triac is one of those parts where folks get confused by fossilized
analogies.

A triac is a bidirectional thyristor, but it does not behave like two
SCRs in antiparallel. SCR triggering only works in one quadrant, for a
start, so two antiparallel SCRs would be a two-quadrant device, whereas
triacs trigger in all four quadrants.

The triggering also isn\'t that symmetrical, because the structures
aren\'t--the second and fourth quadrant triggering mechanisms are fairly
different, and the four-layer stacks aren\'t well separated, as they
would be in two SCRs.

Triacs are also very slow even compared with SCRs, which are pretty poky
devices by modern standards.

Someplace I have a paper that goes into the details of real triac
operation--iirc it\'s a good read, but I\'m not laying my hands on it at
the moment.

(I haven\'t actually used a triac since I was a teenager, so this is just
out of general interest.)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I haven\'t designed in a triac for maybe 15 years now. I used a couple
of triacs to soft-start a giant power supply that had a 60 Hz power
transformer. Switch in a giant resistor on the primary side, wait a
second, then short it out. That was hard on resistors but prevented
the occasional 1000 amp startup surge. And allowed a little C&K power
switch on the front panel.

The customer insisted that we not use a switching power supply!

Real relays are usually cheaper than triacs, easier to drive, and
don\'t need heat sinks.

Yes, but you can\'t fire them on and off anything like as fast and they
don\'t have the same longevity AFAIK.

Plus a relay capable of switching 16A is going to be a hog, take up
loads of space compared to a triac and cost a hell of a lot more, I
would imagine.
It\'s easy to look up. Digikey has 15 amp relays starting around 60
cents.

The triac will need a heat sink, which will be big and cost more than
the triac.

yeh, this one looks nice at 8A, until you look at figure 2

https://files.seeedstudio.com/wiki/Grove-Solid_State_Relay/res/S208t02_datasheet.pdf
There\'s a shop in Fremont that will anodize infinite heat sinks.
it takes forever and the bill is infinite? ;)

Yeah, I\'d like to see how they calculate the fees on late payment. Let\'s see... 2% of infinity is infinity, so now you owe 2 * infinity which is infinity. Huh, the outstanding balance didn\'t change.

Do they charge by the square foot, you think? Hey, I wonder what the
factory floor space is like. I\'ll bet it\'s pretty big!
 
On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 19:33:17 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com>
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 11:04:03 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 11:01:33 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 18:54:16 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 18:50:38 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 09:21:32 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 5 Jun 2023 12:10:05 -0400, Phil Hobbs
pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

On 2023-06-04 23:05, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 00:03:20 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Sun, 4 Jun 2023 15:45:44 -0700 (PDT), Ricky
gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sunday, June 4, 2023 at 6:13:39?PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
On Sun, 04 Jun 2023 22:34:00 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:
Greetings, gentlemen,

As we all know, to get maximum efficiency out of a MOSFET, it needs to
be driven hard and fast and spend as little time between fully on and
fully off as possible. Does that same principle extend to Triacs? And
if so, how can that best be implemented when one has to use AC to
drive the gate?

CD.
Once a triac fires, the gate drive doesn\'t matter any more.

But they do need a hard, fast drive to fire properly, long enough to
let the drain current rise above the latch limit.

AC gate drive will be slow-rise, which could just possibly damage the
triac if the load current is high.

That should be on the data sheets.

I believe that is why a diac is typically used in the control circuit.

I thought diacs were sometimes used because triacs don\'t fire
symetrically, but I could be wrong.
So, as regards AC drive, is a higher frequency drive signal a safer
bet? Also, the load is AC too, so the thing will turn off at every
zero-crossing point, which makes life more complicated. :-(

With an AC load, an AC gate drive is probably OK. The triac will turn
on before the voltage gets too high, so the spreading damage mechanism
won\'t happen much.

The bad case is when there\'s a lot of voltage across the device with a
lot of instantaneous current behind it, and it gets a slow, wimpy
trigger.

Post your proposed circuit and we can discuss it.

I still call the terminals anode, gate, cathode. I can never remember
what\'s MT1 and MT2. Top and bottom would be OK too.


The triac is one of those parts where folks get confused by fossilized
analogies.

A triac is a bidirectional thyristor, but it does not behave like two
SCRs in antiparallel. SCR triggering only works in one quadrant, for a
start, so two antiparallel SCRs would be a two-quadrant device, whereas
triacs trigger in all four quadrants.

The triggering also isn\'t that symmetrical, because the structures
aren\'t--the second and fourth quadrant triggering mechanisms are fairly
different, and the four-layer stacks aren\'t well separated, as they
would be in two SCRs.

Triacs are also very slow even compared with SCRs, which are pretty poky
devices by modern standards.

Someplace I have a paper that goes into the details of real triac
operation--iirc it\'s a good read, but I\'m not laying my hands on it at
the moment.

(I haven\'t actually used a triac since I was a teenager, so this is just
out of general interest.)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I haven\'t designed in a triac for maybe 15 years now. I used a couple
of triacs to soft-start a giant power supply that had a 60 Hz power
transformer. Switch in a giant resistor on the primary side, wait a
second, then short it out. That was hard on resistors but prevented
the occasional 1000 amp startup surge. And allowed a little C&K power
switch on the front panel.

The customer insisted that we not use a switching power supply!

Real relays are usually cheaper than triacs, easier to drive, and
don\'t need heat sinks.

Yes, but you can\'t fire them on and off anything like as fast and they
don\'t have the same longevity AFAIK.

Plus a relay capable of switching 16A is going to be a hog, take up
loads of space compared to a triac and cost a hell of a lot more, I
would imagine.

It\'s easy to look up. Digikey has 15 amp relays starting around 60
cents.

The triac will need a heat sink, which will be big and cost more than
the triac.

Relays don\'t need isolated gate drivers, TVS/MOV protection, or
snubbers either.


Well, you got me there!

I have seen and used snubber across relays. To extinguish DC arcs
across the contacts. Sometimes you have to increase contact life.

I love triacs ! Haven\'t designed one into a shipping product for
about 9 years but they have their place up to a few hundred Hz.
Mainly like them for their automatic zero crossing turn-off behavior
into resitive power resistors.

Turning off current through a 1kW load resistor through say, a FET at
non zero-crossing really can bring out the inductive behavior in a
circuit. Also handy to find those MOC3xxx parts (or 4x ?) that
automatically turn on at zero crossing and reduce EMI from the sharp
turn on. Well, sharp enough edge anyway

boB
 
On Tue, 6 Jun 2023 21:31:09 -0500, John S <Sophi.2@invalid.org> wrote:

On 6/6/2023 1:37 PM, John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 06 Jun 2023 18:32:25 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Tue, 06 Jun 2023 07:01:39 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Tue, 06 Jun 2023 07:57:38 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 15:45:11 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 23:00:29 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 13:32:08 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 19:32:40 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 11:01:33 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 18:54:16 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 18:50:38 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 09:21:32 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 5 Jun 2023 12:10:05 -0400, Phil Hobbs
pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

On 2023-06-04 23:05, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 00:03:20 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Sun, 4 Jun 2023 15:45:44 -0700 (PDT), Ricky
gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sunday, June 4, 2023 at 6:13:39?PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
On Sun, 04 Jun 2023 22:34:00 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:
Greetings, gentlemen,

As we all know, to get maximum efficiency out of a MOSFET, it needs to
be driven hard and fast and spend as little time between fully on and
fully off as possible. Does that same principle extend to Triacs? And
if so, how can that best be implemented when one has to use AC to
drive the gate?

CD.
Once a triac fires, the gate drive doesn\'t matter any more.

But they do need a hard, fast drive to fire properly, long enough to
let the drain current rise above the latch limit.

AC gate drive will be slow-rise, which could just possibly damage the
triac if the load current is high.

That should be on the data sheets.

I believe that is why a diac is typically used in the control circuit.

I thought diacs were sometimes used because triacs don\'t fire
symetrically, but I could be wrong.
So, as regards AC drive, is a higher frequency drive signal a safer
bet? Also, the load is AC too, so the thing will turn off at every
zero-crossing point, which makes life more complicated. :-(

With an AC load, an AC gate drive is probably OK. The triac will turn
on before the voltage gets too high, so the spreading damage mechanism
won\'t happen much.

The bad case is when there\'s a lot of voltage across the device with a
lot of instantaneous current behind it, and it gets a slow, wimpy
trigger.

Post your proposed circuit and we can discuss it.

I still call the terminals anode, gate, cathode. I can never remember
what\'s MT1 and MT2. Top and bottom would be OK too.


The triac is one of those parts where folks get confused by fossilized
analogies.

A triac is a bidirectional thyristor, but it does not behave like two
SCRs in antiparallel. SCR triggering only works in one quadrant, for a
start, so two antiparallel SCRs would be a two-quadrant device, whereas
triacs trigger in all four quadrants.

The triggering also isn\'t that symmetrical, because the structures
aren\'t--the second and fourth quadrant triggering mechanisms are fairly
different, and the four-layer stacks aren\'t well separated, as they
would be in two SCRs.

Triacs are also very slow even compared with SCRs, which are pretty poky
devices by modern standards.

Someplace I have a paper that goes into the details of real triac
operation--iirc it\'s a good read, but I\'m not laying my hands on it at
the moment.

(I haven\'t actually used a triac since I was a teenager, so this is just
out of general interest.)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I haven\'t designed in a triac for maybe 15 years now. I used a couple
of triacs to soft-start a giant power supply that had a 60 Hz power
transformer. Switch in a giant resistor on the primary side, wait a
second, then short it out. That was hard on resistors but prevented
the occasional 1000 amp startup surge. And allowed a little C&K power
switch on the front panel.

The customer insisted that we not use a switching power supply!

Real relays are usually cheaper than triacs, easier to drive, and
don\'t need heat sinks.

Yes, but you can\'t fire them on and off anything like as fast and they
don\'t have the same longevity AFAIK.

Plus a relay capable of switching 16A is going to be a hog, take up
loads of space compared to a triac and cost a hell of a lot more, I
would imagine.

It\'s easy to look up. Digikey has 15 amp relays starting around 60
cents.

Yeahbut I don\'t want to order a million of them to get that price.

Please do not go the the Digikey site. The shock may be harmful to
your health.

Whereas Mouser is harmful to my wealth. Nothing to choose from there
at all for under 15 bux.

My very first search hit:

https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Amphenol-Anytek/AWHSH112DM00G?qs=rSMjJ%252B1ewcRkINR7MLX27w%3D%3D

They also stock several 20 amp relays under $3.

Not in Yurp I\'m afraid. Looks like all real choice stuff is only
available in the US, despite the fact that Mouser claims to have bases
elsewhere, it\'s clear they haven\'t.

Strange. Many of the relays are manufactured in yurpville. And surely
you can import Chinese relays as easily as we can.

I would have thought so, too. But I have only checked out the US
companies I buy parts from and no other sources. I suppose I should
check RS; I\'ll do that later.
Anyway, the point is, you win. I didn\'t know you couid get small cheap
relays like the ones you linked to capable of switching 15A @ 230V so
once again you\'ve disabused me of my ignorance, for which I thank you.

Not a matter of winning, but sharing things that we know.

Relays can be cool, for power and signal switching.

No semiconductor can approach the relay switch figure of merit
Ron*Coff, which has the units of time.


Not only that, but latching relays draw infinitesimally small power.
Right, John?

We\'ve used latching relays in low-level analog acquisition systems
because they have very low thermally-driven offset voltages, namely no
thermocouple effects from coil heating.
 
On Tuesday, June 6, 2023 at 10:37:39 PM UTC-4, John S wrote:
On 6/6/2023 2:56 PM, Ricky wrote:
On Tuesday, June 6, 2023 at 1:43:24 PM UTC-4, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
tirsdag den 6. juni 2023 kl. 05.03.52 UTC+2 skrev John Larkin:
On Mon, 5 Jun 2023 17:08:21 -0700 (PDT), Lasse Langwadt Christensen
lang...@fonz.dk> wrote:

mandag den 5. juni 2023 kl. 20.01.47 UTC+2 skrev John Larkin:
On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 18:54:16 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 18:50:38 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail..com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 09:21:32 -0700, John Larkin
jla...@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 5 Jun 2023 12:10:05 -0400, Phil Hobbs
pcdhSpamM...@electrooptical.net> wrote:

On 2023-06-04 23:05, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 00:03:20 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:

On Sun, 4 Jun 2023 15:45:44 -0700 (PDT), Ricky
gnuarm.del...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sunday, June 4, 2023 at 6:13:39?PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
On Sun, 04 Jun 2023 22:34:00 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:
Greetings, gentlemen,

As we all know, to get maximum efficiency out of a MOSFET, it needs to
be driven hard and fast and spend as little time between fully on and
fully off as possible. Does that same principle extend to Triacs? And
if so, how can that best be implemented when one has to use AC to
drive the gate?

CD.
Once a triac fires, the gate drive doesn\'t matter any more.

But they do need a hard, fast drive to fire properly, long enough to
let the drain current rise above the latch limit.

AC gate drive will be slow-rise, which could just possibly damage the
triac if the load current is high.

That should be on the data sheets.

I believe that is why a diac is typically used in the control circuit.

I thought diacs were sometimes used because triacs don\'t fire
symetrically, but I could be wrong.
So, as regards AC drive, is a higher frequency drive signal a safer
bet? Also, the load is AC too, so the thing will turn off at every
zero-crossing point, which makes life more complicated. :-(

With an AC load, an AC gate drive is probably OK. The triac will turn
on before the voltage gets too high, so the spreading damage mechanism
won\'t happen much.

The bad case is when there\'s a lot of voltage across the device with a
lot of instantaneous current behind it, and it gets a slow, wimpy
trigger.

Post your proposed circuit and we can discuss it.

I still call the terminals anode, gate, cathode. I can never remember
what\'s MT1 and MT2. Top and bottom would be OK too.


The triac is one of those parts where folks get confused by fossilized
analogies.

A triac is a bidirectional thyristor, but it does not behave like two
SCRs in antiparallel. SCR triggering only works in one quadrant, for a
start, so two antiparallel SCRs would be a two-quadrant device, whereas
triacs trigger in all four quadrants.

The triggering also isn\'t that symmetrical, because the structures
aren\'t--the second and fourth quadrant triggering mechanisms are fairly
different, and the four-layer stacks aren\'t well separated, as they
would be in two SCRs.

Triacs are also very slow even compared with SCRs, which are pretty poky
devices by modern standards.

Someplace I have a paper that goes into the details of real triac
operation--iirc it\'s a good read, but I\'m not laying my hands on it at
the moment.

(I haven\'t actually used a triac since I was a teenager, so this is just
out of general interest.)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I haven\'t designed in a triac for maybe 15 years now. I used a couple
of triacs to soft-start a giant power supply that had a 60 Hz power
transformer. Switch in a giant resistor on the primary side, wait a
second, then short it out. That was hard on resistors but prevented
the occasional 1000 amp startup surge. And allowed a little C&K power
switch on the front panel.

The customer insisted that we not use a switching power supply!

Real relays are usually cheaper than triacs, easier to drive, and
don\'t need heat sinks.

Yes, but you can\'t fire them on and off anything like as fast and they
don\'t have the same longevity AFAIK.

Plus a relay capable of switching 16A is going to be a hog, take up
loads of space compared to a triac and cost a hell of a lot more, I
would imagine.
It\'s easy to look up. Digikey has 15 amp relays starting around 60
cents.

The triac will need a heat sink, which will be big and cost more than
the triac.

yeh, this one looks nice at 8A, until you look at figure 2

https://files.seeedstudio.com/wiki/Grove-Solid_State_Relay/res/S208t02_datasheet.pdf
There\'s a shop in Fremont that will anodize infinite heat sinks.
it takes forever and the bill is infinite? ;)

Yeah, I\'d like to see how they calculate the fees on late payment. Let\'s see... 2% of infinity is infinity, so now you owe 2 * infinity which is infinity. Huh, the outstanding balance didn\'t change.

Do they charge by the square foot, you think? Hey, I wonder what the
factory floor space is like. I\'ll bet it\'s pretty big!

They work vertically. As they make it, it extends upward toward infinity. I guess they have to make sure it is well grounded to prevent harm from lightning. Hmmm... I suppose it would need to be constructed north of the tropic of Cancer or south of the tropic of Capricorn to prevent it from colliding with something in the solar system, like the sun.

--

Rick C.

--- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
--- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209
 
On Tuesday, June 6, 2023 at 11:36:21 PM UTC-4, boB wrote:
On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 19:33:17 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 11:04:03 -0700, John Larkin
jla...@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 11:01:33 -0700, John Larkin
jla...@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 18:54:16 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 18:50:38 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 09:21:32 -0700, John Larkin
jla...@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 5 Jun 2023 12:10:05 -0400, Phil Hobbs
pcdhSpamM...@electrooptical.net> wrote:

On 2023-06-04 23:05, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 00:03:20 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:

On Sun, 4 Jun 2023 15:45:44 -0700 (PDT), Ricky
gnuarm.del...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sunday, June 4, 2023 at 6:13:39?PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
On Sun, 04 Jun 2023 22:34:00 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:
Greetings, gentlemen,

As we all know, to get maximum efficiency out of a MOSFET, it needs to
be driven hard and fast and spend as little time between fully on and
fully off as possible. Does that same principle extend to Triacs? And
if so, how can that best be implemented when one has to use AC to
drive the gate?

CD.
Once a triac fires, the gate drive doesn\'t matter any more.

But they do need a hard, fast drive to fire properly, long enough to
let the drain current rise above the latch limit.

AC gate drive will be slow-rise, which could just possibly damage the
triac if the load current is high.

That should be on the data sheets.

I believe that is why a diac is typically used in the control circuit.

I thought diacs were sometimes used because triacs don\'t fire
symetrically, but I could be wrong.
So, as regards AC drive, is a higher frequency drive signal a safer
bet? Also, the load is AC too, so the thing will turn off at every
zero-crossing point, which makes life more complicated. :-(

With an AC load, an AC gate drive is probably OK. The triac will turn
on before the voltage gets too high, so the spreading damage mechanism
won\'t happen much.

The bad case is when there\'s a lot of voltage across the device with a
lot of instantaneous current behind it, and it gets a slow, wimpy
trigger.

Post your proposed circuit and we can discuss it.

I still call the terminals anode, gate, cathode. I can never remember
what\'s MT1 and MT2. Top and bottom would be OK too.


The triac is one of those parts where folks get confused by fossilized
analogies.

A triac is a bidirectional thyristor, but it does not behave like two
SCRs in antiparallel. SCR triggering only works in one quadrant, for a
start, so two antiparallel SCRs would be a two-quadrant device, whereas
triacs trigger in all four quadrants.

The triggering also isn\'t that symmetrical, because the structures
aren\'t--the second and fourth quadrant triggering mechanisms are fairly
different, and the four-layer stacks aren\'t well separated, as they
would be in two SCRs.

Triacs are also very slow even compared with SCRs, which are pretty poky
devices by modern standards.

Someplace I have a paper that goes into the details of real triac
operation--iirc it\'s a good read, but I\'m not laying my hands on it at
the moment.

(I haven\'t actually used a triac since I was a teenager, so this is just
out of general interest.)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I haven\'t designed in a triac for maybe 15 years now. I used a couple
of triacs to soft-start a giant power supply that had a 60 Hz power
transformer. Switch in a giant resistor on the primary side, wait a
second, then short it out. That was hard on resistors but prevented
the occasional 1000 amp startup surge. And allowed a little C&K power
switch on the front panel.

The customer insisted that we not use a switching power supply!

Real relays are usually cheaper than triacs, easier to drive, and
don\'t need heat sinks.

Yes, but you can\'t fire them on and off anything like as fast and they
don\'t have the same longevity AFAIK.

Plus a relay capable of switching 16A is going to be a hog, take up
loads of space compared to a triac and cost a hell of a lot more, I
would imagine.

It\'s easy to look up. Digikey has 15 amp relays starting around 60
cents.

The triac will need a heat sink, which will be big and cost more than
the triac.

Relays don\'t need isolated gate drivers, TVS/MOV protection, or
snubbers either.


Well, you got me there!


I have seen and used snubber across relays. To extinguish DC arcs
across the contacts. Sometimes you have to increase contact life.

I love triacs ! Haven\'t designed one into a shipping product for
about 9 years but they have their place up to a few hundred Hz.
Mainly like them for their automatic zero crossing turn-off behavior
into resitive power resistors.

Turning off current through a 1kW load resistor through say, a FET at
non zero-crossing really can bring out the inductive behavior in a
circuit. Also handy to find those MOC3xxx parts (or 4x ?) that
automatically turn on at zero crossing and reduce EMI from the sharp
turn on. Well, sharp enough edge anyway

I was trying to help someone with an idea of saving power on commercial lighting using SCRs. I asked why SCRs rather than triacs and he said something about SCRs working much better. He was a weird businessman though. He had someone else working on this for him, but he claimed they never made it work, so he never paid them. He was intensely concerned about the idea being stolen, but he didn\'t mind if it was never developed.

I\'m willing to bet anyone who talks to him for more than 10 minutes would realize he was just bad news, so he never found anyone to help him with it.

Wouldn\'t it be trivial to use a very low end MCU to control SCR/triac timing? It could be connected to monitor both current and voltage and pick the appropriate point for turn on.

--

Rick C.

--+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
--+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209
 
On 07/06/2023 5:49 am, Ricky wrote:
On Tuesday, June 6, 2023 at 11:36:21 PM UTC-4, boB wrote:
On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 19:33:17 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 11:04:03 -0700, John Larkin
jla...@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 11:01:33 -0700, John Larkin
jla...@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 18:54:16 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 18:50:38 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 09:21:32 -0700, John Larkin
jla...@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 5 Jun 2023 12:10:05 -0400, Phil Hobbs
pcdhSpamM...@electrooptical.net> wrote:

On 2023-06-04 23:05, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 00:03:20 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:

On Sun, 4 Jun 2023 15:45:44 -0700 (PDT), Ricky
gnuarm.del...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sunday, June 4, 2023 at 6:13:39?PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
On Sun, 04 Jun 2023 22:34:00 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:
Greetings, gentlemen,

As we all know, to get maximum efficiency out of a MOSFET, it needs to
be driven hard and fast and spend as little time between fully on and
fully off as possible. Does that same principle extend to Triacs? And
if so, how can that best be implemented when one has to use AC to
drive the gate?

CD.
Once a triac fires, the gate drive doesn\'t matter any more.

But they do need a hard, fast drive to fire properly, long enough to
let the drain current rise above the latch limit.

AC gate drive will be slow-rise, which could just possibly damage the
triac if the load current is high.

That should be on the data sheets.

I believe that is why a diac is typically used in the control circuit.

I thought diacs were sometimes used because triacs don\'t fire
symetrically, but I could be wrong.
So, as regards AC drive, is a higher frequency drive signal a safer
bet? Also, the load is AC too, so the thing will turn off at every
zero-crossing point, which makes life more complicated. :-(

With an AC load, an AC gate drive is probably OK. The triac will turn
on before the voltage gets too high, so the spreading damage mechanism
won\'t happen much.

The bad case is when there\'s a lot of voltage across the device with a
lot of instantaneous current behind it, and it gets a slow, wimpy
trigger.

Post your proposed circuit and we can discuss it.

I still call the terminals anode, gate, cathode. I can never remember
what\'s MT1 and MT2. Top and bottom would be OK too.


The triac is one of those parts where folks get confused by fossilized
analogies.

A triac is a bidirectional thyristor, but it does not behave like two
SCRs in antiparallel. SCR triggering only works in one quadrant, for a
start, so two antiparallel SCRs would be a two-quadrant device, whereas
triacs trigger in all four quadrants.

The triggering also isn\'t that symmetrical, because the structures
aren\'t--the second and fourth quadrant triggering mechanisms are fairly
different, and the four-layer stacks aren\'t well separated, as they
would be in two SCRs.

Triacs are also very slow even compared with SCRs, which are pretty poky
devices by modern standards.

Someplace I have a paper that goes into the details of real triac
operation--iirc it\'s a good read, but I\'m not laying my hands on it at
the moment.

(I haven\'t actually used a triac since I was a teenager, so this is just
out of general interest.)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I haven\'t designed in a triac for maybe 15 years now. I used a couple
of triacs to soft-start a giant power supply that had a 60 Hz power
transformer. Switch in a giant resistor on the primary side, wait a
second, then short it out. That was hard on resistors but prevented
the occasional 1000 amp startup surge. And allowed a little C&K power
switch on the front panel.

The customer insisted that we not use a switching power supply!

Real relays are usually cheaper than triacs, easier to drive, and
don\'t need heat sinks.

Yes, but you can\'t fire them on and off anything like as fast and they
don\'t have the same longevity AFAIK.

Plus a relay capable of switching 16A is going to be a hog, take up
loads of space compared to a triac and cost a hell of a lot more, I
would imagine.

It\'s easy to look up. Digikey has 15 amp relays starting around 60
cents.

The triac will need a heat sink, which will be big and cost more than
the triac.

Relays don\'t need isolated gate drivers, TVS/MOV protection, or
snubbers either.


Well, you got me there!


I have seen and used snubber across relays. To extinguish DC arcs
across the contacts. Sometimes you have to increase contact life.

I love triacs ! Haven\'t designed one into a shipping product for
about 9 years but they have their place up to a few hundred Hz.
Mainly like them for their automatic zero crossing turn-off behavior
into resitive power resistors.

Turning off current through a 1kW load resistor through say, a FET at
non zero-crossing really can bring out the inductive behavior in a
circuit. Also handy to find those MOC3xxx parts (or 4x ?) that
automatically turn on at zero crossing and reduce EMI from the sharp
turn on. Well, sharp enough edge anyway

I was trying to help someone with an idea of saving power on commercial lighting using SCRs. I asked why SCRs rather than triacs and he said something about SCRs working much better. He was a weird businessman though. He had someone else working on this for him, but he claimed they never made it work, so he never paid them. He was intensely concerned about the idea being stolen, but he didn\'t mind if it was never developed.

I\'m willing to bet anyone who talks to him for more than 10 minutes would realize he was just bad news, so he never found anyone to help him with it.

Wouldn\'t it be trivial to use a very low end MCU to control SCR/triac timing? It could be connected to monitor both current and voltage and pick the appropriate point for turn on.

Triacs are only useful up to a certain current. For higher power AC
switching back to back SCRs are used. The issue is triacs have trouble
commutating off during the very brief zero crossing time - the bigger
the triac the more loose charge carriers there are to recombine during
that short time. An SCR has up to the next half cycle to recover.

piglet
 
On Tue, 06 Jun 2023 20:36:01 -0700, boB <boB@K7IQ.com> wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 19:33:17 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 11:04:03 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 11:01:33 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 18:54:16 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 18:50:38 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 09:21:32 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 5 Jun 2023 12:10:05 -0400, Phil Hobbs
pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

On 2023-06-04 23:05, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 00:03:20 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Sun, 4 Jun 2023 15:45:44 -0700 (PDT), Ricky
gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sunday, June 4, 2023 at 6:13:39?PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
On Sun, 04 Jun 2023 22:34:00 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:
Greetings, gentlemen,

As we all know, to get maximum efficiency out of a MOSFET, it needs to
be driven hard and fast and spend as little time between fully on and
fully off as possible. Does that same principle extend to Triacs? And
if so, how can that best be implemented when one has to use AC to
drive the gate?

CD.
Once a triac fires, the gate drive doesn\'t matter any more.

But they do need a hard, fast drive to fire properly, long enough to
let the drain current rise above the latch limit.

AC gate drive will be slow-rise, which could just possibly damage the
triac if the load current is high.

That should be on the data sheets.

I believe that is why a diac is typically used in the control circuit.

I thought diacs were sometimes used because triacs don\'t fire
symetrically, but I could be wrong.
So, as regards AC drive, is a higher frequency drive signal a safer
bet? Also, the load is AC too, so the thing will turn off at every
zero-crossing point, which makes life more complicated. :-(

With an AC load, an AC gate drive is probably OK. The triac will turn
on before the voltage gets too high, so the spreading damage mechanism
won\'t happen much.

The bad case is when there\'s a lot of voltage across the device with a
lot of instantaneous current behind it, and it gets a slow, wimpy
trigger.

Post your proposed circuit and we can discuss it.

I still call the terminals anode, gate, cathode. I can never remember
what\'s MT1 and MT2. Top and bottom would be OK too.


The triac is one of those parts where folks get confused by fossilized
analogies.

A triac is a bidirectional thyristor, but it does not behave like two
SCRs in antiparallel. SCR triggering only works in one quadrant, for a
start, so two antiparallel SCRs would be a two-quadrant device, whereas
triacs trigger in all four quadrants.

The triggering also isn\'t that symmetrical, because the structures
aren\'t--the second and fourth quadrant triggering mechanisms are fairly
different, and the four-layer stacks aren\'t well separated, as they
would be in two SCRs.

Triacs are also very slow even compared with SCRs, which are pretty poky
devices by modern standards.

Someplace I have a paper that goes into the details of real triac
operation--iirc it\'s a good read, but I\'m not laying my hands on it at
the moment.

(I haven\'t actually used a triac since I was a teenager, so this is just
out of general interest.)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I haven\'t designed in a triac for maybe 15 years now. I used a couple
of triacs to soft-start a giant power supply that had a 60 Hz power
transformer. Switch in a giant resistor on the primary side, wait a
second, then short it out. That was hard on resistors but prevented
the occasional 1000 amp startup surge. And allowed a little C&K power
switch on the front panel.

The customer insisted that we not use a switching power supply!

Real relays are usually cheaper than triacs, easier to drive, and
don\'t need heat sinks.

Yes, but you can\'t fire them on and off anything like as fast and they
don\'t have the same longevity AFAIK.

Plus a relay capable of switching 16A is going to be a hog, take up
loads of space compared to a triac and cost a hell of a lot more, I
would imagine.

It\'s easy to look up. Digikey has 15 amp relays starting around 60
cents.

The triac will need a heat sink, which will be big and cost more than
the triac.

Relays don\'t need isolated gate drivers, TVS/MOV protection, or
snubbers either.


Well, you got me there!


I have seen and used snubber across relays. To extinguish DC arcs
across the contacts. Sometimes you have to increase contact life.

Do you know why a snubber extinguishes a DC arc?
 
On 6/6/2023 11:30 PM, John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 6 Jun 2023 21:31:09 -0500, John S <Sophi.2@invalid.org> wrote:

On 6/6/2023 1:37 PM, John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 06 Jun 2023 18:32:25 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Tue, 06 Jun 2023 07:01:39 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Tue, 06 Jun 2023 07:57:38 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 15:45:11 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 23:00:29 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 13:32:08 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 19:32:40 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 11:01:33 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 18:54:16 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 18:50:38 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 09:21:32 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 5 Jun 2023 12:10:05 -0400, Phil Hobbs
pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

On 2023-06-04 23:05, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 00:03:20 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Sun, 4 Jun 2023 15:45:44 -0700 (PDT), Ricky
gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sunday, June 4, 2023 at 6:13:39?PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
On Sun, 04 Jun 2023 22:34:00 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:
Greetings, gentlemen,

As we all know, to get maximum efficiency out of a MOSFET, it needs to
be driven hard and fast and spend as little time between fully on and
fully off as possible. Does that same principle extend to Triacs? And
if so, how can that best be implemented when one has to use AC to
drive the gate?

CD.
Once a triac fires, the gate drive doesn\'t matter any more.

But they do need a hard, fast drive to fire properly, long enough to
let the drain current rise above the latch limit.

AC gate drive will be slow-rise, which could just possibly damage the
triac if the load current is high.

That should be on the data sheets.

I believe that is why a diac is typically used in the control circuit.

I thought diacs were sometimes used because triacs don\'t fire
symetrically, but I could be wrong.
So, as regards AC drive, is a higher frequency drive signal a safer
bet? Also, the load is AC too, so the thing will turn off at every
zero-crossing point, which makes life more complicated. :-(

With an AC load, an AC gate drive is probably OK. The triac will turn
on before the voltage gets too high, so the spreading damage mechanism
won\'t happen much.

The bad case is when there\'s a lot of voltage across the device with a
lot of instantaneous current behind it, and it gets a slow, wimpy
trigger.

Post your proposed circuit and we can discuss it.

I still call the terminals anode, gate, cathode. I can never remember
what\'s MT1 and MT2. Top and bottom would be OK too.


The triac is one of those parts where folks get confused by fossilized
analogies.

A triac is a bidirectional thyristor, but it does not behave like two
SCRs in antiparallel. SCR triggering only works in one quadrant, for a
start, so two antiparallel SCRs would be a two-quadrant device, whereas
triacs trigger in all four quadrants.

The triggering also isn\'t that symmetrical, because the structures
aren\'t--the second and fourth quadrant triggering mechanisms are fairly
different, and the four-layer stacks aren\'t well separated, as they
would be in two SCRs.

Triacs are also very slow even compared with SCRs, which are pretty poky
devices by modern standards.

Someplace I have a paper that goes into the details of real triac
operation--iirc it\'s a good read, but I\'m not laying my hands on it at
the moment.

(I haven\'t actually used a triac since I was a teenager, so this is just
out of general interest.)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I haven\'t designed in a triac for maybe 15 years now. I used a couple
of triacs to soft-start a giant power supply that had a 60 Hz power
transformer. Switch in a giant resistor on the primary side, wait a
second, then short it out. That was hard on resistors but prevented
the occasional 1000 amp startup surge. And allowed a little C&K power
switch on the front panel.

The customer insisted that we not use a switching power supply!

Real relays are usually cheaper than triacs, easier to drive, and
don\'t need heat sinks.

Yes, but you can\'t fire them on and off anything like as fast and they
don\'t have the same longevity AFAIK.

Plus a relay capable of switching 16A is going to be a hog, take up
loads of space compared to a triac and cost a hell of a lot more, I
would imagine.

It\'s easy to look up. Digikey has 15 amp relays starting around 60
cents.

Yeahbut I don\'t want to order a million of them to get that price.

Please do not go the the Digikey site. The shock may be harmful to
your health.

Whereas Mouser is harmful to my wealth. Nothing to choose from there
at all for under 15 bux.

My very first search hit:

https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Amphenol-Anytek/AWHSH112DM00G?qs=rSMjJ%252B1ewcRkINR7MLX27w%3D%3D

They also stock several 20 amp relays under $3.

Not in Yurp I\'m afraid. Looks like all real choice stuff is only
available in the US, despite the fact that Mouser claims to have bases
elsewhere, it\'s clear they haven\'t.

Strange. Many of the relays are manufactured in yurpville. And surely
you can import Chinese relays as easily as we can.

I would have thought so, too. But I have only checked out the US
companies I buy parts from and no other sources. I suppose I should
check RS; I\'ll do that later.
Anyway, the point is, you win. I didn\'t know you couid get small cheap
relays like the ones you linked to capable of switching 15A @ 230V so
once again you\'ve disabused me of my ignorance, for which I thank you.

Not a matter of winning, but sharing things that we know.

Relays can be cool, for power and signal switching.

No semiconductor can approach the relay switch figure of merit
Ron*Coff, which has the units of time.


Not only that, but latching relays draw infinitesimally small power.
Right, John?

We\'ve used latching relays in low-level analog acquisition systems
because they have very low thermally-driven offset voltages, namely no
thermocouple effects from coil heating.

Oh. Changing the subject, eh? You Rascal!
 
On 6/6/2023 10:36 PM, boB wrote:
On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 19:33:17 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 11:04:03 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 11:01:33 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 18:54:16 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 18:50:38 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 09:21:32 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 5 Jun 2023 12:10:05 -0400, Phil Hobbs
pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

On 2023-06-04 23:05, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 00:03:20 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Sun, 4 Jun 2023 15:45:44 -0700 (PDT), Ricky
gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sunday, June 4, 2023 at 6:13:39?PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
On Sun, 04 Jun 2023 22:34:00 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:
Greetings, gentlemen,

As we all know, to get maximum efficiency out of a MOSFET, it needs to
be driven hard and fast and spend as little time between fully on and
fully off as possible. Does that same principle extend to Triacs? And
if so, how can that best be implemented when one has to use AC to
drive the gate?

CD.
Once a triac fires, the gate drive doesn\'t matter any more.

But they do need a hard, fast drive to fire properly, long enough to
let the drain current rise above the latch limit.

AC gate drive will be slow-rise, which could just possibly damage the
triac if the load current is high.

That should be on the data sheets.

I believe that is why a diac is typically used in the control circuit.

I thought diacs were sometimes used because triacs don\'t fire
symetrically, but I could be wrong.
So, as regards AC drive, is a higher frequency drive signal a safer
bet? Also, the load is AC too, so the thing will turn off at every
zero-crossing point, which makes life more complicated. :-(

With an AC load, an AC gate drive is probably OK. The triac will turn
on before the voltage gets too high, so the spreading damage mechanism
won\'t happen much.

The bad case is when there\'s a lot of voltage across the device with a
lot of instantaneous current behind it, and it gets a slow, wimpy
trigger.

Post your proposed circuit and we can discuss it.

I still call the terminals anode, gate, cathode. I can never remember
what\'s MT1 and MT2. Top and bottom would be OK too.


The triac is one of those parts where folks get confused by fossilized
analogies.

A triac is a bidirectional thyristor, but it does not behave like two
SCRs in antiparallel. SCR triggering only works in one quadrant, for a
start, so two antiparallel SCRs would be a two-quadrant device, whereas
triacs trigger in all four quadrants.

The triggering also isn\'t that symmetrical, because the structures
aren\'t--the second and fourth quadrant triggering mechanisms are fairly
different, and the four-layer stacks aren\'t well separated, as they
would be in two SCRs.

Triacs are also very slow even compared with SCRs, which are pretty poky
devices by modern standards.

Someplace I have a paper that goes into the details of real triac
operation--iirc it\'s a good read, but I\'m not laying my hands on it at
the moment.

(I haven\'t actually used a triac since I was a teenager, so this is just
out of general interest.)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I haven\'t designed in a triac for maybe 15 years now. I used a couple
of triacs to soft-start a giant power supply that had a 60 Hz power
transformer. Switch in a giant resistor on the primary side, wait a
second, then short it out. That was hard on resistors but prevented
the occasional 1000 amp startup surge. And allowed a little C&K power
switch on the front panel.

The customer insisted that we not use a switching power supply!

Real relays are usually cheaper than triacs, easier to drive, and
don\'t need heat sinks.

Yes, but you can\'t fire them on and off anything like as fast and they
don\'t have the same longevity AFAIK.

Plus a relay capable of switching 16A is going to be a hog, take up
loads of space compared to a triac and cost a hell of a lot more, I
would imagine.

It\'s easy to look up. Digikey has 15 amp relays starting around 60
cents.

The triac will need a heat sink, which will be big and cost more than
the triac.

Relays don\'t need isolated gate drivers, TVS/MOV protection, or
snubbers either.


Well, you got me there!


I have seen and used snubber across relays. To extinguish DC arcs
across the contacts. Sometimes you have to increase contact life.

I love triacs ! Haven\'t designed one into a shipping product for
about 9 years but they have their place up to a few hundred Hz.
Mainly like them for their automatic zero crossing turn-off behavior
into resitive power resistors.

Turning off current through a 1kW load resistor through say, a FET at
non zero-crossing really can bring out the inductive behavior in a
circuit. Also handy to find those MOC3xxx parts (or 4x ?) that
automatically turn on at zero crossing and reduce EMI from the sharp
turn on. Well, sharp enough edge anyway

boB

Yes. We put snubbers around our large snubber resistors in our 500HP
inverters. They were 500W wire-wound and had some inductance.
 
On Wed, 07 Jun 2023 07:09:09 -0700, John Larkin
<jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Tue, 06 Jun 2023 20:36:01 -0700, boB <boB@K7IQ.com> wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 19:33:17 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 11:04:03 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 11:01:33 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 18:54:16 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 18:50:38 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 09:21:32 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 5 Jun 2023 12:10:05 -0400, Phil Hobbs
pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

On 2023-06-04 23:05, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 05 Jun 2023 00:03:20 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com
wrote:

On Sun, 4 Jun 2023 15:45:44 -0700 (PDT), Ricky
gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sunday, June 4, 2023 at 6:13:39?PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
On Sun, 04 Jun 2023 22:34:00 +0100, Cursitor Doom <c...@notformail.com
wrote:
Greetings, gentlemen,

As we all know, to get maximum efficiency out of a MOSFET, it needs to
be driven hard and fast and spend as little time between fully on and
fully off as possible. Does that same principle extend to Triacs? And
if so, how can that best be implemented when one has to use AC to
drive the gate?

CD.
Once a triac fires, the gate drive doesn\'t matter any more.

But they do need a hard, fast drive to fire properly, long enough to
let the drain current rise above the latch limit.

AC gate drive will be slow-rise, which could just possibly damage the
triac if the load current is high.

That should be on the data sheets.

I believe that is why a diac is typically used in the control circuit.

I thought diacs were sometimes used because triacs don\'t fire
symetrically, but I could be wrong.
So, as regards AC drive, is a higher frequency drive signal a safer
bet? Also, the load is AC too, so the thing will turn off at every
zero-crossing point, which makes life more complicated. :-(

With an AC load, an AC gate drive is probably OK. The triac will turn
on before the voltage gets too high, so the spreading damage mechanism
won\'t happen much.

The bad case is when there\'s a lot of voltage across the device with a
lot of instantaneous current behind it, and it gets a slow, wimpy
trigger.

Post your proposed circuit and we can discuss it.

I still call the terminals anode, gate, cathode. I can never remember
what\'s MT1 and MT2. Top and bottom would be OK too.


The triac is one of those parts where folks get confused by fossilized
analogies.

A triac is a bidirectional thyristor, but it does not behave like two
SCRs in antiparallel. SCR triggering only works in one quadrant, for a
start, so two antiparallel SCRs would be a two-quadrant device, whereas
triacs trigger in all four quadrants.

The triggering also isn\'t that symmetrical, because the structures
aren\'t--the second and fourth quadrant triggering mechanisms are fairly
different, and the four-layer stacks aren\'t well separated, as they
would be in two SCRs.

Triacs are also very slow even compared with SCRs, which are pretty poky
devices by modern standards.

Someplace I have a paper that goes into the details of real triac
operation--iirc it\'s a good read, but I\'m not laying my hands on it at
the moment.

(I haven\'t actually used a triac since I was a teenager, so this is just
out of general interest.)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I haven\'t designed in a triac for maybe 15 years now. I used a couple
of triacs to soft-start a giant power supply that had a 60 Hz power
transformer. Switch in a giant resistor on the primary side, wait a
second, then short it out. That was hard on resistors but prevented
the occasional 1000 amp startup surge. And allowed a little C&K power
switch on the front panel.

The customer insisted that we not use a switching power supply!

Real relays are usually cheaper than triacs, easier to drive, and
don\'t need heat sinks.

Yes, but you can\'t fire them on and off anything like as fast and they
don\'t have the same longevity AFAIK.

Plus a relay capable of switching 16A is going to be a hog, take up
loads of space compared to a triac and cost a hell of a lot more, I
would imagine.

It\'s easy to look up. Digikey has 15 amp relays starting around 60
cents.

The triac will need a heat sink, which will be big and cost more than
the triac.

Relays don\'t need isolated gate drivers, TVS/MOV protection, or
snubbers either.


Well, you got me there!


I have seen and used snubber across relays. To extinguish DC arcs
across the contacts. Sometimes you have to increase contact life.

Do you know why a snubber extinguishes a DC arc?

Yes. Of course... An R-C-D snubber.

The C has been discharged by the R when the relay opens.
Then, the C, an electrolytic typically, (large-ish C) charges up
instead of the contacts taking the arc. The C is a short across the
contacts when the contacts open.

Then, the R discharges the Cap so it is ready for the next opening.

boB
 

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