just got back from my mates house and nearly filled my pants when i walked into my room cos it was full of acrid smoke so i turned my pcs off as i thought it was probably something going really tits up and opened the window checked all my pcs no problem then was getting really worried and checked all the stuff plugged into pc and a project i was working on had 2 nice long exposed copper wires with the remenants of melted ribbon cable that i was using to connect it to my pcs power dangleing off it and they were still glowing red. looks like i nearly set fire to my room because my power pins shorted the only thing that saved me was a side of my case that i had taken off earlier that stopped the wires touching ne thing important like carpet / power cables (it was the painted side) the reason it didnt cut the pc power was because theribbon cable had a high enough resistance to not trip the rcb in the psu so it just sat there n melted ne one know a circuit that will cut power to anything after it if a certain ammount of current is reached and then show an led to say the power has been cut cos that just really scared me ****less (literally) we r talking brown trousers here
A fuse would work there are such things called polly fuses (I think). I've seen them around, at least. if the circuit it is connected to draws too much current, it shuts off. All you need to do is cycle the power, and it will allow current to flow. Again, never used them, not even sure I'm calling them the right name, but you might look into them.
i think theyre rcbs i was thinking more along the lines of circuits u get in some bench power supplies that show overload using an led and shut the power off
Polyfuse or Multifuse, Maplin used to sell them, there's a link to Bourns version. They're a PTC thermistor that go high-resistance above the spec current, OK for amplifiers. Trouble is, they add a bit of resistance to the circuit, so if you need all 5v or 12v, cure is better than prevention. For 5-10v circuits, you could run 12v through a L200 regulator set to output whatever you want and limit current. The output volts drop if there's a short, so a comparator/led/siren would indicate the fault. Should I move this to disaster mods?
might be an idea but i might drop a powerprotection guide in after ive finished my pcb masking / etching guide
if anyone else cares bout this theres a datasheet for the l200 @ http://draco.rotol.ramk.fi/~crope/elektroniikka/datasheet/L200/l200.pdf
