How To Make Sense Of Sense Resistors
by Dennis Feucht, Innovatia Laboratories, Cayo, Belize, How2Power Today, Apr 15 2020
Focus:
This article is a mini-tutorial on fundamental concepts for power-circuit design involving
sense resistors. It discusses the problems that must be understood to obtain accurate
measurements with sense resistors including temperature effects, properties of resistor
materials, make-versus-buy options, and Kelvin sensing. More-detailed discussions follow on how
to measure resistor parasitics. Two methods for measuring the parasitic series inductance of
sensor resistors—frequency sweep and pulse-response methods—are explained to
enable designers to properly evaluate and characterize sense resistors for use in power supply
circuits. These methods employ an oscilloscope, sine and square-wave generators, and basic
probing accessories. Discussions note practical or typical values of the parameters discussed.
What you’ll learn:
- How to obtain accurate measurements when using sense resistors in power supply circuits
- How to measure the parasitic inductance of sense resistors using either the frequency sweep or pulse-response methods
- How to make sense resistors using manganin wire
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