A power regulator is a panel-mounted power adjustment unit that uses thyristors (also known as silicon-controlled rectifiers) and their trigger control circuits to adjust the load power.
Thyristors (also called silicon-controlled rectifiers, abbreviated as SCR), which play an important role in electronic equipment, are widely used in various production sectors and are becoming an indispensable device for automation.
In recent temperature control, the use of thyristors has obviously become widespread. However, there are different names for it in China, such as thyristor regulator, silicon controlled rectifier regulator, thyristor control instrument, silicon controlled rectifier control instrument, thyristor voltage regulator, silicon controlled rectifier voltage regulator, thyristor power regulator, silicon controlled rectifier power regulator, voltage regulator, power regulator, thyristor AC power control instrument, silicon controlled rectifier AC power control instrument, power regulator, power control instrument, voltage regulator, voltage control instrument, etc. One of the names is power regulator, which is also one of the more common names in China.
This document presents an economical and reliable power regulator. The three-phase thyristor power and voltage regulator utilizes digital circuits to trigger thyristors, enabling voltage regulation and power control. Voltage regulation adopts a phase-shift control mode, while power control offers two options: fixed-cycle power regulation and variable-cycle power regulation.
The control board is integrated with multiple functional features, including a phase-locked loop (PLL) synchronization circuit, automatic phase discrimination, phase-failure protection, soft startup, soft shutdown, heat sink over-temperature detection, constant current output, current limitation, over-current protection, and serial working status indication.
Two triggering methods are available for the control board: direct triggering of thyristor modules and triggering of phase-shift type solid-state relays (SSRs).
Key characteristics of the control board: 12-bit A/D converter, high output linearity, and low output starting control point.
The three-phase power regulator consists of a trigger board, a dedicated heat sink, a cooling fan, an enclosure, and other components. The core part comprises a control board, a thyristor module or a flat thyristor assembly, and an operation panel with communication functionality; the heat dissipation system adopts a high-efficiency heat dissipation and low-noise cooling fan. The entire unit integrates all the functions of the control board. The current capacity of the unit ranges from 25A to 3000A.
The power regulator is used in conjunction with an intelligent PID regulator or PLC with 0-12V and 4-20mA signals; it is mainly applied to heating control of industrial electric furnaces, and soft-start energy-saving operation control of large fans and water pumps. The load types can be three-phase resistive loads, three-phase inductive loads, and three-phase transformer loads; the three-phase loads can be neutral-grounded loads, neutral-ungrounded loads, internal delta-connected loads, and external delta-connected loads.