DS

Silicon-controlled rectifiers (SCR) are solidstate semiconductor devices that are usually used in power switching circuits. SCR controls the output signal by switching it ‘on’ or ‘off,’ thereby controlling the power to the load in context. The two primary modes of SCR control are phase-angle fired—where a partial waveform is passed every half cycle—and zerocrossing fired—where a portion of the complete waveforms is passed to regulate the power. In the phase-angle controller, the firing pulse is delayed to turn on the SCR in the middle of every half cycle. This means that every time a part of an AC cycle is cut, the power to the load also gets cut. To deliver more or less power to the load, the phase angle is increased or decreased, thereby controlling the throughput power. There are several ways to control the firing angle of SCR. This article describes a microcontroller AT89C51-based phase-angle controller. A microcontroller can be programmed to fire SCR over the full range of half cy...