Posts Tagged ‘holding current’

Lowering power consumption tip #3 – Using Relays

Monday, November 2nd, 2009 Nigel Jones

This is the third in a series of tips on lowering power consumption in embedded systems. Today’s topic concerns relays. It may be just the markets that I operate in, but relays seem to crop up in a very large percentage of the designs that I work on. If this is true for you, then today’s tip should be very helpful in reducing the power consumption of your system.

I’ll start by observing that relays consume a lot of power – at least in comparison to silicon based components, and thus anything that can be done to minimize their power consumption typically has a large impact on the overall consumption of the system. That being said, usually the thing that will reduce a relay’s power consumption the most is to simply use a latching relay. (A latching relay is designed to maintain its state once power is removed from its coil. Thus it only consumes power when switching – much like a CMOS gate). However, latching relays cannot be used in circumstances where it is important that the relays revert to a known state in the event of a loss of power. Most embedded systems that I work on require the relays to have this property. Thus in these cases, what can be done to minimize the relay’s power consumption?

If you look at the data sheet for a relay, you will see a plethora of parameters. However, the one of most interest is the operating current. (Relays are current operated devices. That is it is the presence of current flowing through the relay coil that generates a magnetic field that in turn produces the magneto-magnetic force that moves the relay armature). This current is the current required to actuate (pull-in) the relay. Not much can be done about this. However, once a relay is actuated, the current required to hold the relay in this state is typically anywhere between a third and two thirds less than the pull-in current. This current is called the holding current – and may or may not appear on the data sheet. Despite the fact that the holding current is so much less than the pull-in current, almost every design I see (including many of mine I might add) eschews the power savings that are up for grabs and instead simply puts the pull-in current through the relay the whole time the relay is activated.

So why is this? Well, the answer is that it turns out it isn’t trivial to switch from the pull-in current to the holding current. To see what I mean – read on!

The typical hardware to drive a relay consists of a microcontroller port pin connected to gate of an N channel FET (BJT’s are used, but if you are interested in reducing power, a FET is the way to go). The FET in turn is connected to the relay coil. Thus to turn the relay on, one need only configure the microcontroller port pin as an output and drive it high – a trivial exercise.

To use the holding current approach, you need to do the following.

  1. Connect the FET to a microcontroller port pin that can generate a PWM waveform. The hardware is otherwise unchanged.
  2. To turn the relay on, drive the port pin high as before.
  3. Delay for the pull in time of the relay. The pull in time is typically of the order of 10 – 100 ms.
  4. Switch the port pin over to a PWM output. The PWM depth of course dictates the effective current through the relay, and this is how you set the holding current. The other important parameter is the PWM frequency. Its period should be at most one tenth of the pull-in time. For example, a relay that has a pull in time of 10 ms, would require a PWM period of no more than 1 ms, giving a PWM frequency of 1 kHz. You can of course use higher frequencies – but then you are burning unnecessary power in charging and discharging the gate of the FET.
  5. To turn the relay off, you must disable the PWM output and then drive the port pin low.

Looking at this, it really doesn’t seem too hard. However compared to simply setting and clearing a port pin, it’s certainly a lot of work. Given that management doesn’t normally award points for reducing the power consumption of an embedded system, but does reward getting the system delivered on time, it’s hardly surprising that most systems don’t use this technique. Perhaps this post will start a tiny movement towards rectifying this situation.

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