PROtop — The next level in industrial power supplies

• Weidmüller PROtop power supply with ORing MOSFET technology.
• Parallel operation without redundancy modules for maximum supply reliability.
• Sustainable space savings with extremely easy installation and minimal power losses.
• Communicative and highly efficient PROtop power supply for the most demanding of applications.
   

Switched-mode power supplies have proven themselves in the industry thanks to their long service lives and robust design. Without a reliable power supply, modern plant engineering and process technology would be unimaginable.

But for particularly critical applications, being ‘reliable’ just isn’t enough. Within the chemical, pharmaceutical and process technology industry, system availability is absolutely critical and there must be no failures; the economic damage would be huge.

This level of reliability can be achieved using redundant power supply systems. Redundant systems feature two or more parallel connected power supplies, whereby one power supply can fail without it bringing about a loss of power for the entire load.

Conventional power supply units must be connected in parallel using diode or redundancy modules for safe decoupling. Devices in the PROtop series however can be connected in parallel directly. Its innovative built-in ORing MOSFET technology reliably decouples these devices.

The biggest risk when connecting power supply units in parallel are electrolytic capacitors, which typically are used to smooth the output voltage. These capacitors can be a source of failure if its internal electrolyte dries out. A defective electrolytic capacitor can become a low-impedance path to the output, causing a short circuit and output voltage failure.

When used correctly and with the right high-quality components used in Weidmüller supplies, this problem rarely occurs, however if the device heats up excessively this will reduce the expected life of the capacitors. This issue can be prevented by installing decoupling diodes, which not only provide protection in the event of a dangerous short circuit to ground, but also helps protect against reverse current.

In top-class power supplies such as the PROtop series — Weidmüller uses integrated MOSFET components instead of external diodes.

MOSFET stands for Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor. MOSFET controllers monitor the voltage upstream and downstream from the ORing. In the event of reverse current, a voltage drop or internal short circuit, the internal rectifier is immediately disconnected from the load output.

One of the major advantages of MOSFETs is their efficiency; the power losses are just 10% compared with typical diodes. This low power loss allows ORing MOSFETs to be directly installed into the power supply itself and no separate redundancy modules are required.

A DIP switch can be used to select the operating mode; single or parallel connection. In Single mode, the device behaves like a conventional device with IU characteristic curve. In Parallel mode, the voltage characteristic curve drops by 1 VDC from no-load idle up to the full-rated load. This soft IU effect provides very good long-term stability as voltage of two devices may vary by more than 50 mV over a period of 5 to 10 years and still load share accurately without the need for calibration.

With conventional IU characteristic curves, one power supply would supply the whole load, and the other a minimal amount, causing one supply to age significantly more than the other. This effect is reduced by PROtop’s soft IU characteristic.

In parallel mode, the PROtop power supplies from Weidmüller are therefore just as effective as costly external redundancy modules with active current sharing.

PROtop power supplies benefit from a very compact design. This space-saving design allows for smaller cabinet sizes and therefore reduced overall project costs.

Thanks to PROtop’s high efficiency of up to 95.4%, heat loss is also significantly reduced, helping reduce internal enclosure temperatures and extend component reliability. The high MTBF time (Mean Time Between Failure) of > 1,000,000 hours by the IEC1709 (SN29500) standard, in addition to a long service life, guarantees a high level of return on investment over the entire installed lifespan.

The PROtop supplies boast additional features such as DCL technology (Dynamic Current Limiting). DCL can generate a short impulse overload of up to 600% of the nominal load, which allows PROtop to safely and reliably trip downstream miniature circuit breakers on the output DC circuit.

Weidmüller strives towards the rapid integration of all devices and data to the cloud. The PROtop range therefore is also prepared for networked connectivity with an optional pluggable communication module. This allows for an existing site to have a future upgrade path towards Industry 4.0, with the utilisation of this data to support such features as condition monitoring and remote control.

With its impressive characteristics, PROtop is the first choice wherever reliability, long service life and energy efficiency are indispensable and redundant power supply systems are required, or for systems under harsh environmental conditions. Let’s connect.

For more information: https://www.weidmueller.com/int/products/electronics/power_supplies/protop.jsp.