From the course: Electronics Foundations: Semiconductor Devices

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Protect against reverse current

Protect against reverse current

From the course: Electronics Foundations: Semiconductor Devices

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Protect against reverse current

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- One of the quickest ways to accidentally destroy an electronic device is to connect it to the power supply backwards. It's an easy mistake to make. If the power connector is not polarized if you're not paying attention you might accidentally mix up the red and black power wires or maybe you somehow stick batteries into a device backwards. Those are all mistakes that I've personally made at some point in time in the past. It's a good idea to include protection against reverse current if it could potentially damage your device. Fortunately, that's easy to do by connecting a diode in series with the positive side of a DC power source. This reverse protection diode ensures that the current will only flow in the forward direction. So the DC power source will only ever apply a positive voltage to the circuit. If the power source is connected in the correct orientation current will flow through the diode to the device and…

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