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Chopper (electronic)


In electronics, a chopper circuit is used to refer to numerous types of electronic switching devices and circuits used in power control and signal applications. A chopper is a switching device that converts fixed DC input to a variable DC output voltage directly. Essentially, a chopper is an electronic switch that is used to interrupt one signal under the control of another.

In power electronics applications, since the switching element is either fully on or fully off, its losses are low, and the circuit can provide high efficiency. However, the current supplied to the load is discontinuous and may require smoothing or a high switching frequency to avoid undesirable effects. In signal processing circuits, use of a chopper stabilizes a system against drift of electronic components; the original signal can be recovered after amplification or other processing by a synchronous demodulator that essentially un-does the "chopping" process.

Choppers may be classified on several bases.

Most modern uses also use alternative nomenclature which helps to clarify which particular type of circuit is being discussed. These include:

For all the chopper configurations operating from a fixed DC input voltage, the average value of the output voltage is controlled by periodic opening and closing of the switches used in the chopper circuit. The average output voltage can be controlled by different techniques namely:

In pulse-width modulation the switches are turned on at a constant chopping frequency. The total time period of one cycle of output waveform is constant. The average output voltage is directly proportional to the ON time of chopper. The ratio of ON time to total time is defined as duty cycle. It can be varied between 0 and 1 or between 0 and 100%. Pulse-width modulation (PWM), or pulse-duration modulation (PDM), is a technique used to encode a message into a pulsing signal. Although this modulation technique can be used to encode information for transmission, its main use is to allow the control of the power supplied to electrical devices, especially to inertial loads such as motors. The average value of voltage (and current) fed to the load is controlled by turning the switch between supply and load on and off at a fast rate. The longer the switch is on compared to the off periods, the higher the total power supplied to the load. The PWM switching frequency has to be much higher than what would affect the load (the device that uses the power), which is to say that the resultant waveform perceived by the load must be as smooth as possible. Typically switching has to be done several times a minute in an electric stove, 120 Hz in a lamp dimmer, from few kilohertz (kHz) to tens of kHz for a motor drive and well into the tens or hundreds of kHz in audio amplifiers and computer power supplies.


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