4 power supply monitor with relay alarm

Thread Starter

mcgyvr

Joined Oct 15, 2009
5,394
Looking for some help on creating a circuit to be able to monitor 4 power supplies (could be any combination of +12V, -12V, +24V, -24V power supplies that all share a common ground) and provide a single relay contact closure in the event that any one of those power supplies turns off.. I know I can do it with 5 or so relays and some diodes but hoping to get a better (read..slightly lower cost transistor or similar) solution

I started going down this road and found out it only works for specific situations.. All neg polarity if supply ground leg is disconnected or all pos polarity if other leg is disconnected..
Just looking for other suggestions..
4XSCHEM.PNG
 

ian field

Joined Oct 27, 2012
6,536
Looking for some help on creating a circuit to be able to monitor 4 power supplies (could be any combination of +12V, -12V, +24V, -24V power supplies that all share a common ground) and provide a single relay contact closure in the event that any one of those power supplies turns off.. I know I can do it with 5 or so relays and some diodes but hoping to get a better (read..slightly lower cost transistor or similar) solution

I started going down this road and found out it only works for specific situations.. All neg polarity if supply ground leg is disconnected or all pos polarity if other leg is disconnected..
Just looking for other suggestions..
View attachment 115096
Quite a lot of ATX PSUs have a common off the shelf quad comparator driving the fault shutdown - its easy to see if the chip is present, and not all that difficult to hand trace the circuit.

A couple of the thresholds might be just right - a few minutes with a calculator should sort the others out.
 

ian field

Joined Oct 27, 2012
6,536
I can't access/modify the power supplies at all..
So how are you going to monitor the voltage?!

I would've thought someone who calls themselves; "mcgyver" should be able to figure out opening an old ATX PSU and copying the voltage monitor comparators......................

As for how you connect those comparators to a PSU can't access at all - well that's a tricky one.
 

ian field

Joined Oct 27, 2012
6,536
Is there at least one supply voltage that's constant to use to power the circuit?
The supply to a voltage comparator doesn't have to be constant - it just has to remain within the chip's Vcc requirements.

A typical Vref might be 1.25V fed by any rail that's always more than that (you can wired OR all the rails with diodes) and any rails that vary are dropped down to the same as Vref with divider resistors.
 

ScottWang

Joined Aug 23, 2012
7,397
@eetech00:
There are two errors in the circuit, the polarity of input led of pc817 in the -12V and -24V.

Don't you think the current flows through the input led of pc817 could be too less?

Collector current:
If = 5 mA, Vce = 5V, Ic = 2.5 - 30 mA

Collector-emitter saturation voltage:
Vce(sat) = 0.1v, 0.2 v, If = 20 mA, Ic = 1mA.
 

Dodgydave

Joined Jun 22, 2012
11,284
U2, U4 opto leds are drawn the wrong way round, otherwise it should work.

Another solution would be a quad nand gate,if any of the inputs has a voltage removed it would give a high output to give an alarm,.
 
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