Hello Everyone,
Embarrassingly enough (kinda but I do believe that you should ask anything you don't know) I am an engineer that doesn't understand the concept of the zener diode that well and clamping. So I know that the zener clamps at a zener voltage and requires a set amount of current to do the clamping. What I don't understand is why the resistor always between the power and the zener? I know it's there to limit the current to the zener but that also limits the current to the load as well. So you would have to size the resistor huge if you are using a large current. So the obvious question to me is "why not just move the resistor to the other side?" Does the zener fail that fast during the start of conduction that you're not allowed to? Are there some other system variables at work? Please let me know.
Embarrassingly enough (kinda but I do believe that you should ask anything you don't know) I am an engineer that doesn't understand the concept of the zener diode that well and clamping. So I know that the zener clamps at a zener voltage and requires a set amount of current to do the clamping. What I don't understand is why the resistor always between the power and the zener? I know it's there to limit the current to the zener but that also limits the current to the load as well. So you would have to size the resistor huge if you are using a large current. So the obvious question to me is "why not just move the resistor to the other side?" Does the zener fail that fast during the start of conduction that you're not allowed to? Are there some other system variables at work? Please let me know.