Could some electronics guru please help ? Maybe this is a very silly question, so please pardon me. A voltage transformer is used to provide galvanic isolation, in a power supply, amongst other features. Is there another way to achieve galvanic isolation ? Thanks in advance.
Don't know if I could be called a guru, but consider what "galvanic isola tion" means. It means there's no direct current path between two points.
There aren't a lot of *feasible* ways to do this that don't involve a tra nsformer, especially if power transference is the goal. You could go with a Great Big LED on the supply side and a Sufficiently Efficient PV cell on t he load side, but that makes feedback difficult. You could go the motor-gen erator (AKA dynamotor) route, or use a big speaker-dynamic microphone combo .
The common thing is to convert electric power (embodied as current flow) to some intermediate form (light, torque, sound, etc.) that can be reconver ted. Transformers convert AC current to changing magnetic fields and back, and transformers are literally the most efficient machines ever devised. Wh en transferring power, efficiency matters a lot, which is why you don't oft en see speakers and mikes (and the other examples I mentioned) in power sup ply component catalogs.
Motor-generators can approach transformers in efficiency in certain circu mstances but are primarily used to convert DC to AC or to do phase/frequenc y conversion, harmonic rejection, and other tricks rather than specifically just provide isolation.
Do you have a good reason not to want to use a transformer, or were you j ust curious?
** I guess you could say 93 million miles of space provides us with galvanic isolation from the sun - though allowing plenty of EM radiation to arrive and do good things.
A electric motor /generator set isolates the original AC or DC supply from the output too.
One could use air pressure too, by bolting two speakers face to face.
When your purpose is to convey a signal of some type, it is not uncommon to use capacitors to block DC and low frequency signals while chopping the signal of interest to turn it into a higher frequency signal which will pass through the capacitors easily. This will require circuitry on both sides of the interface and so is not as simple as a transformer. But transformers can be bulky, heavy and cost more than a capacitor based approach. Capacitive isolation is usually accomplished by using a pair of chips designed for this purpose, sometimes both on a module in a single package.
Actually both the Sun and the Earth are immersed in a conducting medium (the solar wind) so their relative potential is very nearly zero. (Feynman has a lecture on that.)
The atmosphere is usually a pretty decent insulator, of course, but it's the last few miles that do the isolating, not the first 93 million.
Galvanic isolation in what? If you just want to achieve galvanic isolation between two parts, then don't let them touch. If you want to transmit signals from one to the other while maintaining galvanic isolation, that's a different problem. If you want to conduct energy from one point to another while maintaining galvanic isolation, that's yet another problem.
So, tell us what your question is, and maybe you'll get a sensible answer or two.
Thanks to each of you for your responses. My interest is mostly application/work related and a little academic. We build, amongst other things, power supplies of all varieties -- linear, switched mode( full galvanic isolation) and a few very low current output(20 - 30 mA) reactive ones(zero galvanic isolation). Recently, we were discussing the general issue of galvanic isolation, and one of the items discussed was capacitive isolation. Indeed, it is very much possible to provide galvanic isolation with capacitors for AC, and in fact, capacitive reactance may be used to reduce high mains side current(5A) on manageable isolated load side, as well. May be this scheme could be used in some low power power supplies. Surely this would reduce the time needed to wind transformer coils.
Capacitive *galvanic* isolation from the AC supply only works for signals - not power.
The largest value cap you can safely and legally connect to the AC supply and have a human handle the other end is about 2nF. Even with an earthed metal enclosure, the largest allowed value is about 5nF.
There is a very simple reason PSUs all use magnetics to achieve isolation.
Sure you can use capacitive coupling, especially with balanced feed and using protocols, not containing a DC component (Such as Manchester coding).
If you are going to measure live line currents, what is wrong with a traditional current transformer ?
To do current measurements, you would need a shunt resistor and then couple the difference voltage and drop down to some "safe" levels by capacitors will cause a lot more headache compared to a current transformer. With a current transformer, you get all this for "free" even without a significant voltage drop.
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