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Snubber network modules
🕑 Added 2025-09-02 23:21:00 +0000 UTCA look at a very standard snubber module from AliExpress that is used to help suppress arcing across switch/relay contacts and to protect triacs and prevent false triggering by snubbing fast transients.
Usually these use a 100 ohm resistor in series with a 100nF capacitor. This one is using a higher value resistor, which is fine. The addition of the MOV is interesting.
Comments
John Huntington
Back in the 80s, I did a lot of relay logic and PLC-based control systems, and we used to use snubbers routinely. 20 or so years later, I went back and built some PLC-based stuff controlling some pneumatic valves for a haunted house, and I forgot the snubbers. My little PLC (which is usually bomb-proof) would actually reset and restart itself from the back voltage each time the pneumatic valve was fired. This caused a bizarre (and hilarious) loop where it would execute a head chop effect, crash from the back EMF, reset, execute a head chop, crash and reset, over and over, etc. I got out the laptop looking for an error in my code, and then finally recalled my electrical basics from two decades earlier. I installed a snubber, and after that the thing ran perfectly for years.
Ymir the Frost Giant
a series of 'building block' vids like this would be very welcome.
