Microcontroller Based Low Cost Controlled Rectifiers Training Module for Power Electronics Laboratory

The junior level Power Electronics Lab is an important component of Electrical Engineering curriculum at University of The Punjab, Lahore. It serves to familiarize the students with the design simulation and analysis of power electronic converters. In this paper, design and implementation of a low cost microcontroller based controlled rectifier training module for single-phase system to be utilized in Power Electronics Lab is presented. The module comprises of various units. The first unit is zero crossing detector followed by the pulse shifting unit, pulse shaping unit, pulse isolation unit, thyristor unit, diode unit, load unit, current sense unit, voltage sense unit and finally rpm sense unit. Various experiments are designed to study the different configurations of the controlled rectifiers. These configurations include half converter, semi converter, full converter, dual converter, series semi converter and series full converter. Some types of AC voltage controllers can also be studied. This system may readily be extended to study three phase-controlled rectifiers.