Calculation of the number of required PTC elements
Number of required PTC elements (connected in parallel) as function of capacitance and charging
voltage of smoothing or DC link capacitor:
K K factor
K = 1 for DC source
K = 0.96 for 3-phase bridge rectifier
K = 0.76 for single phase bridge rectifier
N Number of required PTC thermistors connected in parallel
C Capacitance of smoothing or DC link capacitor in F
V Charging voltage of capacitor in V
C
th
Heat capacity in J/K
T
ref
Reference temperature of PTC in °C
T
A,max
Expected maximum ambient temperature in °C
In case of large N values the resulting resistance of the parallel PTC network might be too low for
effective limitation of the charging current. In this case a combination of series and parallel
connected PTC thermistors can be used.
Inrush current limiters
PTC thermistors in housing
Page 4 of 13Please read Cautions and warnings and
Important notes at the end of this document.