AC power control with thyristor using pic microcontroller.

AC power control with thyristor using pic microcontroller is designed to control AC power
flow across load. This project is designed using PIC16F877A microcontroller and Zero
crossing detection circuit. Phase angle control method is used for AC power control with
thyristor. Thyristor is used as a switch to control flow of power. PIC16F877A microcontroller is
used to detect zero crossing and to generate pulse signals at a specific angle for thyristor. It is
used in many power electronics project. Many final year electrical projects are based on this
ac power control.

AC power control with thyristor

you may also like to read triac firing angle control circuit. Lets start with basic understanding of
AC power control with thyritor. For example if a load is connected to AC power supply through
a switch as shown in figure below. Triac is used as a switch. Triac is a kind of thyrsitor. In triac
two back to back thyristors are connected to each other.

The AC power flow to load can be controlled by controlling rms value of voltage appearing across
load as shown in above figure. This method is also called AC voltage controller method. In AC
voltage controller, rms value of voltage appearing across load is controlled by varying the firing
angle of triac gate signal as shown in figure above. As you know power in AC circuits power (
Active power) is calculated by using following formula:
P = V I cos() Where cos() is power factor
To make this project more easier we used only resistive load. By making little bit changes in code,
you can also use it with inductive loads. In resistive loads power factor is always unity. So cos()
= 1 and above formula becomes:

P = V I = V V/ R = V/R

P= V /R

So according to above formula, power across load is directly proportional to square of voltage. By
controlling voltage across load, power can also be calculated. As I have mentioned earlier, AC
voltage controllers are used to control rms value of voltage across loads. AC voltage controller
circuits have many applications in industry like tap changers in transformers, induction
heating, speed control of induction motor and lights control.
Types of AC voltage controller
Two types of AC voltage controller are used for AC power control with thyristor. Breif explanation
of both of them is given below:

Pulse skipping modulation control : In this method load is connected to ac power supply for few cycles
and then supply is turned off for few cycles. AC power supply is controlled by controlling firing angle
of thyristor.
Phase angle control : In phase angle control method, loads are connected across AC supply for specific
portion of positive and negative cycle. Specific portion depends on timing of thristor firing angle.
In AC power control with thyristor project, phase angle control method is used to control flow of
power across load by controlling voltage. It is also used in charger devices.
Circuit diagram of AC power control with thyristor
Circuit diagram of AC power control with thyristor using pic microcontroller. I have also made
necessary comments in figure.

PIC16F877A microcontroller is used to detect zero crossing of AC voltage and PIC16F877A

microcontroller generate pulse for triac a specific delay after zero crossing detection. I have also
posted a article on zero crossing detection using PIC16F877A microcontroller. For more
understanding about zero crossing detection check following article:

Zero crossing detection using pic microcontroller

In this project I have used a delay of 2ms. What its means? Its means microcontroller will generate
a pulse after zero crossing detection with 2ms delay. You can adjust the delay either by manually
entering its value in code or you can also use variable resistor to adjust value of delay by using
analog to digital converter of PIC16F877A microcontroller. There is not too much science involve
involved in above circuit diagram of ac power control with thirstier. First of all microcontroller
checks zero crossing detection and then fired triac angle with 2ms delay after zero crossing
detection.

AC power control with thyristor program

Code for AC power controller project is written using Mikro C pro compiler. Simply put this code
in mikro C compiler after creating new project. 11.059MHz Crsytal is used for this project.

Necessary comments are also made in above code. Code for AC power control is self-explanatory,
but if you still feel any issue, feel free to comment on this post with your issues. This code is only
for 2ms delay in firing angle. If you need code with variable firing angle control circuit using
microcontroller, you can avail my project service by contact me.
Power factor measurement using PIC16F877A microcontroller

In this article, I have discussed a method to measure a power factor using pic microcontroller.
Power factor measurement using pic microcontroller project is design to measure power factor
with the help of pic microcontroller and displays it to LCD.Improvements can be done in this
project by adding functionality of automatic power factor correction using capacitors. After
reading this article, you will be able to answer following questions?
What is power factor?
Why we need of power factor correction?
How to improve power factor?
Advantages of power factor improvement?
Power factor measurement using pic microcontroller.
Automatic power factor correction using pic microcontroller.

What is power factor?

Lets start with basic introduction of power factor. Power factor is basically a ration of real power
absorbed by electrical circuit to total appearent power consumed by electrical circuit. In other
words, power factor is a ratio of real power and appearent power. Many inductive loads are used
in power system. Inductive loads need reactive power for their proper operation. So main cause of
power factor in electrical power system is reactance. Capacitors provide reactive power. In other
words, capacitors generate reactive power and inductors consume reactive power.

Why we need to improve power factor?

Reactive power is basically a burn on power system and transmission lines. Reactive power travel
back and forth from power generation point to load and hence a lost of electrical energy. Now a
days inductive loads are used in domestic as well as industrial applications. Low power factor
cause losses in transmission line and voltage drops in transmission lines. Need of electrical power
is increasing day by day, so cant afford to waste power in transmission line. Therefore we need
to improve power factor of electrical power system and loads. By providing reactive power locally
at the load side, we can increase power factor of system and power factor of machines. Hence
Power factor improvement is local issue. As I have already mentioned, capacitors are source of
reactive power. So capacitors can be used to improve power factor or to provide reactive power to
load locally instead of from power generations ends.

How to improve power factor:

Before understanding what is power factor? Let me tell you what is good power factor? Unity is
ideal power factor. Resistive loads have unity power factor. But all electrical loads are not fully
resistive. Therefore we need to improve power factor of these load. Power factor can be increased
by adding power factor correction capacitor to loads. Capacitors provide reactive power to load
locally . There are many methods have been developed for power factor improvement. But in this
article, you will learn about power factor measurement and correction using microcontroller.

Advantages of power factor improvement?

Major advantages of power factor improvement are given below:

It reduces the losses in transmission lines and cables

It reduces the voltage drop in transmission lines and cables
It reduces the burden on power generation utility companies

Power factor measurement using pic

microcontroller:
Power factor is basically due to lag and lead concept of current and voltage. When current
waveform lags behinds the voltage by some angle, power factor will be lagging and when current
wave form leads the voltage by some angle, power factor will be leading. Inductor causes a lagging
power factor and capacitors produces leading power factor. Hence capacitors improve power factor
by providing leading VARS or reactive power to system which cancels the lagging power factor
effect of inductors.

Now the question is how to measure power factor using microcontroller? To measure power factor
we need to measure phase angle difference between voltage and current wave form. The cosine of
this phase angle is power factor. Power factor is also represented by following formula:
 Power factor = Cos ()

Where is basically phase angle difference between voltage and current wave form. So we need
to develop a method to measure phase angle difference between voltage and current wave form. I
have used zero concept to measure time difference between current and voltage wave form.
Time difference between two signal or waves can also be used to measure power factor. I will
discuss more about it in later part of this article. Now lets proceed further with zero crossing
detection?
What is zero crossing detection?
Zero crossing detection is used to detect sine wave zero crossing from positive half cycle to
negative half cycle or negative half cycle. To measure time difference between two waves we need
to detect zero crossing of two waves. There are many methods available to measure zero crossing
detection. But I have already posted an article on zero crossing detection using pic microcontroller.
I have explained zero crossing detection concept in following article. So I recommend you to read
following article first before reading further.

How to detect zero crossing using pic microcontroller

I assume that after reading an article on zero crossing detection, you got the idea about how to
detect zero crossing of sine waves using pic microcontroller. In zero power factor measurement
circuit, two zero crossing detection circuits are used. One for voltage wave form and other for
current wave form. After detecting zero crossing for voltage wave and sine wave we need to
measure time difference between zero crossing of voltage and current wave forms.

How to measure time difference two wave for

power factor measurement:
Now I will discuss how to measure time difference between two waves. It is very easy to measure
time difference between two waves with the help of hardware external interrupt pin of
microcontroller. Hardware interrupt is used to detect zero crossing signal. Microcontroller internal
timer is used to measure time. When external interrupt occur on microcontroller pin time will start
and after another external interrupt time will stop counting. One interrupt will be generated with
the help of current signal and other interrupt with the help voltage signal zero crossing. Timer
value will be stored in one variable. This variable value is basically a time difference between two
waves. For better results take 20-30 values and take their average.

How to find angel using time difference:

So using time difference we can easily calculate phase angle using below given formulas :

Time difference = average values of timer /1000 ;

In above equation 1000 is used to convert time into seconds because half of the sine wave is
about 10us and there will 1000 counts per second.

= time difference * 2;

Power factor = Cos ( ) ;

After that time difference is multiplied with 2 to convert it into radians and phase angle in radians.
After that by using power factor formula we can easily calculate power factor. All these
calculations are done in programming by writing a code in microcontroller.

Power factor measurement circuit using pic

microcontroller:
Circuit diagram of power factor measurement circuit using pic microcontroller is given
below. Voltage transformer and current transformer is used in power factor measurement circuit.
 power factor measurement circuit using pic microcontroller
In above circuit diagram. voltage transformer is used to step down voltage. Because
microcontroller can not read high voltage 220v AC directly. Current transformer is used to get
wave form of current wave. magnitude of current depend on the load and voltage almost remains
constant. After that these signals are fed to zero crossing detector circuit using LM358 operational
amplifier. I have already posted an article on zero crossing detection using operational amplifier.
For more information about zero crossing detector circuit check following article:

Zero crossing detection using op amp

Microcontroller PIC16F877A read zero crossings of voltage and current waveform and start timer
according to zero crossing detection of current and voltage wave form. PC16F877A
microcontroller is main part of this project. In reads zero crossing detection. measures time
difference and calulate power factor according to above given formulas.After calculating power
factor, PIC16F877A microcontroller displays it on 16 X2 LCD.