The Importance Of Current Sense Resistor In Switch Mode Power Supply

Current sense resistor is usually located in the switch mode power
supply section. Newer version of monitor-the b+ (boost) circuit
also have this current sense resistor. In the event you repair electronic
equipment the switch mode power supplies, the current
sensing resistor is connected to the source pin of power FET (field
effect transistor) and the other finish to HOT GROUND. The worth of
current sense resistor is in the range of 0.1 ohm to about ohm.
The values are depends on the design of each power supply.

In monitor power supply where pulse width modulation (pwm) ic UC3842
are used. Pin of this power ic is called I-sense which means
current sense and this pin are connected to source pin of POWER FET.
The purpose of this current sense circuit is for overcurrent protection.
This circuit usually samples the voltage drop across a resistor in series
with the switching feet transistor. If the current rises abnormally due to
some short circuit in the secondary side such as a shorted secondary diode
or horizontal output transistor (HOT), the voltage will exceed a reference
level and shutdown the pulse generator which is the PWM ic. This circuit
provides protection to parts in the event an issue occurs.
In some cases where overload happen-the power section will blow and
most of the time the parts changed are fuse, power feet, pwm ic,
zener diode and current sense resistor.

Do you know that a tiny change in this current sense resistor value
have a great impact on the secondary output? A tiny change in value
say from 0.22 ohm to 0.44 ohm can caused your output voltage to drop
in to half! I have seen plenty of repairer cannot detect this type of
issue (low output voltage) due to that they used analog or digital
meter that don't have the low ohms range. You cannot differentiate
if the low ohms resistor has its value changed by using normal meters.
I personally use the Dick Smith ESR Meter which has the capabilities
to check resistor value down to 0.01 ohm! In the event you don't have this
special meter you may direct replace the current sense resistor
to see if the generated secondary output will back to normal voltage.

Another tip is that if the current sense resistor in the monitor
B+ circuit have changed value it will caused the output in the
boost circuit to become low and you will have a tiny width display
and naturally the high voltage will become low as well. In lieu of
24Kv it becomes 15-18Kv.