Patent ID: 8547071

Claim:
A rotary electric machine with a rotatable rotor, the rotary electric machine comprising: at least two-phase stator windings; a rectifying unit including, for each of the at least two-phase stator windings, a pair of a high-side rectifying element and a low-side rectifying element, at least the low-side rectifying element including a switching element with a diode connected in parallel thereto, the rectifying unit configured to rectify an alternating current voltage induced in each of the at least two-phase stator windings; and a load-dump protector configured to: monitor an output voltage of the rectifying unit; turn on the switching element as the low-side rectifying element for at least one of the at least two-phase stator windings when the output voltage exceeds a first threshold voltage due to a load dump; determine a turnoff timing of the switching element as the low-side rectifying element for the at least one of the at least two-phase stator windings after the output voltage, which exceeded the first threshold voltage once, falls below a second threshold voltage, the second threshold voltage being set to be lower than the first threshold voltage; and turn off, at the determined turnoff timing, the switching element as the low-side rectifying element for the at least one of the at least two-phase stator windings.