Patent ID: 7268992

Claim:
A power supply in which a feed voltage (U s ) is routed through at least one longitudinal branch to at least one output, the at least one branch having a disconnect fuse formed as a controlled semiconductor switch (SW 1 ) and a monitoring unit (UWE) being set up to supply a disconnect signal (s 1 ) to the semiconductor switch when there are changes in voltage or current beyond pre-defined tolerances, wherein at least one series circuit of an auxiliary semiconductor switch (H 1 A) and a ballast resistor (RA 1 ), is connected in parallel to the main semiconductor switch (SW 1 ), auxiliary semiconductor switch (H 1 A) is triggered by the monitoring unit (SWE), and the semiconductor switches (SW 1 , HIA) are of the self-locking FET type, the gate of the main semiconductor switch (SW 1 ) being connected to an output of the monitoring unit (UWE) via a Zener diode (ZD 1 ), and the gate of the auxiliary semiconductor switch (H 1 A) being directly connected to the output of the monitoring unit (UWE) and being triggered thereby, so that a change of the output voltage of the monitoring unit (UWE) towards a locking of the semiconductor switches (SW 1 , H 1 A) causes the main switch (SW 1 ) to change over into the linear mode, according to the value of the Zener voltage of diode (ZD 1 ), sooner than the auxiliary switch (H 1 A), which takes over so much current from the main switch (SW 1 ) as is allowed by its own internal resistance and its ballast series resistor (RA 1 ) and in the event of an overload absorbs a substantial portion of the overload current in the branch.