More on damping..

[WM6]

There are hundreds of posts on damping a coil and I have read many of them.....even ones imbedded in other topics. I'm sure this has already been contemplated but I can't find much on the concept of shunting the back EMF with a semiconductor to bring it down fast. ex; A diode in parrellel with the damping resistor. Something similar is done to relay coils to make them respond faster to a change in state. Can anybody elaborate? Good/bad idea? If it is being done, what component best suited for this?

As far I remember this was discussed by Thinkerer and others (maybe in Aziz thread about using PC as MD). Do some search.

[Ism]

There are hundreds of posts on damping a coil and I have read many of them.....even ones imbedded in other topics. I'm sure this has already been contemplated but I can't find much on the concept of shunting the back EMF with a semiconductor to bring it down fast. ex; A diode in parrellel with the damping resistor. Something similar is done to relay coils to make them respond faster to a change in state. Can anybody elaborate? Good/bad idea? If it is being done, what component best suited for this?