Currently, I have the PCB design ready, and I want to add lightning protection to the PCB. Can someone suggest a good, low cost solution for it? I am new to adding lightning protection.
One of the methods I have found is ESD diodes.
Currently the PCB is operating on 12v 1amp. It's all digital signals only.
Answer
As others have suggested lightning protection may not save your electronics, especially if the strike is close by. You cannot protect against every possible case. If lightning strikes your board, it'll become a smoldering hole in the ground. No amount of lightning protection will prevent that.
That being said, the best you can do is protect against nearby lightning strikes. Depending on your system a lightning strike a mile away from your board can generate 400+ volt surges in the system. This is what you need to protect against.
ESD diodes may protect against electrostatic discharge from human touch, but they will do very little in the case of lightning strikes. I have seen even large ESD diodes obliterated due to nearby lightning. What I recommend is a combination of protection, with the first part taking the brunt of the surge, and each successive section taking a little bit more.
The lightning protection circuit I use at work uses a combination of gas discharge tubes, TBU surge suppressors, and transient voltage suppressor (TVS) diodes. The circuit looks like this:
Sometimes you can use inductors instead of the TBUs, but there are always trade-offs. The above is a good place to start, anyway.
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