Current limits can protect both upstream circuits and downstream. A circuit can fail drawing
excess current or a short or an open or anything in between. A current limit can leave a
load still active while limiting its max allowed current, or it can make the downstream
load fail to operate due to voltage collapse. You can have fixed current limits like being
discussed (graph on left) in this thread, or even foldback current (graph on right) limits :
View attachment 139475
Graph on left notice when in current limit the load voltage can range from
Vconst to 0, depends on what current limit circuit and load are doing. The
current limit V vertical portion of graph can also have more of a slope to
it, depends on how its implemented.
Regards, Dana.