What does hiccup mean in the context of power supplies?

Hiccup is an overload behaviour at the outputs of power supplies. In the event of an overload or short circuit, the power supply switches off and makes periodic attempts to restart until the fault is rectified.

Hiccup circuits are considered to be too sensitive for use with motors or consumers with large input capacitors. In addition, the parallel connection of power supplies and the charging of batteries can be critical in the event of hiccup overload behaviour. The advantage of Hiccup-mode is a lower short circuit current in the case of a fault.

PULS has developed the conventional Hiccup-mode further to produce HiccupPlus and uses this in its more powerful 1-phase units.