High Energy Testing

A frind of mine recently had fun testing a custom high energy PSU, too cool not to pass on:

"This photo was taken during routine testing of my 400 joule discharge PSU.

The PSU dumps 4,500V pulses to the load, at a rate of three 400j jolts per second.

The load resistor is a 10-ohm, 450-watt beastie which gets damn hot during testing - more than 200degC, despite the fan.

The load resistor consists of maybe 100 turns of resistance wire. The resistance wire is probably Monel or nichrome. One turn is only insulated from the next by an oxide coating on the wire. At each pulse, there's about 45 volts between adjacent turns. Once the resistor gets hot enough, the insulation starts breaking down. Spectacularly...

I'm glad I had the camera handy!"

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Dave.

Reply to
David L. Jones
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Is that aliasing I see on the spark traces?

D from BC myrealaddress(at)comic(dot)com British Columbia Canada

Reply to
D from BC

On Tue, 23 Dec 2008 21:43:11 GMT, "David L. Jones" put finger to keyboard and composed:

That would be 1200J/s which is 1200W.

No wonder. It is trying to dissipate 1200W.

- Franc Zabkar

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Reply to
Franc Zabkar

"Franc Zabkar" "David L. Jones"

** 4500 volts into 10 ohms equates to a peak dissipation of just over 2 MW

- yep * megawatts * !!!!!

I figure there is a 40uF cap bank charged to 4500 volts somewhere just out of the pic - the charging rate it at about 1 amp to allow 3 blasts per second.

Wonder how many discarded microwave ovens were scavenged to make this lethal set up ?

.... Phil

Reply to
Phil Allison

Yep, two 23uF 5500V caps in parallel.

Two 1100W microwave oven transformers, fed by a stepdown autotransformer to keep the voltage sane and safe (?). This photo shows an early incarnation of the unit, with two 800W MOTs fitted.

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Dave.

Reply to
David L. Jones

What will it be used for?

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RFI-EMI-GUY

The Australian government doesn't want anyone to know!

Dave.

Reply to
David L. Jones

You aren't fooling anyone! Lots of people saw that raggedy old UFO being repainted down at Earl Schibe's. ;-)

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Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

He called it a "boomer"

possibly it's a thumper:

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Reply to
Jasen Betts

Could we test speed camera electronics with it

Reply to
F Murtz

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