Programmable High Voltage Power Supply

The idea of designing a programmable, high voltage power supply came to me after hobbling together all of the gak that I needed for reforming old electrolytic capacitors.  There are a few good examples circuits out there for home-built reformers,  but none of them were exactly what I was looking for.  I’m into sure how digital or programmable I want this to be, but my thought was that if there was at least some logging capabilities, I could easily plot curves of the process and maybe tease out some interesting trends.

Without thinking too much, I’m going to spitball a list of possible features:

  • 0 – 600v DC
  • 10-20mA max, with current limiting.  20mA is probably a lot for reforming, but maybe this would also see use as a general lab supply
  • Current & voltage meters
  • Logging current, voltage setting, and voltage across terminals, with timestamps (rtc needed?)
  • Discharge resistor (variable ?)
  • Ability to set a maximum voltage setting, and automatic incrementing of voltage when current drops below a threshold
  • Voltage regulation?  This probably won’t have the effect I’ll usually want when reforming (i.e. I wouldn’t want the supply chase to match a target level),  so perhaps it wants to be disable-able,  if that’s even possible.

Some questions:

  • Form factor – rack mount gear is cool,  but often impractical 
  • UI – keypad entry? Menus? 
  • Meters?  Ideally analog, if possible, with switchable ranges.
  • Tube or solid state?

Research:

Heathkit PS-3 Power supply schematic – I feel like there may actually be one of these up at the “upstate home for wayward oscilloscopes” (aka, Mom’s basement)  as a side note, I also have an unbuilt Heathkit PS-4 waiting for a nice rainy day (or my retirement) </brag>

heathkit-ps-3-power-supply_schematic

This guy built a beast of a high voltage power supply

Repair log of a Heathkit IP-17
Antiqueradios thread on a Heathkit IP-17 repair

Side note – I’m trying to sort out the difference between blog posts, pages(or posts) about actual projects, and pages(or posts) about specific pieces of equipment, so there will likely be some organizational turmoil over the coming months.

To be continued….

 

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