High voltage dc dc converter driver#

Caution - fire hazard, electric shock hazard I would also say that a secondary shut-down circuit would be needed should a single-fault arise. It will need a reasonably sophisticated control system that involves pulse width modulating the drive to the primary and decent monitoring of the output to ensure you stay regulated.

High voltage dc dc converter driver#

More than likely (given the power), you'll need a H-bridge driver which will apply nearly 24Vp-p to your primary winding and the turns ratio will be 40:1 to produce +400VDC. The output fed a multi-stage cockcroft-walton voltage multiplier to take the output up from about 2000Vrms to 50kV. Input turns, from memory were about 6 so turns-ratio of about 1:200. It was a resonant transformer circuit so that was no problem but more than 1200 turns and you were on the downward slope of decreasing efficiency. The step-up transformer was a large ferrite operating at 50kHz and, with about 1200 turns on the secondary you were starting to hit self-resonance. A 24Vp-p input at a frequency of (say) 10kHz will, under no-load conditions, produce an output of 960Vp-p which after rectification/smoothing is going to be about 475VDC.īut, high turns ratios and efficiencies don't always go hand-in-hand - I'm thinking of X-ray tube power supplies that I've used - they were 50KV/4mA output (200W). The conversion from one voltage level to another voltage lever is done with some power losses. Once it is accepted that a transformer is a requirement, any turns ratio from a 100:1 (step-down) to 1:100 (step-up) is just a matter-of-fact (see comment below next paragraph).īecause a transformer is necessary to economically achieve the power output, the turns ratio is going to be an easily achievable 40:1. If we have two electrical systems, operating at different voltage levels, one high level (140 V) and another one low level (14 V), a DC-DC converter can convert the voltage between them, from high to low or from low to high. At these sorts of power levels you'd be hard-pushed to find a booster that doesn't use one. Not using a transformer will limit the power you can handle in stepping up the voltage.

I say this because, given the powers you require, a transformer is the most efficient way to do the step-up from 12V to 400V. In general, a single boost circuit is preferable to using two boosters in series.