Hi All,
I was up late last night working on an idea for an IGBT replacement
for a conventional coil spark gap. I woke right up at 2PM this
afternoon (semi-retired people can do that :O))) and started
getting some parts and wrote a paper up on it here:
http://hot-streamer.com/temp/Sidac-Gap-1.pdf
It is not super cheap, but not insanely expensive either. Might be
great for lower voltage MOT systems with E-bay big IGBTs...
There has been ZERO real testing so don't get over excited ;-))
It basically uses IGBTs fired by strings of SIDACs. Each section
should be fully independent and they can be put in series as needed
for any voltage. One could "tap" the string for various power
levels. Power losses seem very pleasant.
It will take some real world testing to see if and how well it
works, but the things seems sound. It is an easy and simple circuit
that hopefully not much can go wrong with :o))
Parts on order...
Cheers,
Terry