Re: Piezo HV Power Supply

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Jan Florian Wagner by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <jwagner-at-cc.hut.fi>


> Have any of you made a Piezo Electric HVDC power
> Supply?
Well I once considered making a piezo powered coil (piezo from gas lighter
ignition), but the output current is so low that, taken the tank capacitor
leakage current, you'd probably be crunching that piezo crystal till
doomsday.
But maybe you could parallel up a lot of these, say between two wooden
plates. The by t.ex. jumping on the plate you might be able to generate
enough current. (though, it's probably a stupid idea... no idea if it
would work at all... OTOH, these gas lighters cost close to nothing)

> Does anyone know of a place that sells these
> things to the general public? EMCO has them , but
> doesn't sell to the general public.
> http://www.emcohighvoltage-dot-com/ourprods.htm

Looks more like a _driver_ unit for piezo elements. 0.001% output ripple
has its costs ($$$). And at only 1W you won't have much fun with those
anyway.

Try tv flybacks. www.google-dot-com and "tv flyback driver". 

> Edmund Scientific has some piezo rock, could these be
> used to make a HV power supply?

Piezo rock?? Sounds like very big chunks... ;o) High voltages are only
generated by rapidly compressing and decompressing a layer of piezo
crystal. The larger the layer surface the more current you'll get (taken
the "output"-contacts cover the entire surface).
You need a smooth surface for that. "Rock" won't do. In addition, the
crystal should be quite thin.

cheers,
 - Jan

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