Re: rectifier stack experts?

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

Original poster: "Craig Fuller by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <cbfull-at-hotmail-dot-com>

Ken,

While reading a power supply design book some time ago, I learned that you 
can rectify the voltage using peak-to-peak values, with some percentage of 
over rating.  That's 15kV times 1.414 = 21,213V times 1.1 for 10% safety 
margin (you should probably go higher than 10%).  Now here's the part that 
most overlook.  If you are connecting this to a capacitor, you need to 
multiply this number by 2 AGAIN because once the cap is fully charged, the 
peak voltage will tend to ADD to the cap voltage (i.e. 21,213 times 2, or 
42,426 volts!)  This makes sense when you think about it.



>From: "Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
>To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
>Subject: rectifier stack experts?
>Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2002 17:58:33 -0600
>
>Original poster: "Crow Leader by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" 
><tesla-at-lists.symmetric-dot-net>
>
>Greetings,
>
>Is anybody on this list mega-wise when it comes to designing a compensated
>rectifier stack? I had an amusing failure with 34 out of 40 rectifiers
>shorting out in my last "50kV per leg" bridge rectifier. While the diode
>vendors don't mind selling me more, they suggest looking into making some
>type of C or RC compensated string of diodes, possible even with MOVs, but
>don't really know about how to make one that will work the first time. I
>found one commercial vendor of such items, but it looks like what I want
>will be either $400 or $800 which is more than I'd like to spend on a
>component that sounds so simple, eventhough it may not be.
>
>I wish to rectify 15kV at 60Hz at a few hundred mA for now, but want it to
>handle several amps at the same voltage in the future.
>
>KEN