RE: Series connection of Mosfets/IGBTs

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

Original poster: "Steve Conner" <steve.conner-at-optosci-dot-com> 

 >Anybody in this forum tried series connection of MOSFETs/IGBTs and increase
 >the supply voltage to greater than 2KV ?

Gary Johnson is your man. He used a half-bridge with four series IGBTs in
each arm, running off a small pole pig, to base-drive his resonator
directly. He doesn't post here AFAIK, but a quick google should turn up his
website.

Also, the pulsed power group at my old university made a series IGBT stack
that can switch 10kV at a few hundred amps. I heard they don't use it much
because it's too unreliable (blows an IGBT now and again)

Personally, I think series connection is totally pointless for SSTC work. I
don't think there's anything magic about higher voltages, since I saw Jimmy
H's DRSSTC. It has sparked longer than Gary Johnson's pig-powered monster,
which makes it now the best performing SSTC in the world, with a supply
voltage of only 350V.

If anything _is_ magic, it's the series tuned primary, because it gets rid
of magnetizing current, and at the same time allows decent power transfer
with relatively loose coupling, so you can use a small low-down primary that
sits out of the way of flashovers.

Steve C.