Trouble Using a Kilovac K61C841 High Voltage Switch to Control Marx Gen Firing

Robert Francis, Thu Aug 18 2022, 07:17PM

Hey all, I bought some marx generators on ebay but I am having trouble getting them to fire reliably.

Using the stock marx gen works fine but I need a higher voltage output and pulse rate than the stock configuration. I decided before replacing the resistors with inductors that I would try to control the firing with a high voltage switch as was used in a million volt marx gen here.

The problem is when I connect the high voltage switch to the 10 stage marx gen it does not fire reliably. I am using the same high voltage switch used in the million volt marx gen. As far as I know, when I hook up the battery to the zvs driver it should charge up the capacitors on the marx gen and then when I apply 24volts to the control switch on the high voltage switch the marx gen should fire. But it doesn't, it might take a couple seconds and then it fires but then another couple seconds and it fires again even though I didn't remove the 24volts from the control switch.

My ultimate goal is to mimic the million volt marx gen but with a 10 stage marx gen going into a 20 stage marx gen and be in bipolar operation. All controlled by the high voltage switch with the switch being controlled by circuit board firing about 10 times a second.

But I can't even get the 10 stage marx gen to fire reliably using the high voltage switch.

What am I doing wrong?