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Registered Member #621
Joined: Sun Apr 01 2007, 12:37AM
Location:
Posts: 119
Hey guys, I have a few questions regarding fluorescent lamp inverters. I am referring to the little boards with the yellow transformer on them that look just like camera flash circuit boards but minus the big capacitor. From say the small fluorescent camping lights that run on a few AA batteries or whatnot. Anyways, I think I want to use them to charge a small bank of capacitors. So I am curious if thy output AC or DC. I am hoping it's AC but also am curious what frequency if so. Also, about what voltage do they output and what current draw can they support to charge caps with. Lastly can I series say 3 of them for closer to 1,000 volts. I am hoping they output around 300 volts of AC this way I can use 2 diodes and rectify to charge two series capacitor banks separately to 900 volts for a total of 1800 volts. I would series 3 to do this. Also I'm curious if they emit the "wind up" sound that old school camera flashes due while charging caps, that's be neat! Sorry for all of the questions and thanks ahead of time!
Registered Member #30
Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706
They are usually single transistor blocking oscillators, high voltage cousins of the "Joule Thief".
As such the output is flyback pulses, and could be rectified with a single HV diode if you could figure out the polarity.
The "wind up" sound is just what happens when you charge a capacitor with a blocking oscillator. The higher the capacitor voltage, the quicker the core resets, so the higher the operating frequency goes.
Registered Member #2431
Joined: Tue Oct 13 2009, 09:47PM
Location: Chico, CA. USA
Posts: 5639
im not sure the secondary-to-core insultaion , or the primary-to-secondary insulation will be good for sereiesing them to triple their normal output.....especially the cheap ones.
Registered Member #621
Joined: Sun Apr 01 2007, 12:37AM
Location:
Posts: 119
Yeah me too! Thanks guys, and thank you Steve for the details, you always straighten things out for me. Well I was looking around and thinking and thinking and I ran across these little self contained cube like 12vdc in and 110vac out inverters made for electroluminescent glow wires, and they are epoxy sealed with 2 power leads In and 2 power leads out! They are $9 on eBay! They look like little ice cubes. They have polariy as well! So I'd series 9 of them and then ground one wire to the jumper between my two 1000v caps and the other one I would connect to 2 diodes with the positive going to the positive out of the pair of seriesed caps and the negative going to the negative side of my 2 caps. I figure with one cycle they'll charge the left cap and with the other cycle charge my right cap...which are seriesed for 2kv across a xenon laser pump flashlamp. I think it will work! I wonder if I should put a current limiting resistor in one of the power leads to the caps though, I'm not to familiar if devices like his behave like a NST and can run into a short wih no problems or if they act like a standard transformer and require current limiting. I'd be charging a total of 90 microfarads to 2000 volts approx. I wonder what the charge duration will be? I know i'll only be charging half cycle each cap. I'll have a dvm across them always. I know I'm probably way over complicating he design, which I often tend to due, but I love taking small dependable devices and wiring them together for uses other than what they were originally intended for and achieving a neat result. As I am not advanced enough to design my own circuits from scratch. I figured I coud tap 3 of the seriesed 9 inverters for 330vac and rectify to charge a baby 400v 3 microfarad cap that I'll dump into my trigger transformer! I intend all of this contraption to power a SSY-1 YAG Laser with Q switch removed, and intend to mostly only hold the charge button (a momentary switch connected between my 12v battery pack and my inverters) for long enough to make 1st around 30 joules then work my way up in voltage and eventually maybe get a bigger Perkin Elmer lamp in there! I know with this I could probably send over 120j to the stock lamp and possibly damage it!
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A few questions regarding fluorescent lamp inverters.
