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Registered Member #1225
Joined: Sat Jan 12 2008, 01:24AM
Location: Beaumont, Texas, USA
Posts: 2253
Hello, i am a noob with this ZVS driver... Well, i put it all together in about 5 minutes so it looks horrible, but there is nothing other than looks wrong with it, i thought. Well, i put it together about 2 weeks ago and i hooked it all up and there where two things wrong with it. First off is drew and output very little current(only like 1 amp at 20 volts) and when i first started it up it would trip the overcurrent shutoff on my power supply. Well, then i blew the igbt's(really nice too damn it.. 60 amps at 600 volts) and yesterday i went ahead and took the irfp460 mosfets off of my half bridge and put it on the ZVS. Well, i still had the same problems, But with a little thinking and some help from teslacoolguy, i figured out that i didn't have enough inductance, so that is why it would trip the overcurrent thing on my smps. So that is fixed, but now i still have the problem that i cannot pull much current.
I have about 25-30 turns on a big toroid(it is blue and green, green around the outside rim and the rest blue). I hooked it up to the flyback and it would only draw maybe 2 amps or so(it tripped the overcurrent on my 1.7 amp 20volt power supply but barely). When the flyback is directly shorted it pulls little current, only like .5 amps(i can tell because of how much the light dims on the power supply) but when it is a small gap it pulls over 1.7 amps.
So if i hook it up to a bigger transformer that i have that is 30 volts and a few tens of amps(rewound mot) it will only pull very little current. If needed i will take a video showing what all happens. It is only like a 1 inch spark, actually a little less.
Registered Member #152
Joined: Sun Feb 12 2006, 03:36PM
Location: Czech Rep.
Posts: 3384
If the inductor is too big, it does not matter, only if its small it makes problems. How big is your resonant capacitor? How many turns do you have on the primary? Do you have a gap in the core? What flyback is it, old "bare wire" or new type, potted and rectified? Are you sure your supply voltage does not drop when drawing arcs?
Registered Member #56
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:02AM
Location: Southern Califorina, USA
Posts: 2445
Add more turns to your core, you I am not not sure about the exact specs for your core but i would put at least 100 turns if not 200 to be safe for your inductor.
Registered Member #540
Joined: Mon Feb 19 2007, 07:49PM
Location: MIT
Posts: 969
Check it with an o-scope if you have one and see if it has parasitic oscillations. Also maybe try working with a lower voltage input to begin with so that you don't kill the things when something goes wrong?
Registered Member #1225
Joined: Sat Jan 12 2008, 01:24AM
Location: Beaumont, Texas, USA
Posts: 2253
Dr. Kilovolt wrote ...
If the inductor is too big, it does not matter, only if its small it makes problems. How big is your resonant capacitor? How many turns do you have on the primary? Do you have a gap in the core? What flyback is it, old "bare wire" or new type, potted and rectified? Are you sure your supply voltage does not drop when drawing arcs?
Lol, i forgot the specs. I am using .68 mfd 1600 volt cde cap, i have 5+5 turns, it is a new flyback(potted and rectified) and the flyback has a gap, but the ferrite isolation transformer does not(i use it for induction heating and it gives the flyback better output, despite the losses). I cannot remember the fast diodes but they where 600 volts and i think an amp and they had 100ns recovery time. the mosfets don't even get warm after running for a few minutes using the isolation transformer running and indution heater(loads down the power supply quite a bit, i guess around 1 amp).
Registered Member #152
Joined: Sun Feb 12 2006, 03:36PM
Location: Czech Rep.
Posts: 3384
what are you doing with your isolation transformer? Just build the circuit as shown in the driver schematic. If you use any additional transformers, they will add leakage inductance and in turn reduce current output.
Registered Member #1225
Joined: Sat Jan 12 2008, 01:24AM
Location: Beaumont, Texas, USA
Posts: 2253
Dr. Kilovolt wrote ...
what are you doing with your isolation transformer? Just build the circuit as shown in the driver schematic. If you use any additional transformers, they will add leakage inductance and in turn reduce current output.
Well, it is not for isolation really, i just but the center tapped primary on a flyback core and had a few turns of 12 gauge for the secondary so that i could power an induction heater. The induction heater would not work if i just used like 7+7 turns for the work coil. But with the ferrite transformer it would not pull too much current, so that it would not trip the overcurrent shutoff on my power supply. This power supply is just to test with as i have a 30 volt rewound mot. But now i see that maybe it is not the zvs, but the flyback. When i connected the 7+7 turns for the induction heater work coil, it tripped the over current shutoff(comes right back on after like half a second), so maybe the zvs is working fine but my flyback has something wrong with it.
But that does not make since, cause with the ferrite transformer it would only pull little current, so i don't know. I am going to make a video to better explain what is going on.
Registered Member #540
Joined: Mon Feb 19 2007, 07:49PM
Location: MIT
Posts: 969
For a IH, I would suggest something else besides a ZVS flyback driver. I don't know any specific designs or topologies(I'm thinking that they are either full bridge or half bridge but I'm not sure) but there are some that are floating around.
I have found that most of the flybacks that I own don't really put out all that much power but I do have one that puts out a lot more power than all the others. It might be your flyback but otherwise I don't know.
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Help with ZVS driver..
