Grant Stockly wrote:
Those power levels sound much more doable, but 480 Watts is still quite a supply! What type of power supply does it use?Some units use a transformer to go from 80v to 800v and then use diode doublers to get it to 80kv.
After 100 stages of multiplication, getting 6-10mA would require some pretty good sized capacitors at 60Hz, so I'm guessing that this is a high-frequency switching supply.
Along with each doubler step there is often a feedback resistor. On a 450kv system you will have a voltage dividor with a resistance of around 1.5G. : )When I was in high school, I imagined operating them with an induction coil, but the highest voltage DC supply I ever made was about 2800v (at 15mA), and it was a linear supply. A flyback supply for 30kV at about 1mA seemed practical, but I never aspired to higher powered vacuum tube circuits. ;-)Even a low power x-ray tube can be very dangerous. If you do anything like this you should take a radiation safety course, get a book, survey meter (and calibrate it). X-rays are invisible death rays if you don't take proper safety measures.
I understand--physics was my subject even then. (I have also always been a lead collector--I'm guessing I have a couple hundred pounds, most of it from thrown wheel weights I found while riding my bicycle. ;-) I still remember standing on the foot X-ray in the Thom McCann shoe store, holding the button down and wiggling my toes while peering at the fluoroscope. ;-) -michael NadaNet networking for Apple II computers! Home page: http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/ "The wastebasket is our most important design tool--and it's seriously underused."