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Dummies guide to building a 120watt 140 volt power supply to drive IN-9 Nixie tubes.

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And yet another link. This PSU works from an input supply of 100V RMS to 250V RMS and produces 170V DC output but only at 600 mA. Scaling it up to 1.2A would be no big deal though. I am not saying at the moment that this architecture is necessarily the optimum; it is just an example:
https://www.onsemi.com/pub_link/Collateral/DN06014-D.PDF
 
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And yet another link. This PSU is only 170V at 600 mA but scaling it up to 1.2A would be no big deal. I am not saying at the moment that this architecture is necessarily the optimum; it is just an example:
https://www.onsemi.com/pub_link/Collateral/DN06014-D.PDF

Yar ... I be seeing heaps of them on the net too.
All with esoteric wind your own trannies.
I had a quote for $185 AUD for a 115 to 150v trannie from an Aussie robber yesterday.
Off the shelf parts puleeese.
 
Yar ... I be seeing heaps of them on the net too.
All with esoteric wind your own trannies.
Transformer cores are freely available and winding your own transformer would be a doddle, bu I can understand that you may not want to go that way.

Do you want an isolated supply, because if not a 170V PSU using a standard inductor may be possible.

I had a quote for $185 AUD for a 115 to 150v trannie from an Aussie robber yesterday.I had a quote for $185

Hmm, £100 UK Sounds about right for a custom transformer.

spec
 
Transformer cores are freely available and winding your own transformer would be a doddle, bu I can understand that you may not want to go that way.

A doddle ... humm.. that spec sheet you gave me wanted it vacuum varnished.


I don't think they were talking about my dyson ?
Too hard basket .. too many components. Too expensive ... too time consuming. I did pick my avatar for a reason .... !

Hmm, £100 UK Sounds about right for a custom transformer.
spec

Oh... you have robbers over there too !.

The one from farnell (element14 here) cost $55bucks delivered !... when it gets here.
Youtube at 75%

Edit: .. Oh... yer .. SMPS are particularly picky about layout !!
 
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It's official.

I am a dick.

The circuit with the resistor in the cathode line works.!

I just watched the video and saw that all I did was swap the tube around and not the supply rails.
"The're so dumb where I come from" .. la la la.... cough.

Video deleted .. coz I don't want the world to see my dummbnessss.

Sorry Les.
Sorry spec.

I blame old rosie .. rotted my brain.
 
Hi fire,
The PSU schematic in the link in your post #123 is basically the same as a PC power supply. My suggestion in post #26 was a way to get round having to wind a transformer to replace the original transformer in the PC power supply. If it wasn't for the fact that the core in a PC power supply is glued together rewinding it would be easy as the number of turns per volt is low compared with a transformer running at 50 or 60 HZ. If you can find a source for a tranformer core then winding a transformer to replace the normal one in a PC power supply would be a good solution.

Les.
 
It's official.

I am a dick.

The circuit with the resistor in the cathode line works.!

I just watched the video and saw that all I did was swap the tube around and not the supply rails.
"The're so dumb where I come from" .. la la la.... cough.

Video deleted .. coz I don't want the world to see my dummbnessss.

Sorry Les.
Sorry spec.

I blame old rosie .. rotted my brain.

No probs fire- I could tell you a few things that I have done. :banghead:

One of the best was when the wife's cooker threw a rod. I was expecting it to happen and had the part ready. I switched the cooker off at the wall, whipped the cooker back panel off, and stuck my favorite electrical screwdriver into a screw on the input mains terminal. There was an almighty flash and bang and I saw stars and only had the handle of the screwdriver left in my hand. The cooker and kettle mains switches are side by side on the kitchen wall. My wife said, I told you to get a proper electrician in to fix the cooker- she didn't know how close to uxoricide she had got. :eek::eek:

Glad the circuit works, I was wondering if I really understood Ohms law or not.:wideyed:

spec
 
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Hi fire,
The PSU schematic in the link in your post #123 is basically the same as a PC power supply. My suggestion in post #26 was a way to get round having to wind a transformer to replace the original transformer in the PC power supply. If it wasn't for the fact that the core in a PC power supply is glued together rewinding it would be easy as the number of turns per volt is low compared with a transformer running at 50 or 60 HZ. If you can find a source for a tranformer core then winding a transformer to replace the normal one in a PC power supply would be a good solution.

Les.
Sorry Les... but spec's circuits are simpler ... and no crazy layout problems as with SMPS.
Thanks for the suggestion though.
 
A doddle ... humm.. that spec sheet you gave me wanted it vacuum varnished.
No big deal. Just don't vacuum varnish impregnate or heat the transformer up and chuck it in some thin electrical varnish.
spec
 
No probs fire- I could tell you a few things that I have done. :banghead:

One of the best was when the wife's cooker threw a rod. I was expecting it to happen and had the part ready. I switched the cooker off at the wall, whipped the cooker back panel off, and stuck my favorite electrical screwdriver into a screw on the input mains terminal. There was an almighty flash and bang and I saw stars and only had the handle of the screwdriver left in my hand. The cooker and kettle mains switches are side by side. My wife said, I told you to get a proper electrician in to fix the cooker- she didn't know have close to uxoricide she had got. :eek::eek:

Glad the circuit works, I was wondering if I really understood Ohms law or not.:wideyed:

spec

hehe....
Now ... when these parts ever arrive ... the build begins.
Element14 have some stuff on back order ... .not the tranny thank god.
 
LOOK ... will you 2 please get off me winding my own tranny .....
It's NOT gonna happen.
I only have one arm.
and one eye.
and 1/2 a brain.
 
Hello fire,
You are not going to like this, but I have a cunning plan:

If a person, not you of course, really wanted a 170V DC supply, say to light a hundred cold cathode tubes, and that person could only get a toroidal transformer with two 55V secondary windings, that same person could put some additional winding over the top of the existing windings to provide an extra 30V RMS. That way the three windings could be connected in series and fed to a bridge rectifier and a 220uF reservoir capacitor to provide 170V DC.
spec
 
Les,

Don't let fire see this, but I thought you may be interested in this method of salvaging a transformer core:
**broken link removed**

spec
 
Hello fire,
You are not going to like this, but I have a cunning plan:

If a person, not you of course, really wanted a 170V DC supply, say to light a hundred cold cathode tubes, and that person could only get a toroidal transformer with two 55V secondary windings, that same person could put some additional winding over the top of the existing windings to provide an extra 30V RMS. That way the three windings could be connected in series and fed to a bridge rectifier and a 220uF reservoir capacitor to provide 170V DC.
spec
Err...
You would light 1000 nixies with that .. they typically draw only 1.5mA !
But yes .. a good idea for two armed people !
 
Les,

Don't let fire see this, but I thought you may be interested in this method of salvaging a transformer core:
**broken link removed**

spec
God.. I can't unsee it .. I clicked !
My brother and I had a dad who was into ham radio ... we used to dismantle trannys all the time just so we could get the E's and L's out of them and use the E's as weapons on the local riff raff ! The L's didn't fly as far !
 
Well... as Borat said ... I have much success.

All parts finally arrived.

First circuit, using the transformer and the op amp works a treat ( only one IN-9 so far).

Did away with the anode resistor and am dropping everything across the transistor.
The op amp circuit works perfectly at maintaining the current.

Yet to see how hot this gets ... so more testing to be done.
Thing is .. even if I leave the 4k7 resistor in there and it drop's hardly any volts across it anyway.
So .. no anode resistor and a 100Ω emitter resistor and a transistor.

Having to use 100Ω as the op amp will only slew to the supply voltage -1.5v or thereabouts. ... so on 5v 100Ω works well.

I have ramped up the voltage on the variac from around 100 (pre-struck in-9) .. up to about 260vac and the bar has not moved 1mm.
Loving op amps now ... used to hate the bloody things.

Got my new scope ... so will check ripple current and heat etc.

Think that the transformer is the way to go now ... mainly for safety.

Report back later on heat and results of LOT's of tubes going.

Off to plug in the arduino with code.
 
Well... as Borat said ... I have much success.

All parts finally arrived.

First circuit, using the transformer and the op amp works a treat ( only one IN-9 so far).

Did away with the anode resistor and am dropping everything across the transistor.
The op amp circuit works perfectly at maintaining the current.

Yet to see how hot this gets ... so more testing to be done.
Thing is .. even if I leave the 4k7 resistor in there and it drop's hardly any volts across it anyway.
So .. no anode resistor and a 100Ω emitter resistor and a transistor.

Having to use 100Ω as the op amp will only slew to the supply voltage -1.5v or thereabouts. ... so on 5v 100Ω works well.

I have ramped up the voltage on the variac from around 100 (pre-struck in-9) .. up to about 260vac and the bar has not moved 1mm.
Loving op amps now ... used to hate the bloody things.

Got my new scope ... so will check ripple current and heat etc.

Think that the transformer is the way to go now ... mainly for safety.

Report back later on heat and results of LOT's of tubes going.

Off to plug in the arduino with code.

Hy fire,

Nice to see you back on line.

Sounds like you are having fun.

The resistors that I put in the tube cathodes are there to reduce the dissipation in the transistors but also to protect the transistor from any nasty events inside the tube. Leaving them out will probably be OK though

I take it that the opamps are running off a 5V supply line. What opamp are you using, LM324 type?

spec
 
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