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power inverter 600 v dc to 110 ac

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chris54

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Hello and thanks for taking the time and patients to read and reply. I would like some input as to the possibility of building a 600 volt DC to 110 volt Ac inverter. The reason being is that where I work many times this is all there is to work with. And as such I need to bring along a generator which is a bit cumbersome.

Again thanks for any and all help
 
Hi chris

You forgot something very importand how many amps or watts it has to be able to deliver

also 600 Volt is a high voltage is there not a way to have a lower voltage as the source

also what do you try to power a drill or a computer or a clock radio

personaly I think you better can look for a solar inverter you have them in several sizes

and with a range of DC feeding voltages

making your own would be more expensive and defenetly more headache

Robert-Jan
 
It's doable, you would need a driver that can handle over 600V, a transformer, an oscillator and a small input regulator to drive the oscillator and driver. An IRG4PF50WPBF is rated for 900V and can handle a lot of current. A 555 could drive it (you want push-pull with IGBT's and MOSFETS). The input regulator is a little tricky, you are going to need to build a discrete series-pass regulator, there's nothing like a 7815 or LM317 that's rated for a 600V input, but the saving grace with is that the output current is tiny - just a few milliamps is all that's needed to drive a cmos 555 and an IGBT. Even so, it is going to burn off several watts.

Ebay occasionally has 600V to 110V transformers, you want to nab one of those, this is going to be the most difficult component to lay your hands on.
 
You will end up with a not so clean block wave that for several equipments is a problem to work on

a heater element no problem but a bit more sophisticated appliance does not even start up

so the question is what do you want to power with it??

Robert-Jan
 
It's doable, you would need a driver that can handle over 600V, a transformer, an oscillator and a small input regulator to drive the oscillator and driver. An IRG4PF50WPBF is rated for 900V and can handle a lot of current. A 555 could drive it (you want push-pull with IGBT's and MOSFETS). The input regulator is a little tricky, you are going to need to build a discrete series-pass regulator, there's nothing like a 7815 or LM317 that's rated for a 600V input, but the saving grace with is that the output current is tiny - just a few milliamps is all that's needed to drive a cmos 555 and an IGBT. Even so, it is going to burn off several watts.

Ebay occasionally has 600V to 110V transformers, you want to nab one of those, this is going to be the most difficult component to lay your hands on.

What frequency would I need to use for the oscillator???
 
It's doable, you would need a driver that can handle over 600V, a transformer, an oscillator and a small input regulator to drive the oscillator and driver. An IRG4PF50WPBF is rated for 900V and can handle a lot of current. A 555 could drive it (you want push-pull with IGBT's and MOSFETS). The input regulator is a little tricky, you are going to need to build a discrete series-pass regulator, there's nothing like a 7815 or LM317 that's rated for a 600V input, but the saving grace with is that the output current is tiny - just a few milliamps is all that's needed to drive a cmos 555 and an IGBT. Even so, it is going to burn off several watts.

Ebay occasionally has 600V to 110V transformers, you want to nab one of those, this is going to be the most difficult component to lay your hands on.
Oy.

An offline switcher for the power supply.
 
What frequency would I need to use for the oscillator???
For the thing he was suggesting, a line transformer, you would need line frequency.

You have a 600VDC rail? That is quite odd.

Power tools will probably not like the high harmonic square waves that a laptop or computer would laugh at. Add to that the higher power levels and what you are talking about is rocket science compared to a laptop.

And that is before we get to the safety concern... To bad it isn't only 400V and your tools were 12V battery versions. You could grab any off the shelf switcher of sufficient capacity and safely do the conversion.

Dan
 
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just looking at it from a electricians standpoint what if you got a transformer that stepped the 600v down to 120v for your drills etc. and if any of the other people in the forum could tell you of a way that on the 600v side of the transformer you could have a device that would pulse the 600 volts dc through the transformer at 60 hz outputing it as clean ac voltage on the other side? if that is a reasonable idea i would check out some inverters they use on solar equipment they might have an inverter for you that would do the job.
also totally getting out of the electronics end of it you could take dc motor that runs off of 600v and couple the shaft of that to an ac generator outputting 120v
 
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just looking at it from a electricians standpoint what if you got a transformer that stepped the 600v down to 120v for your drills etc. and if any of the other people in the forum could tell you of a way that on the 600v side of the transformer you could have a device that would pulse the 600 volts dc through the transformer at 60 hz outputing it as clean ac voltage on the other side? if that is a reasonable idea i would check out some inverters they use on solar equipment they might have an inverter for you that would do the job.
while possible there are not a lot of HV transformers around and you would still have a crumby waveform
also totally getting out of the electronics end of it you could take dc motor that runs off of 600v and couple the shaft of that to an ac generator outputting 120v
A brushless DC motor and a HV drive coupled to a 110V motor in a gen set would do it.

Dan
 
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while possible there are not a lot of HV transformers around and you would still have a crumby waveformA brushless DC motor and a HV drive coupled to a 110V motor in a gen set would do it.

Dan

... Not really a problem .... get three 240VAC/120 rated transformers and wire them in series .... Then wire the outputs in parallel...
Just have to be careful and get the input and output phasing correct .... a little trial and error before you hook up the load.

Also keep in mind the KVA specifications....

....Not absolutely sure what the output magnitude would be ......It would probably be a good idea to take an oscilloscope and look at the output waveform...
 
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I really appreciate the input. I was thinking also of a dc to dc transformer. In respect to taking the 600 vdc and step down it down to 12 vdc but I have a few reservations. in regards to the devices to use.
 
Power tools will probably not like the high harmonic square waves that a laptop or computer would laugh at. Add to that the higher power levels and what you are talking about is rocket science compared to a laptop.
It depends on what he means by power tools. What sort of motors is he talking about powering?

If it's something like a hand-held drill which a universal motor then the waveform shape won't be a problem, if it's a lathe with an induction motor the waveform is more important.

How much do you want to spend?

**broken link removed**

Another option is to convert the 600V to a lower DC voltage an power a cheaper inverter.
**broken link removed**
 
It depends on what he means by power tools. What sort of motors is he talking about powering?

If it's something like a hand-held drill which a universal motor then the waveform shape won't be a problem, if it's a lathe with an induction motor the waveform is more important.

How much do you want to spend?

**broken link removed**

Another option is to convert the 600V to a lower DC voltage an power a cheaper inverter.
**broken link removed**


That is what we plan to use. Hand drills,sawzalls,rotary hand drills,etc. Nothing fancy.
 
What's wrong with the above suggestions?

I wouldn't recommend building it entirely from scratch because 600VDC is very dangerous and the 110VAC side needs to be isolated from the DC-input.

Another option is to buy a ready-made isolated 600V to 160V DC-DC converter and directly convert the 160V directly to 110VAC using an h-bridge modified sinewave converter.
 
60 hz, Chris. A resonant cap across the inductance of the primary of the step-down transformer (which you would want to do anyway to recover energy normally lost by, say, a freewheeling diode) will make the output nearly perfectly sinusoidal. The inductance varies with the load due to core shading, but with a big transformer it isn't enough to make it a uselessly distorted waveform. This is how they do it in those solar inverters and ups systems. Ebay's got a transformer for a $100 big enough to power a saw or a drill, the transistor is $7 - the whole thing could be built for less than $200. Please be sure and post what Nova electric quotes you for that DC-AC inverter.
 
60 hz, Chris. A resonant cap across the inductance of the primary of the step-down transformer (which you would want to do anyway to recover energy normally lost by, say, a freewheeling diode) will make the output nearly perfectly sinusoidal. The inductance varies with the load due to core shading, but with a big transformer it isn't enough to make it a uselessly distorted waveform. This is how they do it in those solar inverters and ups systems. Ebay's got a transformer for a $100 big enough to power a saw or a drill, the transistor is $7 - the whole thing could be built for less than $200. Please be sure and post what Nova electric quotes you for that DC-AC inverter.

I will thanks. I really appreciate all the help. Going to look on ebay now and will follow up with the progress.
 
question what is the end result you are looking for? something lighter and easier to carry around to avoid the constant having to stop what your doing and refilling the generator? what is the scenario that is your work area? is it a train station? are you working near tracks? if so how far away fill us in on the specifics please
 
question what is the end result you are looking for? something lighter and easier to carry around to avoid the constant having to stop what your doing and refilling the generator? what is the scenario that is your work area? is it a train station? are you working near tracks? if so how far away fill us in on the specifics please

OK I do work for the nyc transit authorty. And manney times we wore with the third rail live ( 600vdv ) and have to bring in a generator which is a pain as we cannot fuel it where we work when we are in the subway ( underground portion of the line ) we have to bring it to street level which is a real pain. So I was looking into seeing if it was possible to do a dc to ac invertor for this. Which we could use to drive hand drills, etc. Most draw at most 8 amps so I thought this might be possible.I hope every one had a great holiday.
 
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