High Voltage Power Supplies for Electrostatic ApplicationsCliff Scapellati, Vice President of EngineeringAbstract High voltage power supplies are a key component in electrostatic applications. A variety of industrial and scientific applications of high voltage power supplies are presented for the scientist, engineer, specifier and user of electrostatics. Industrial processes, for example, require significant monitoring of operational conditions in order to maximize product output, improve quality, and reduce cost. New advances in power supply technology provide higher levels of monitoring and process control. Scientific experiments can also be influenced by power supply effects. output accuracy, stability, ripple and regulation are discussed.Contributing effects such as output accuracy, stability, ripple and regulation are discussed.I.IntroductionThe use of high voltage in scientific and industrial applications is commonplace. In particular, electrostatics can be utilized for a variety of effects. Broadly stated, electrostatics is the study of effects produced by electrical charges or fields. The applications of electrostatics can be used to generate motion of a material without physical contact, to separate materials down to the elemental level, to combine materials to form a homogeneous mixture and other practical and scientific uses. By definition, the ability of electrostatic effects to do work requires a difference in electrical potential between two or more materials. In most cases, the energy required to force a potential difference is derived from a high voltage source. This high voltage source can be a high voltage power supply. Todays high voltage power supplies are solid state, high frequency designs, which provide performance and control unattainable only a few years ago. Significant improvements in reliability, stability, control, size reductions, cost and safety have been achieved. By being made aware of these improvements, the user of high voltage power supplies for electrostatic applications can benefit. Additionally, unique requirements of high voltage power supplies should be understood as they can affect the equipment, experiments, process or product they are used in. II.Operational Principles of High Voltage Power SuppliesA simplified schematic diagram of a high voltage power supply is shown in Fig.1.The input voltage source may have a wide range of voltage characteristics. AC sources of 50Hz to 400Hz at 24V to 480V are common. DC sources ranging from 5V to 300V can also be found. It is critical for the user to understand the input voltage requirement as this will impact overall system use and design. Regulatory agencies such as Underwriters Laboratory, Canadian Standards Association, IEC and others are highly involved with any circuits connected to the power grid. In addition to powering the main inverter circuits of the power supply, the input voltage source is also used topower auxiliary control circuits and other ancillary power requirements.The input filter stage provides conditioning of the input voltage source. This conditioning is usually in the form of rectification and filtering in ac sources, and additional filtering in dc sources. Overload protection, EMI, EMC and monitoring circuits can also be found. The output of the input filter is typically a dc voltage source. This dc voltage provides the energy source for the inverter. The inverter stage converts the dc source to a high frequency ac signal. Many different inverter topologies exist for power supplies. The high voltage power supply has unique factors which may dictate the best inverter approach. The inverter generates a high frequency ac signal which is stepped up by the HV transformer. The reason for the high frequency generation is to provide high performance operation with reduced size of magnetics and ripple reduction storage capacitors. A problem is created when a transformer with a high step up ratio is coupled to a high frequency inverter. The high step up ratio reflects a parasitic capacitance across the primary of the high voltage transformer. This is reflected as a (Nsec:Npri)2 function. This large parasitic capacitor which appears across the primary of the transformer must be isolated from the inverter switching devices. If not, abnormally high pulse currents will be present in the inverter. Another parameter which is common to high voltage power supplies is a wide range of load operations. Due to the presence of high voltage, insulation breakdown is commonplace. The inverter robustness and control loop characteristics must account for virtually any combination of open circuit, short circuit and operating load conditions. These concerns as well as reliability and cost, must be addressed in the High Voltage Power Supply Inverter topology. The high frequency output of the inverter is applied to the primary of the high voltage step-up transformer. Proper high voltage transfor