Compact battery-powered, 400-kV, 40-Joule Marx generator

The experimental results of a compact, portable, battery-powered, 400 kV, 40 Joule Marx Generator are presented. The Marx Generator, high voltage power supplies, batteries, and the remote fiber optic high voltage enable and trigger control circuits are all contained in an aluminum tube measuring 5 inches in diameter and 20 inches in length. The space within the tube is divided into the Marx Generator section and the power supply section. The Marx Generator section is completely modular and can be easily unplugged to facilitate repair or exchange. The use of non-encapsulated, 22 nF, 10 kV surface-mount chip capacitors, mounted to a printed circuit board together with the charging resistors, resulted in a very compact assembly. The capacitors and charging resistors are potted in a dielectric gel while the spark gaps are independently insulated with SF/sub 6/ and aligned in a line-of-sight configuration for UV coupling. The entire Marx Generator assembly is packaged in a Lucite tube approximately 10 inches in length, which can be pressurized to 50 psi. Repetition rates of 1 pps and rise times of 20 ns are typical.