New developments in high power capacitor charging technology

This paper presents new advances in high-voltage power supplies, which are used for rapid capacitor charging. We are developing very compact power supplies with input voltages of around 250 V and output voltages of 30-50 kV. The output power levels of these chargers are above 10 kW. These chargers are using state-of-the-art isolated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) as well as advanced packaging methods and other innovative circuitry. In addition, the size and weight of the step-up transformer has been significantly reduced. Design details as well as experimental results are presented.