Ok I need to find someone that knows a good bit about electrical things. If you have a piece of equipment that has a Input Voltage of 110volt 60HZ AC and a Fixed Output Voltage of 16KVDC. How do you go about making it so you can get up to like an output voltage of 100KVDC or better?
Anyone good with electricity and/or electronics?
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A big ass transformer and a rectifier...
http://www.ibiblio.org/obp/electricCircuits/AC/AC_9.html
Lots of useful info on this page, you will have to sort through all the gibberish but it should help.
http://www.ibiblio.org/obp/electricCircuits/AC/AC_9.html
Lots of useful info on this page, you will have to sort through all the gibberish but it should help.
Ok, I'm still confused as to how you'd go about this. One guy on another forum was saying he had taken the power supply from an electrostatic wet paint system and could crank his up to 150KV. I've seen something like this http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=58286&item=3813807933&rd=1&ssPageName=WD1V but I don't think you could just hook that up to the main power cable since it needs a input power in AC then has to convert it to DC. Just so you know its for a powder coating gun, so unless you did away with the original power supply and hooked the cable from the gun up to the new power supply which I think is what I would have to do ...I don't know maybe you can explain more if you know. There are 3 lines that come out of the box 1) positive cable that runs through the gun to give the powder a positive charge 2) a grounding alligator clip and 3) a pedal that when stepped on it charges the metal rod in the gun aka on/off switch.
Step-up transformers would have a hard time at those voltages. I'm assuming that this is a low current, electrostatic-type device. When you're talking about voltages that high (100KV+), you really need to have a power supply designed for the intended purpose. A lot can go wrong with high voltage and you don't want to be on the wrong end of it.
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RayOSV said:
Basicly it's like this.... a transformer will usually turn 120vac into xxvdc (depending on the transformer). They do this by design.
What Ray mentions is right, be EXTREMELY careful with any High KV sources. Hi voltage does some really strange things. Doesn't follow the normal rules at all... Give it the respect it demands or you will be wishing ya did....
Especially when messing about with a system like that.... you have 2 do not mix variables there. A flammable and juice = disaster lookin for a place to go off....
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Oh, also a diode is a "check valve" of sorts. It only allows current to travel one direction.
The power supply is almost gauranteed to be a High Frequency out put too. Meaning the cycles per second has been upped from the norm 60 to ??? My Hobart Big Blue mig welder's transformer has a hifreq box in the cabinet. It really makes the thing nasty.... gettin hooked up to it is MANY times worse than a zap from a normal arc welder... A normal welder is 18Vdc at 100 - 200+ amps. Its a nasty shock but nothing you cant take for a second or so. The mig has a hit to it that reminds me of a hi tension coil shock like you get from a cars ignition sys!!! You only want to try it once....
The power supply is almost gauranteed to be a High Frequency out put too. Meaning the cycles per second has been upped from the norm 60 to ??? My Hobart Big Blue mig welder's transformer has a hifreq box in the cabinet. It really makes the thing nasty.... gettin hooked up to it is MANY times worse than a zap from a normal arc welder... A normal welder is 18Vdc at 100 - 200+ amps. Its a nasty shock but nothing you cant take for a second or so. The mig has a hit to it that reminds me of a hi tension coil shock like you get from a cars ignition sys!!! You only want to try it once....
I check up on a few things about my gun it says that the average output at the gun is 20 volts and the measured output of the high voltage wire is 485VDC. The other hobby gun I seen was listed as having a 16KVDC, then the professional guns get up to like 70 - 100KVDC. I'm not a genious when it comes to electricity but aren't volts and kv 2 different measurements, kilo= 1000...so supposedly my gun has 20volts and the other gun has 1600volts. That right? I find it a little hard to believe there is a 1580v difference between the 2 hobby guns. Something else confusing is how the measured output of the high voltage wire is 485VDC which is the wire running to the gun and the average output at the gun is 20 volts. Where did my power go? :rolleyes
Disclaimer: I know nothing about paint guns, but a fair amount about electricity.
The basics: kv = 1000 volts, 16kv = 16,000 volts.
Power = volts * amps = watts.
Power is conserved or becomes heat or some other form of energy.
Electrical devices may have totally different voltage inputs compared to outputs. Internal/intermediate voltages may be totally different.
Transformers can step up (or down) voltages. The higher the voltage the more insulation (resistance to arcing) there must be.
That box in your picture of the paint gun is a special-purpose power supply for that gun. It would NOT be a good idea to take some other random power supply of a lower voltage rating, step it up, and try to connect it to your gun. Or, worse, try to connect a higher rated power supply to a lower rated gun.
BTW, what problem are you trying to solve?
The basics: kv = 1000 volts, 16kv = 16,000 volts.
Power = volts * amps = watts.
Power is conserved or becomes heat or some other form of energy.
Electrical devices may have totally different voltage inputs compared to outputs. Internal/intermediate voltages may be totally different.
Transformers can step up (or down) voltages. The higher the voltage the more insulation (resistance to arcing) there must be.
That box in your picture of the paint gun is a special-purpose power supply for that gun. It would NOT be a good idea to take some other random power supply of a lower voltage rating, step it up, and try to connect it to your gun. Or, worse, try to connect a higher rated power supply to a lower rated gun.
BTW, what problem are you trying to solve?
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The question is too vague!LittleTex said:
There are essentially two ways to get a higher voltage: a transformer to step up the voltage and then rectify it, or a circuit that provides a DC current through a large coil then removes the supply current and directs the "discharge" of the coil through a higher resistance.
An example of the first would be the power supply in vacuum tube equipment and example of the second is the ignition system on your car.
Well with powdercoating, the powder gets a positive charge when it goes through the gun, so the higher the voltage the better it will stick or get in to tighter spots. 70KV would be nice to achieve to get into recessed spots, but I'm not going to get fried trying it :lao Maybe I'll just save my money and be safe..One more thing, Say my gun is 20 volts is it possible to get shocked by 20 volts? Or is there more to consider like amperage and everything else?RayOSV said:
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Voltage is the "force" that pushes the current. Amperage is the amount of current flowing. Amperage is what kills not voltage. You can get shocked by large voltage but as long the current is low you wont get hurt. The human body has a fairly high resistance. That means it takes a pretty large voltage in order to force any appreciable amount of current to flow thru the body. However even a small amount of current flow thru the body is potentially lethal. So 20 milliamps of current could kill you. But again it takes a lot of voltage in order to get that current to flow. But say your hands are wet or something like that then its possible. Sooo the cliff note answer to your question is no 20 volts for the most part wont hurt you. 200 volts probably wont kill you unless you hang on long. 2000 volts is potentially dangerous and lethal especially if you wet and conductive.
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Read the lightning hit rider threadZXLNT said:
I posted up some info in there as well.
Also it depends on the route the current takes across your major organs. Especially your heart and/or diaphram. If you have current run through an arm and down your leg, potentially dangerous. If it goes from hand to hand across your chest, you have a much better chance of being hurt.
Always try to work with electricity with one hand. Like don't try to touch a wire and have the other hand resting on the chassis of the device (which is usually grounded). Also take off rings and necklaces.
Well the reason I was asking about getting shocked was that I was powdercoating a piece of scrap metal the other day and noticed some fuzz or something on the end of the gun and without thinking I reached down to knock it off and I got a good shock when I got my finger down close to it. So I was just trying to figure out if 20 volts could shock you. I mean I have one of those universal AC adapters that has a selectible output of 1.5-12VDC that has connection fittings one is a 9v battery connection and you can touch that connection and it don't shock you even on the highest setting. Yet the gun supposedly has 20 volts and it has a hell of a shock...Is there a difference between the 2?
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Think of Electricity as water.
The source (like a reservoir) is the potential. So if you have a Dam with a water level 600 ft over the stream below you let that water fall down a tube, that has a lot of potential, you have a lot more potential than if the water level was 1 foot above the stream below.
The current is the flow of electricity (number of electrons that pass a given point in seconds)
So if that tube is the size of a drinking straw you can have a lot of potential (volts) but very little current flow (amps). If you make that tube 20 feet across, you have a lot of potential and a lot of current flow.
If you take the water level down to one foot above the stream below but have a 20 ft tube, you have very little potential but lots of current.
The resistance is what the water runs into. If it runs into a brick wall (large resistance) the force has to be dissapated somehow. The Potential will build up against that wall and if you measure one side of the wall versus the other you now have a large difference in water flow, which is the difference in potential, which is Voltage.
Large resistance=higher voltage across the resistance
If you have a screen door at the end of the flow, you have very little resistance so if you measure one side of the screen to the other there is not much difference, therefore little potential=smaller voltage across the resistance.
If you learn this formula, you can figure out most things in electronics.
E=IxR Voltage=Current x Resistance
I=E/R
R=E/I
The source (like a reservoir) is the potential. So if you have a Dam with a water level 600 ft over the stream below you let that water fall down a tube, that has a lot of potential, you have a lot more potential than if the water level was 1 foot above the stream below.
The current is the flow of electricity (number of electrons that pass a given point in seconds)
So if that tube is the size of a drinking straw you can have a lot of potential (volts) but very little current flow (amps). If you make that tube 20 feet across, you have a lot of potential and a lot of current flow.
If you take the water level down to one foot above the stream below but have a 20 ft tube, you have very little potential but lots of current.
The resistance is what the water runs into. If it runs into a brick wall (large resistance) the force has to be dissapated somehow. The Potential will build up against that wall and if you measure one side of the wall versus the other you now have a large difference in water flow, which is the difference in potential, which is Voltage.
Large resistance=higher voltage across the resistance
If you have a screen door at the end of the flow, you have very little resistance so if you measure one side of the screen to the other there is not much difference, therefore little potential=smaller voltage across the resistance.
If you learn this formula, you can figure out most things in electronics.
E=IxR Voltage=Current x Resistance
I=E/R
R=E/I
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