[Central-Electronics] Solid State Power Supply for 100V

[Radra]

Did a little surfing this afternoon looking for tube to solid-state power
supply conversion info.  The Collins group has a reflector similar to this
one.  About this time last year, the Collins group began a discussion on
converting the 516F-2 Collins power supply from tube to solid state.  Quite
a bit of material on this topic is now available in their archives.  Check
out the following threads.

Beginning of 516F-2 discussion:
http://www.listserve.com/archiver/html/collins/2004-03/msg00374.html

Copper Cap rectifiers:
http://www.listserve.com/archiver/html/collins/2004-03/msg00436.html

In-rush current limiting:
http://www.listserve.com/archiver/html/collins/2004-03/msg00272.html

T tubes:
http://www.w6wjn.com/ttubes.asp

I have only scanned this material and hope to read it all over this weekend.
It may be old hat to some of you, but in a nutshell, here is what I learned.

1. Much tube circuitry is designed to accommodate a considerable amount of
power supply sag.  If you remove this sag by adding voltage regulation, you
will be changing circuit performance (most likely for the worse unless you
re-bias).

2. Limiting in-rush current is a good thing.  The Copper Cap rectifiers only
add a second or so of delay to the B+; more is needed, perhaps 8 seconds.

3. Plug-in solid-state versions of many tubes are available if you want to
go entirely solid state.

Tentative conclusion...use of Copper Cap rectifiers combined with some sort
of B+ delay should yield a satisfactory solution.

Lyman K7LH