Products / High Voltage Impulse Generator

High Voltage Impulse Generator

Description

Impulse voltage generators have multiple applications. Also known as Marx-Generators, the idea to multiply voltages by a serial connection of "units" is very old and everybody knows the small pocket torch lights, where a few batteries connected in a serial way will result in a higher voltage. Marx-generators act the same way, but instead of batteries we use capacitors.

These generators can simulate a lightning strike as well as specific wave-forms or steep voltage, which can occur in the electrical grid. They can be used in research applications to determine the 50% breakthrough voltage in materials. Due to the self inductance of the generators, the max. capacitive load is limited by the physical laws. The speciality at our generators Cubos and Cratos II is, that they have the lowest self inductance from all Marx-generators on the market so far (by using our low inductive option). For advanced applications we developed a third model, Minos, with even lower inductance. We can realize front times down to 100nS without additional equipment (depending the voltage). The max. capacitive load, which can be applied is around 50% to 100% higher than at our competitors. By using additional filters (so called overshoot compensations) this load can be approx. doubled or tripled. Impulse voltage generators can also be used to carry out tests on surge arresters to verify the residual voltage and even more sophisticated applications, like smashing stones or even EMPs or NEMPs can be done with impulse generators....
Since Marx-Generators are very flexible, they need many optional equipment depending on the test application. Please note further down all options and accessories, which are available as standard. In case you do not find, what you need, please contact us, so we can check, if your test application can be realized. Our unique DC-option allows to use the impulse generator up to approx. 50% of the rated impulse voltage voltage as a DC generator. Overlayed impulses (DC-Impulse or AC-Impulse or DC-AC-Impulse) are possible with additional equipment. Please feel free to contact us for further information.

Our new generators, Cubos and Cratos II, are fully encapsulated and very easy to clean. They are as well available in fully semi-hermetic versions for extreme polluted environment or outdoor applications. Ourdoor towers or outdoor covers can be provided as well, so that even outdoor coast climate will not have any impact to the usage. The semi-hermetic option can for instance be cleaned by using a water pistol and used after they got dry. A quasi Lotus-flower coating is also available, which is very hydrophob and dust rejecting. This will permit to test better under humid (condensing conditions) or slight rain conditions and for sure it will increase the cleaning interval. We also developped a new unique multiple chopping gap, which is interegrated on the basframe of the generator. This simplifies testing and setup time and prevents worng setup of the chopping gap. Additionally the structure can be used to click in load capacitors, if needed.

HV_ImpGen.jpg
HV_ImpGen.jpg

Cubos

The Cubos Impulse generator has a standard rated stage voltage of 100kV. However, we offer optionally for customers with more energy demand at less height a version with 125kV per stage. Since the energy equation is E= 1/2*C*U², by charging with 125kV, the energy is more than 1.5 times of the Energy at a generator with 100kV.

Besides the optional higher stage voltage, we also offer a version with reduced height (RH). Typically the Cubos has a distance between two stages of 350mm. The version with reduced height comes with 250mm per stage, which reduces a lot the total height, if the building height does not allow it. The RH version has the limitation in energy per stage and we normally limit it to 5kJ per stage, whereas 10kJ per stage could be possible, if required.

Cubos has in standard version 5kJ, 10kJ or 15kJ per stage at 100kV per stage. Our sphere gaps are manufactured in stainless steel for low maintenance and high reliablilty, since the ablation effects at stainless steel are lower than at Aluminium. Spheres in Aluminium need to be grinded regularily to avoid self firing inbetween stages due to the rough surface, which is created over the time by the impact of the sparcs. And besides this, stainless steel will always be beautiful shining, as even coast clima will not have any impact.

Cubos can mechanically be built up to approx. 3000kV, but we recommend for voltages above 1600kV the Cratos II, as it is less work to change the resistors and as the overall inductance of a generator with 200kV per stage is lower than the equivalent generator with 100kV per stage.

Since we manufacture our own fibreglass plates and have an own capacitor manufacturing, we can adapt the Cubos also to many non standard applications in testing. Our capacitors are oilfree and self healing (within certain limits) and can provide much higher currents. Due to these benefits we can perform faster rise times without any additional external cicuits, which is very interesting and cost efficient for customers, who need to perform steep voltage testing.

Accessories

- Chopping Gap or Multiple Chopping Gap (MAFS)
- Reduced Height Version
- S.I. resistors
- Load capacitors to compensate high inductive loads
- OSI and OLI (oscilating switching impulse and oscilating lightning impulse)
- Glaninger Circuit for testing low inductive transformers (basically on the low voltage side)
- Oil Chamber to test e.g. plastic samples on break through. Fibreglass chamber for destrictive testing.
- DC Generator to use the impulse generator up to approx. 50% of the impulse voltage as DC generator
- Surge Arrestor Testing, to perfrom e.g. 8/20 waveshapes.
- Overshoot compensation, to increase the load range at L.I. about factor 2 to 3
- Steep voltage option to perform rise times with a dU/dt of 1000 or 2500
- Mobile option, to put the generator inside a 20" container with a hydraulic jacking system
- Mobile version inside a 20" container up to 1000kV (or 1400kV on demand
- Outside tower or outside rain cover
- Increased mechanical stability and/or damping untis for higher earthquake resistance
- Air Cushion
... and if we have forgotten anything, please contact us and let´s see, if we have it.

Technical data Cubos 5kJ per stage

No.
Stages		 Output Voltage L.I.
Divider connected		 Energy
L.I.		 Output Voltage S.I.
Divider connected		 Energy
S.I.		 Impulse
Capacitance
1 100 kV 5 kJ 90 kV 4.1 kJ 1000 nF
...
30 3000 kV 150 kJ 2700 kV 121.5 kJ 33 nF

Technical data Cubos 10kJ per stage

No.
Stages		 Output Voltage L.I.
Divider connected		 Energy
L.I.		 Output Voltage S.I.
Divider connected		 Energy
S.I.		 Impulse
Capacitance
1 100 kV 10 kJ 90 kV 8.2 kJ 2000 nF
...
30 3000 kV 300 kJ 2700 kV 243 kJ 66 nF

Technical data Cubos 15kJ per stage

No.
Stages		 Output Voltage L.I.
Divider connected		 Energy
L.I.		 Output Voltage S.I.
Divider connected		 Energy
S.I.		 Impulse
Capacitance
1 100 kV 15 kJ 90 kV 12.3 kJ 3000 nF
...
30 3000 kV 450 kJ 2700 kV 364.5 kJ 99 nF
HV_ImpGen.jpg

Cratos II

The Cratos II Impulse generator has a standard rated stage voltage of 200kV. The design does not change a lot from the design of the Cubos and is basically a scale up.

We also offer a version with reduced height (RH). Typically the Cratos II has a distance between two stages of 500mm, which makes it already much more compact than anything similar in the makret. The version with reduced height comes with 400mm per stage, which reduces the total height, if the building height does not allow it. The RH version has the limitation in energy per stage.

Cratos II has in standard version 10kJ, 20kJ, 30kJ or 40kJ per stage. Energy levels up to 80kJ (120kJ on demand) per stage are available for high capacitve loads, like e.g. long HV cables. Our sphere gaps are manufactured in stainless steel for low maintenance and high reliablilty, since the ablation effects at stainless steel are lower than at Aluminium. Spheres in Aluminium need to be grinded regularily to avoid self firing inbetween stages due to the rough surface, which is created over the time by the impact of the sparcs. And besides this, stainless steel will always be beautiful shining, as even coast clima will not have any impact.

Cratos II can mechanically be built up to 10000kV.

Since we manufacture our own fibreglass plates and have an own capacitor manufacturing, we can adapt the Cratos II also to many non standard applications in testing. Our capacitors are oilfree and self healing (within certain limits) and can provide much higher currents. Due to these benefits we can perform faster rise times without any additional external cicuits, which is very interesting and cost efficient for customers, who need to perform steep voltage testing.

Accessories

- Chopping Gap or Multiple Chopping Gap (MAFS)
- Reduced Height Version
- S.I. resistors
- Load capacitors to compensate high inductive loads
- OSI and OLI (oscilating switching impulse and oscilating lightning impulse)
- Glaninger Circuit for testing low inductive transformers (basically on the low voltage side)
- Oil Chamber to test e.g. plastic samples on break through. Fibreglass chamber for destrictive testing.
- DC Generator to use the impulse generator up to approx. 50% of the impulse voltage as DC generator
- Surge Arrestor Testing, to perfrom e.g. 8/20 waveshapes.
- Overshoot compensation, to increase the load range at L.I. about factor 2 to 3
- Steep voltage option to perform rise times with a dU/dt of 1000 or 2500
- Mobile option, to put the generator inside a 40" (45" on demand) container with a hydraulic jacking system
- Mobile version inside a 40" container up to 2800kV and inside a 45" up to 3600kV, whereas higher ratings are possible on demand
- Outside tower or outside rain cover
- Increased mechanical stability and/or damping untis for higher earthquake resistance
- Air Cushion
... and if we have forgotten anything, please contact us and let´s see, if we have it.

Technical data Cratos II 10kJ per stage

-->
No.
Stages		 Output Voltage L.I.
Divider connected		 Energy
L.I.		 Output Voltage S.I.
Divider connected		 Energy
S.I.		 Impulse
Capacitance
1 200 kV 10 kJ 180 kV 8.1 kJ 500 nF
...
30 6000 kV 300 kJ 5400 kV 242 kJ 16.6 nF
higher voltage and energy ratings on demand

Technical data Cratos II 20kJ per stage

-->
No.
Stages		 Output Voltage L.I.
Divider connected		 Energy
L.I.		 Output Voltage S.I.
Divider connected		 Energy
S.I.		 Impulse
Capacitance
1 200 kV 20 kJ 180 kV 16.2 kJ 1000 nF
...
30 6000 kV 600 kJ 5400 kV 484 kJ 33.3 nF
higher voltage and energy ratings on demand

Technical data Cratos II 30kJ per stage

-->
No.
Stages		 Output Voltage L.I.
Divider connected		 Energy
L.I.		 Output Voltage S.I.
Divider connected		 Energy
S.I.		 Impulse
Capacitance
1 200 kV 30 kJ 180 kV 24.3 kJ 1500 nF
...
30 6000 kV 900 kJ 5400 kV 726 kJ 49.8 nF
higher voltage and energy ratings on demand

Technical data Cratos II 40kJ per stage

-->
No.
Stages		 Output Voltage L.I.
Divider connected		 Energy
L.I.		 Output Voltage S.I.
Divider connected		 Energy
S.I.		 Impulse
Capacitance
1 200 kV 40 kJ 180 kV 32.4 kJ 2000 nF
...
30 6000 kV 1200 kJ 5400 kV 968 kJ 66.4 nF
higher voltage and energy ratings on demand, up to 80kJ (120kJ) per stage and up to 10000kV
HV_ImpGen.jpg

Minos

The Minos is foreseen to be a special R&D and laboratory generator with a unique extreme low inductive desing. The special dry type capacitors allow high current ratings and rise times below 100nF. The stage voltage is 50kV and the max. voltage is 300kV (400kV). Due to Corona, the prototype could not be built so far, but all the component testings have been successfully completet. If you require such a special generator, please contact us, so we can built the first Minos for you. Our first customer will get a special price.

Accessories

- Chopping Gap or Multiple Chopping Gap (MAFS)
- S.I. resistors
- Load capacitors to compensate high inductive loads
- OSI and OLI (oscilating switching impulse and oscilating lightning impulse)
- Oil Chamber to test e.g. plastic samples on break through. Fibreglass chamber for destrictive testing.
- Surge Arrestor Testing, to perfrom e.g. 8/20 waveshapes.
- Overshoot compensation, to increase the load range at L.I. about factor 2 to 3
- Steep voltage option to perform rise times with a dU/dt of 1000 or 2500
- fast rise time option with rise times down to 100nS
... and if we have forgotten anything, please contact us and let´s see, if we have it.

Technical data Minos 2.5kJ per stage

-->
No.
Stages		 Output Voltage L.I.
Divider connected		 Energy
L.I.		 Output Voltage S.I.
Divider connected		 Energy
S.I.		 Impulse
Capacitance
1 50 kV 2.5 kJ 45 kV 2 kJ 2000 nF
...
6 300 kV 15 kJ 270 kV 12 kJ 333.3 nF
higher voltage and energy ratings on demand
HV_ImpGen.jpg
HV_ImpGen.jpg

Zelos (discontinued)

The Zelos Impulse generator was our first one and has a standard rated stage voltage of 100kV. We still give full support for accessories and spares. Over the years we noticed, that in regions with a lot of pollution high voltage equipment has often offtime due to uncleaned surfaces, especially from our competitors. Since we did not want to fall into this problem, we begun to develop a fully hermetical version, the CUBOS.

Zelos is a nice generator and was manufactured with 5kJ and 10kJ per stage and could have been built up to 3000kV, however, our talles we did built was a 2000kV.

Zelos also had stainless steel shpere gaps for low maintenance and high reliablilty, since the ablation effects at stainless steel are lower than at Aluminium. Spheres in Aluminium need to be grinded regularily to avoid self firing inbetween stages due to the rough surface, which is created over the time by the impact of the sparcs. And besides this, stainless steel will always be beautiful shining, as even coast clima will not have any impact.

Since now we manufacture our own fibreglass plates and have an own capacitor manufacturing, we were able to add many degrees in design and like this the Cubos was born. Also the Zelos had oilfree and self healing capacitors and can provide high currents. Our own fibreglass manufacturing allowas us now, however, to shift the physical limits at the Cubos and we developped a very low inductive version, which can test much higher loads and also could generator lower rise times for steep voltage testing without additional circuits.
In case your testing requirements changed and you would need a Cubos and would like to exchange your existing generator, please feel free to contact us, we will find a solution.

Accessories

- Chopping Gap or Multiple Chopping Gap (MAFS)
- S.I. resistors
- Load capacitors to compensate high inductive loads
- OSI and OLI (oscilating switching impulse and oscilating lightning impulse)
- Glaninger Circuit for testing low inductive transformers (basically on the low voltage side)
- Oil Chamber to test e.g. plastic samples on break through. Fibreglass chamber for destrictive testing.
- Surge Arrestor Testing, to perfrom e.g. 8/20 waveshapes.
- Overshoot compensation, to increase the load range at L.I. about factor 2 to 3
(- Steep voltage option to perform rise times with a dU/dt of 1000 or 2500 --> on demand)
- Increased mechanical stability and/or damping untis for higher earthquake resistance
- Air Cushion
... and if we have forgotten anything, please contact us and let´s see, if we have it.

Technical data Zelos 5kJ per stage

No.
Stages		 Output Voltage L.I.
Divider connected		 Energy
L.I.		 Output Voltage S.I.
Divider connected		 Energy
S.I.		 Impulse
Capacitance
1 100 kV 5 kJ 90 kV 4.1 kJ 1000 nF
...
30 3000 kV 150 kJ 2700 kV 121.5 kJ 33 nF

Technical data Zelos 10kJ per stage

No.
Stages		 Output Voltage L.I.
Divider connected		 Energy
L.I.		 Output Voltage S.I.
Divider connected		 Energy
S.I.		 Impulse
Capacitance
1 100 kV 10 kJ 90 kV 8.2 kJ 2000 nF
...
30 3000 kV 300 kJ 2700 kV 243 kJ 66 nF
HV_ImpGen.jpg

Cratos (discontinued)

The Cratos Impulse generator used to have a standard rated stage voltage of 200kV. The design does not change a lot from the design of the Zelos and is basically a scale up. We still give full support for accessories and spares. Over the years we noticed, that in regions with a lot of pollution high voltage equipment has often offtime due to uncleaned surfaces, especially from our competitors. Since we did not want to fall into this problem, we begun to develop a fully hermetical version, the Cratos II.

Since we have now our own fibreglass manufacturing, we did implement the knowledge of the Cubos into a new Cratos II. It has a lower stage distance and also a lower inductance. We were able to shift the physical limits due to our own fibregalls and capacitor manufacturing.

Cratos had in standard version 10kJ, 20kJ or 30kJ per stage. Energy levels up to 45kJ could have been possible. Our sphere gaps are manufactured in stainless steel for low maintenance and high reliablilty, since the ablation effects at stainless steel are lower than at Aluminium. Spheres in Aluminium need to be grinded regularily to avoid self firing inbetween stages due to the rough surface, which is created over the time by the impact of the sparcs. And besides this, stainless steel will always be beautiful shining, as even coast clima will not have any impact.

Cratos could have been mechanically be built up to 10000kV.

Also the Cratos had oilfree and self healing capacitors and can provide high currents. Our own fibreglass manufacturing allowas us now, however, to shift the physical limits at the Cubos and we developped a very low inductive version, which can test much higher loads and also could generator lower rise times for steep voltage testing without additional circuits.

In case your testing requirements changed and you would need a Cubos and would like to exchange your existing generator, please feel free to contact us, we will find a solution.

Accessories

- Chopping Gap or Multiple Chopping Gap (MAFS)
- S.I. resistors
- Load capacitors to compensate high inductive loads
- OSI and OLI (oscilating switching impulse and oscilating lightning impulse)
- Glaninger Circuit for testing low inductive transformers (basically on the low voltage side)
- Oil Chamber to test e.g. plastic samples on break through. Fibreglass chamber for destrictive testing.
- Surge Arrestor Testing, to perfrom e.g. 8/20 waveshapes.
- Overshoot compensation, to increase the load range at L.I. about factor 2 to 3
(- Steep voltage option to perform rise times with a dU/dt of 1000 or 2500 --> on demand)
- Mobile option, to put the generator inside a 40" container with a hydraulic jacking system
- Mobile version inside a 40" container up to 2400kV
- Increased mechanical stability and/or damping untis for higher earthquake resistance
- Air Cushion
... and if we have forgotten anything, please contact us and let´s see, if we have it.

Technical data Cratos 10kJ per stage

-->
No.
Stages		 Output Voltage L.I.
Divider connected		 Energy
L.I.		 Output Voltage S.I.
Divider connected		 Energy
S.I.		 Impulse
Capacitance
1 200 kV 10 kJ 180 kV 8.1 kJ 500 nF
...
30 6000 kV 300 kJ 5400 kV 242 kJ 16.6 nF
higher voltage and energy ratings on demand

Technical data Cratos 20kJ per stage

-->
No.
Stages		 Output Voltage L.I.
Divider connected		 Energy
L.I.		 Output Voltage S.I.
Divider connected		 Energy
S.I.		 Impulse
Capacitance
1 200 kV 20 kJ 180 kV 16.2 kJ 1000 nF
...
30 6000 kV 600 kJ 5400 kV 484 kJ 33.3 nF
higher voltage and energy ratings on demand

Technical data Cratos 30kJ per stage

-->
No.
Stages		 Output Voltage L.I.
Divider connected		 Energy
L.I.		 Output Voltage S.I.
Divider connected		 Energy
S.I.		 Impulse
Capacitance
1 200 kV 30 kJ 180 kV 24.3 kJ 1500 nF
...
30 6000 kV 900 kJ 5400 kV 726 kJ 49.8 nF
higher voltage and energy ratings on demand