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Re: [Amps] Large Zeners Follow-up.

To: ab5mm <ab5mm@9plus.net>
Subject: Re: [Amps] Large Zeners Follow-up.
From: R.Measures <r@somis.org>
Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2004 03:34:01 -0700
List-post: <mailto:amps@contesting.com>

On Aug 11, 2004, at 9:12 AM, ab5mm wrote:


Thanks guys for all the help and recommendations.

The overall best place to get 10 or 50 watt zener diodes was "Mouser Electronics". They had them in stock and have no minimum.

BTW, I used a string of fwd-biased Si rectifiers (thanks Rich) with no problems except for space limitations and the fact that I had already ordered the zener. I was actually able to fine tune the ZSAC a little better with the rectifiers.

In trying to get the amp back up and playing, I came across several designs that place a 250Volt/.5 to 1 amp fuse in series with zener and the center tap of the filament transformer. What do you guys think about this? If it would truly act like a fuse and not affect other things, it just might save a zener in the future.

Steve -- In order for the fuse to open, the tube would have to be conducting heavily -- i. e., there would be only a couple of hundred V across the tube. If the PS was, say 2500v, subtracting a couple of hundred volts would leave more than 2kV across the 250v fuse as it opened. - which will create a metal-vapor arc inside the fuse. Since such an arc has a V-drop of c. 20v, there would be virtually no current limiting by the fuse until it exploded. Meanwhile, a zener could short, or the tube's hot filament could short against the grid.
. The bottom-line is when a fuse says 32v-max, or 250v-max, or 1000v-max, using it in circuit with a higher potential is potentially trouble with a capital T. .
cheerz

Steve ab5mm


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