Hi Alan, Jim and all
You've been quiet for a while.
Yes, I have been building some stuff, so I was busy.
I've mentioned a UK supplier before,
Yes. I remembered the fact, but not the address...
but for others here it is
http://www.charcroft.com/pdf/tab_silver_mica_capacitors/SBH-Dipped-Radial-datasheet.pdf
You can buy online here
http://www.charcroft.com/ebuy/shopdisplayproducts.asp?id=24&cat=RADIAL+DIPPED+SILVER+MICAS
but at around $4.50 US each plus shipping and customs it is going to
be expensive, although perhaps only 20-25% the cost of ATC ceramics.
Yes... The price is midway. Way better than the ATCs,or the doorknobs I
have seen, or even the C0G chips at Digikey and the like. But still a
bit stiff for a hobby project, specially after factoring in the 60 pound
international shipping charge, and the app $100 "service charge" raised
by courier shipping companies at delivery time - plus taxes, of course!
Looks like I will use homebrew caps.
These parts are intended for transmitting use and are specified for
both current and voltage but sadly not for ESR.
Their ESL must also be rather high, given their long and slender shape.
I've seen these capacitors fail with wildly excessive voltage but
they seem to hold up OK to over-current abuse so long as there is
some airflow over them.
OK. Their voltage rating would require sticking to the lower
capacitance, higher voltage types, which means using two or even three
in parallel at each place, on the lower bands. So we would be looking at
about 40 capacitors rather than 18. Which after adding all charges would
set me back something like $500. No go!
Jim,
## Why would a blown capacitor in a LP filter take out the LDMOS
device ?? Where is the high swr protection located, before the mess
of bandswitched LP filters... or after the mess of LP filters ?
The SWR protection normally goes after the filters, because the SWR into
the filters is rather high, due to the presence of strong harmonics.
This will be a high efficiency amplifier running in saturation, so the
3rd harmonic will be really strong, and a diplexer filter is not an
option because then the amp would cease to have a high efficiency!
A very lax additional SWR protection could be added before the filters.
That's a good idea anyway, to protect against wrong filter, or open
relay contacts.
Is there any other
way to protect the LDMOS devices in the event of a cap failure in the
LP filter ?
I was indeed thinking of one. Given that these devices are supposed to
be resistant to overvoltage (avalanching and limiting it), it would be
plausible to make a protection that senses supply current and the
forward and reverse signals from a directional coupler. These three
signals would then be used to first calculate the actual power delivered
to the load (forward^2-reverse^2), and the result would be subtracted
from the supply current value, which due to teh fixed supply voltage
represents input power. That gives a result that is proportional to the
effectively dissipated power. If this goes beyond a certain limit for a
certain time, the amp would be shut down.
The weak spot in this scheme is that certain nasty loads can cause
strong reactive current in the FET, that does _not_ cause a large
increase in supply current. So the protectio would not trigger in this
case, but the drain current may exceed the LDMOSFET's absolute max
value, and fuse the bonding wires.
So the already complex protection system would need to be complemented
by some sort of RF drain current sensing. Which means putting current
sense transformers into a place of the circuit where the impedance is
extremely low, and thus we need short, direct and broad connections. Not
easy to do.
## There are a lot of caps out there that are not RF rated. IE:
like the pair of 6 kv rated disc ceramics that alpha and others use
for a ..plate block cap assy.
Yes. Manufacturers probably test such parts and then use the ones that
work well. For a homebrewer, specially one located in technical
wasteland, where every single part has to be imported, with a 3 month
delay in customs, such trial and testing isn't very practical.
## same deal with your garden variety .01 uf @ 1 kv disc ceramic.
They are NOT RF rated. However, the 2 kv version of a .01 uf will
definitely handle more current than the 1 kv version.
Typically yes, but not necessarily. Take the case that the 1kV and 2kV
caps have the same type of dielectric. In that case the 2kV one needs to
use a thicker layer of that dielectric, which means that to maintain the
same capacitance it needs to have a larger area. If this area is
metallized with the same metal thickness as the 1kV capacitor uses, then
the ESR of the 2kV capacitor will be higher, due to the longer effective
conductor length. The larger size allows it to dissipate more heat, so
it will probbaly be OK at the same or somewhat higher current, but
probably not twice the current. And if the current is limited by the
metallization right around the spot where the wire terminal is soldered
to it, then the current rating will actually be the same for both caps.
Now take the case of both capacitors having the same dimensions, with
the 2kV one using a different dielectric to achieve the higher rating.
The metallization, terminals and solder joints might be identical for
both, thus the current handling would also be identical. But the RF
voltage rating might actually be _lower_ for the 2kV cap! This is
because the dielectric material having a higher voltage breakdown per
thickness very likely has some worse characteristics in other fields,
and one of them would typically be its loss factor!
So, judging the current handling ability of capacitors by their voltage
rating, even on a relative basis, is treading on very thin ice.
## But stuff like TV doorknobs are also not RF rated for current....
and the 20-30-40 KV rated types handle less current than the real
deal 15 KV rated HT-57s.... with both cases being say a 500 pf
value.
Yes. The important point is: Voltage ratings and current ratings are
quite independent, and even DC voltage ratings and AC voltage ratings
are independent. A higher DC voltage rating does not automatically imply
a higher AC voltage rating, let alone at RF.
## I suppose you could also go crazy, and use lower value rated caps
..in parallel, to handle more current, but then the device count goes
way up... and so does the $$ spent.
Yes. In fact I'm doing that for bypassing and coupling. I need a bypass
capacitor that can comfortably handle 20A of RF current. And it needs to
have extremely low ESL. The DC voltage will be just 50V, so a 100VDC
rated cap should be fine. But 20A??? So I ordered 100 dirt cheap chip
capacitors rated at 100nF and 100V, in 1206 size, in X7R dielectric. I
will try to test one or two of them to destruction, and then decide how
many of them to use in parallel. If 15 to 20 of them in parallel can
handle the current I need, then this will be no problem with the
available space and layout of the PCB. If they can't, then I will need
to look for some other solution.
## My HT-50 / HT-58 1000 pf @ 5 kv rated caps I use for padding my
air variables on the 160M tuned input would run warm, with 200 watts
CCS applied. They are only rated for 1A CCS. The 500 pf version
of the same HT-50 / HT-58 is rated for 3A CCS. With 2 x 500 pf
caps in parallel, the total rating of each padder assy is now 6A
CCS... = stone cold.
That shows how important it is to do things right. Heat is the enemy of
electronic parts.
## manfred, could you make hb caps from say teflon, sandwiched
between cu straps or plates ? I have seen that done............ on
lower valued cap assys.
Yes. That's in fact my best fallback solution. Instead of teflon I
prefer using mica, because it has a higher dielectric constant, higher
hardness (so a burr on the copper tape doesn't as easily damage it), and
is easier to find. The homebuilt caps look a bit stone-age-like, but
they do work.
Fine adjustment of such hb caps is done by compressing them in a vise
while the capacitance meter is connected, and stopping at the right spot.
They end up pretty large, for the capacitance values needed on 160 and
80 meters, but the the coils are large too, and the caps are still
smaller than the coils, or doorknob caps.
On my website, at the end of this page, you can see some small ones, for
a VHF transmitter:
http://ludens.cl/Electron/fmtx/fmtx.html
Manfred
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Visit my hobby homepage!
http://ludens.cl
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