[TenTec] My Jupiter Problem.. and Power Supplies.

[cherry@getnet.net]

My Astron 35M has plenty of power to destroy my Pegasus finals 
even with the current limit.
I now have a 20 Amp circuit breaker in series with my Pegasus. 
I do not plan to see if the circuit breaker will save the 
Pegasus finals and I do not think it will. I am very carefull 
tunning up on 40 meters from now on. I zapped my Drake T4-XC 
on 40 meters one time also. I had to send the Drake back to the 
factory for repairs. 
Jim W7ANF
  
Quoting WmLB@prefer.net:

> 
> I have already reported to the readers here that 
> Paul at Ten-Tec advised that it was necessary to 
> replace the finals in my Jupiter. Rig should be on 
> it's way back tomorrow.
> 
> My obvious question at that point was what would 
> have caused the problem. Obviously at this point, it 
> is a speculative exercise, but one of the things 
> that Paul suggested was that if the rig had 
> transmitted into an open or shorted feedline 
> (antenna).. even momentarily, it was possible that 
> oscillations were initiated in the finals that lead 
> to excessive current draw and their demise. 
> 
> He asked me what kind of power supply I had, since 
> there are many PS's out there that do not provide 
> the load protection needed to insure that  the above 
> does not occur.  I told him I had a Astron 35M, 
> which has been in service for several years. He 
> suggested that that might be part of the problem, 
> but when I asked him about Ten-Tec PS units he said 
> that the current product line does not have that 
> sort of protection built in either. (I gathered the 
> earlier ones did)
> 
> I just called Astron, who are local to me (Irvine) 
> They told me that both the current RM power supplies 
> and my older one had current limiting and voltage 
> protection. In fact, although I have not tried it, 
> he said that I could put a screw driver across the 
> output terminals and observe that the voltage goes  
> down to "zero" and when that short is removed it 
> returns to the nominal output voltage.
> 
> 
> No question here... unless you want to offer 
> something that might give me some comfort when I 
> power up the Jupiter once again.  At this point I 
> can only conclude that my original finals had a weak 
> link in there somewhere.
> 
> Bill