Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Switching vs. Reactance Supplies

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Topic: Switching vs. Reactance Supplies

Stefan Scholz
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 223
From: Schoenberg, Germany
Registered: Sep 1999

posted 10-27-2001 05:21 AM

I am using small, covenient 3 kW switch supplies for over 18 month now. They do run great. The supply is 230 Volts singlephase, and the 10 Amp breaker from the general lillumination outlet will hold the load for hours. So the phase factor must be near to 1, the mfg claims 0.99.
The advantages are: 8 lbs, 3kW, shoe box size, ripple below 2%, operational loss 40 Watts.
Our old reactance (transducer) controlled supplies ate about 300 Watts for the control circuit, even in idle mode. Alone due to that, the savings are tremendous, in electric energy. And if one fails, we have spares, that are changeable with the removal of a single Harting plug.
The tradional 50/60 Hz technology certainly has a much longer MTBF and easier everyone repair, as it is just 8 heavy duty components, compared the 1000+ electronic parts within the switcher.
On the other hand we've been using high power (15k+) switchers within the telecom business for nearly 20 years now, without a greater unreliability.
In critical application you may parallel 3 smaller (50% max current) supplies, so in case one fails, the remaining 2 can take the full load, if 2 fail, you'll still have 50% of the original power.
I learnt to like switch modes.
One thing they do not like is badly filtered igniters, but good grounding and the use of DC in-line filters can easily get hold of this problem.

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