Rapid Testing for Noise Immunity of Electron Devices

Current switching in power control devices sometimes has serious noise difficulties. This paper presents a method of testing and measuring noise immunity. The noise immunity of a thyristor with magnetic core or unijunction transistor is analyzed and measured. The experiment agrees well with the theory.     

Photovoltaic system using buck-boost PWM power inverter

This paper presents a buck-boost PWM power inverter and its application for the residential photovoltaic system. The PWM power inverter is realized by driving an inverter constructed with a high-frequency buck-boost chopper in the discontinuous conduction mode (DCM). The photovoltaic system with the power inverter has the following advantages: (1) the power generated by the photovoltaic array can be transferred to the load and the utility line under any array voltage; (2) isolation between the photovoltaic array and the utility line is performed by a small high-frequency reactor operating as energy storage element; (3) there is no need of a reactor to link the utility line; (4) unity power factor operation is provided; and (5) the system configuration is very simple. the input-output characteristics of the system are analyzed. As a result, the ripple component of the array current and the power flow between the interface and the utility line are derived and verified experimentally.     

A one‐converter contactless charger for electric vehicles

A simple and reliable contactless battery charger for electric vehicles is proposed. Its feature is a unitized power factor correcting (PFC) converter and a high‐frequency inverter (HFI) where the low‐side switch of the HFI also works as the boost switch of the PFC in discontinuous conduction mode, which results in a high input power factor and low harmonic distortion without any feedforward control. The exiting current of the inductive connector, compliant with SAEJ1773, works effectively to make the converter operate in zero voltage switching (ZVS) condition. Another feature is that the charger is controlled by a single magnetically coupled variable frequency oscillator developed by the authors. This paper analyzes the circuits, gives a design example, describes the inductive connector and the oscillator, and presents experimental results. A 1.7‐kW output prototype charger achieved a charging efficiency of 87.4% for total one cycle charging, an overall efficiency of 90% at heavy load, and an input power factor of over 98%. © 2000 Scripta Technica, Electr Eng Jpn, 132(2): 73–81, 2000     

The Cascade Connection of Switching Regulators

A method for the cascade connection of switching regulators is introduced which is useful for low-voltage power supplies. It is common to use a reactor with a secondary winding in order to obtain a sufficiently small step-down ratio (Eout/Ein). In this method, how-ever, a switching surge occurs because of the leakage inductance of the two-winding reactor. On the other hand, by the method presented here, we will be able to have a sufficiently small step-down ratio and a sufficiently large regulation range with no occurrence of the switching surge. Furthermore, a new method is proposed for isolating the supply and the load circuit.     

On the High-Speed Turn-Off of a Power Transistor by a Small Saturable Core

An effective method for reducing the size and weight of the switching dc-dc converter is to increase the switching frequency. To accomplish this with no deterioration in efficiency, it is necessary to suppress the switching loss per cycle by shortening the switching time. An efficient dc-dc converter operating at the megahertz region is presented. The turn-off time is shortened by using the current feedback and the core saturation. The turn-off mechanism is analyzed with the equivalent circuits. As a result, it is found that the excess carrier in the base region is discharged quickly by the large reverse base current, which flows when the energy stored in the base-emitter capacitance of the power transistor is transferred to the saturated inductance of the core with high frequency oscillation.     

Analysis of high-power factor AC-DC boost converter

This paper presents analysis of a high-power factor ac-dc converter with a boost converter operating in the discontinuous conduction mode (DCM) and the critical conduction mode (CRM). The converter can be expressed by a nonlinear differential equation for each mode. The equation in DCM is solved analytically by separating its variable (output voltage) into two terms of a ripple component and a direct component, and by linearizing the equation for the ripple component. On the other hand, the equation in CRM can be solved analytically. Furthermore, the source current waveform of the converter is expanded into the Fourier series. As a result, the output voltage, its ripple and the power factor of the converter in DCM and CRM are derived as a function of the circuit parameters, respectively, and verified experimentally. These equations exhibit clearly the effect of each circuit parameter of the converter and the difference between the converter in DCM and in CRM. The converter operating in CRM produces sinusoidal ac current with unity power factor.