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A project log for Nixie Tube Power Supply

A flexible power supply for Nixie tubes. Input voltage can be from 3V to 12V. Output up to 200V. It uses commercially available transformers

paul-andrewsPaul Andrews 11/10/2017 at 01:490 Comments

You can get the board on OSHPark. The full KiCAD project and LTSpice model is in my Github repo. There is a full BOM with digikey part numbers in the files section of this project and in the Github repo.

BTW, I tried reducing Rsense to 0.04Ω. The temperature of the transformer peaked at 160°F at an ambient of 70°. Still well below the absolute maximum of 257°F. I will produce a set of figures for this configuration too, as the supply can provide a lot more current with this lower value of Rsense

And the MOSFET:

A chart showing the maximum current for a given input and output voltage. I determined this from the readings that follow, by picking the maximum current I could measure before Vout started to be un-regulated. So another way of saying this is that it shows the maximum current for a regulated Vout.

There might be thermal issues with running at these maximum currents. I couldn't really measure that because my load resistors need some serious heat sinks added first.

In the readings below it is useful to note that for a given load and Vout, the output current remains constant regardless of the input voltage (until the output voltage becomes unregulated)

Readings for a Vout limit of 200V:

12V in
Rload Vout Iout (mA) Vin Iin (mA) Eff
19.31 199.8 10.40 11.96 237.90 0.73
14.64 199.7 13.70 11.96 298.20 0.77
10.00 199.4 20.06 11.95 414.00 0.81
6.86 199.1 29.23 11.93 595.00 0.82
4.65 188.4 40.00 11.88 765.00 0.83
5V in
Rload Vout Iout (mA) Vin Iin (mA) Eff
19.31 199.3 10.38 4.80 600.00 0.72
14.64 199.2 13.68 4.72 717.00 0.81
10.00 177.2 17.82 4.63 865.00 0.79
3.7V in
Rload Vout Iout (mA) Vin Iin (mA) Eff
19.31 199.0 9.30 3.67 865.00 0.58
14.64 181.0 12.30 3.65 890.00 0.69
10.00146.0 14.00 3.49 906.00 0.65

Readings for a Vout limit of 177V:

12V in
Rload Vout Iout (mA) Vin Iin (mA) Eff
19.31 177.8 9.26 11.97 195.50 0.70
14.64 177.7 12.20 11.96 243.10 0.75
10.00 177.6 17.86 11.96 345.50 0.77
6.86 177.3 26.00 11.94 471.00 0.82
4.65 177.0 38.23 11.91 678.00 0.84
5V in
Rload Vout Iout (mA) Vin Iin (mA) Eff
19.31 177.2 9.22 4.84 502.00 0.67
14.64 177.2 12.14 4.77 620.00 0.73
10.00 177.0 17.76 4.63 870.00 0.78
6.86 152.0 22.40 4.60 930.00 0.80
3.7V in
Rload Vout Iout (mA) Vin Iin (mA) Eff
19.31 177.4 9.24 3.82 610.00 0.70
14.64 177.0 12.17 3.64 900.00 0.66
10.00 144.215.00 3.49 914.00 0.68

Here is my new test load rig. An extra resistor and a smaller form factor! I really need to get some heatsinks though. Or even better, an actual test load!

Here's a much more attractive test load being driven by a liitle LiPo battery:

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