Line driver for power line

Thread Starter

stephen163

Joined Nov 12, 2009
5
Does anyone know of a suitable amplifier for driving the primary of an inductive coupler coupled to a power line (so the secondary is just one turn, i.e., the power line passing through the toroidal coupler).

The frequencies are between 10 kHz and about 3 MHz and the supply voltage should be off batteries. The drive current, idealy, should be as high as possible - maybe a few amps. The input impedance to the power line is quite variable, but is probably between 50 ohms and 700 ohms (this is a medium voltage overhead power line) - but since the coupler is split core, it is loosely coupled to the power line.
 

Thread Starter

stephen163

Joined Nov 12, 2009
5
Is it Current transformer.
Do you have a drawing that represent the circuit?
It's a current transformer in a sense, but not quite the same as a device used to measure power frequency current, rather this is a magnetic core with the secondary as the power line (one turn) and a coil wrapped around the core such that it is magnetically coupled to the power line. It is for injecting radio frequency signals onto the line - however, because of loose coupling, the mutual reactance between the power line and primary is low, necessitating the use of a high permeability core and a higher current, therefore I need a line driver amplifier for the 10 kHz - 3 MHz range of frequencies. For this reason, I think it's ok to assume the load is mostly resistive. I thought it would be easy to find an amplifier to do this job and even though there are a lot of IC's designed for homeplug and ADSL, I haven't been able to find one that can drive a higher current.
 
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