I have been working on this project for a while on a 'when-I-have-time basis' and now it is crunch time. Here's a general description:
My company obtained a DC electron gun as the first stage of a much larger accelerator. It emits a pulse of electrons with 50kV energy from a heated cathode. There are two transformers in the gun body itself. The gun body is a 'black box' so i don't know the turn ratios. The gun consists of two main circuits: the heater and the pulser.
Heater:
The user, being me, is to apply a 1kHz [50% duty cycle] square wave of -12V to 12V to the transformer in the black box. See PDF, square wave attached to connection#4.
Pulser:
A circuit design was given for this part, but that doesn't mean I've gotten it to work. See second pdf. Apply +800V, and when the thyristor is triggered, a half-sinusoid of -400V is produced [duration of 4.8microseconds] and is applied to connection#2 of the first pdf. The pulse is stepped up to 50kV by the second black-box transformer and biases the cathode.
Since the anode is held at ground, the 50 kV pulsed bias on the cathode accelerated the electrons out through a hole in the cathode. The heater creates thermionic electrons.
So here is my first question...[I almost forgot]...Can I just use a simple transistor multivibrator? Like this one, but with +/- 12V rails.
I should point out that I am an accelerator physicist, not a electronics guru. This seems like it should work. Any suggestions?
My company obtained a DC electron gun as the first stage of a much larger accelerator. It emits a pulse of electrons with 50kV energy from a heated cathode. There are two transformers in the gun body itself. The gun body is a 'black box' so i don't know the turn ratios. The gun consists of two main circuits: the heater and the pulser.
Heater:
The user, being me, is to apply a 1kHz [50% duty cycle] square wave of -12V to 12V to the transformer in the black box. See PDF, square wave attached to connection#4.
Pulser:
A circuit design was given for this part, but that doesn't mean I've gotten it to work. See second pdf. Apply +800V, and when the thyristor is triggered, a half-sinusoid of -400V is produced [duration of 4.8microseconds] and is applied to connection#2 of the first pdf. The pulse is stepped up to 50kV by the second black-box transformer and biases the cathode.
Since the anode is held at ground, the 50 kV pulsed bias on the cathode accelerated the electrons out through a hole in the cathode. The heater creates thermionic electrons.
So here is my first question...[I almost forgot]...Can I just use a simple transistor multivibrator? Like this one, but with +/- 12V rails.
I should point out that I am an accelerator physicist, not a electronics guru. This seems like it should work. Any suggestions?
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