Welding inverter 100A Welding inverter is an alternative to conventional welding transformer. Modern semiconductors allows to replace the traditional mains transformer with a switching supply, which is much lighter, smaller and allows easy current control via potentiometer. The advantege is the fact that the output current is DC. Direct current is less dangerous than AC and prevents arc extinction. For this inverter i chose topology, which is the most common in inverters - forward inverter with two switches. In my article about switchning supplies it is a topology II.D. Input line voltage passes through the EMI filter and is smoothed with large capacity. Since the switch-on pulse would be intolerable, there is a softstart circuit. After switching ON the primary filter capacitors charging through the resistors, which are subsequently eliminated by switchning ON the relay. As a switches the IGBT transistors are used. These are controlled through a forward excitation transformer TR2 and forming circuits with BC327. Control circuit is UC3844. It's similar to UC3842, but equipped with pulse-width restriction to 50%. Working frequency is 42kHz. Control circuit is powered by an auxiliary source of 17V. Current feedback, due to high currents, is using current transformer TR3. Voltage accros the resistor 4R7/2W is approximately proportional to the output current. Output current can be controlled by potentiometer P1, which determines the threshold of feedback. Threshold voltage of the 3rd pin of UC3844 (sensor current) is 1V. Power devices require cooling. Most of the heat is dissipated in output diodes. Upper diode, consisting of 2x DSEI60- 06A, must in worst case handle the average current of 50A and the loss of 80W (both diodes). Lower diode STTH200L06TV1 (doube diode with both internal diodes in parallel) must in worst case handle the average current of 100A and the loss of nearly 120W. Maximum total loss of the secondary rectifier is 140W. The heatsink must be able to handle it. To the thermal resistance you must include the junction-case Rth, case-sink Rth and sink-ambient Rth. Diodes don't have insulation, the cathode is connected to the heatsink. Output choke L1 is therefore involved in the negative rail. It is advantageous because in this case there's no high-frequency voltage on the heatsink. You can use another type of diodes, for example the parallel combination of a sufficient number of the most accessible diodes, such as MUR1560 or FES16JT. Note that the maximum current of the lower diode is twice the current of the upper diode. Calculation of the loss of IGBTs is more complicated because in addition to conductive losses there are switching losses. Loss of each transistor is up to about 50W. It is necessary to cool the reset diodes UG5JT a rectifier diode bridge. Power loss of the reset diodes depends on the construction TR1 (inductance, stray inductance), but is much smaller than the loss of IGBT. Rectifier bridge has a maximum loss of up to about 30W. UG5JT bridge and were placed on a common heatsink with IGBT. UG5JT diodes also can be replaced with MUR1560 or FES16JT. During construction it is also necessary to decide the maximum loading factor of the inverter, according to size of heatsinks, winding gauges and so on. It is also good to add a fan. Switching transformer TR1 is wound on two ferrite EE cores, each with a central column section 16x20mm. The total cross section is therefore 16x40mm, core must have no air gap. 20 turns primary winding is wound using 14 wires with a 0.5 mm diamater. It would be better to use 20 wires, but they didnt fit to my core. Secondary winding has 6 turns of copper strip 36x0.5mm. Forward excitation transformer TR2 is made with an emphasis on low stray inductance. It is trifillary wound, using three rolled up insulated conductors of 0.3 mm, and all the windings have 14 turns. Core is made of material H22, middle column has a diameter of 16mm, with no gaps. Current transformer TR3 is made from suppression chokes on the toroidal core. The original winding with 75 turns of 0.4 mm wire works as a secondary Primary has 1 turn. Orientation of all the transformer windings must be respected (see dots in schematic)! L1 is ferrite EE core, middle column 16x20mm. It has 11 turns of a copper strip 36x0.5mm and the total air gap in the magnetic circuit is 10mm. Its inductance is cca 12uH. Auxiliary switched supply, including TR4 is described in more detail here . Simplest inverter on Pic 1 has no voltage feedback. Voltage feedback does not affect the welding, but affects the consumption and heat losses when idle. Without the output voltage feedback there is quite high output voltage (approximately 100V) and PWM controller running on max duty cycle, thereby increasing consumption and heating components. Therefore, it is better to implement the voltage feedback. You can inspire on Pic 2. The feedback can be connected directly because the driver is isolated from line. The reference voltage is 2.5V. Select the R2 to set the open circuit voltage. You can find useful info in datasheet of UC3842, 3843, 3844, 3845 or in another datasheet . Inspiration for modifications you can also find in 3 - 60V 40A supply . Interesting links from which I drew: http://svarbazar.cz/phprs/index.php?akce=souvis&tagid=3 http://leo.wsinf.edu.pl/~leszek/spawarki/ http://www.y - u - r.narod.ru/Svark/svark.htm http://www.emil.matei.ro/weldinv3.php Plug & Play IGBT Drivers Concept Pin Options IGBT Drivers w/ Low Lead Times. 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