Monday, June 30, 2014

Doing Inrush Current Testing with the New AC6800 AC Sources

Hi everybody,

It is the last day of the month and therefore time for me to get my blog post out.  I want to build on Gary's latest post concerning the new Agilent/Keysight AC6800 AC Sources (Click Here).  One of the key features that Gary mentioned is inrush current testing.

My colleague Russ did a video on inrush current testing for the launch.  This gives you a little bit of perspective on why you want to do the testing and gives some good tips.


When you do inrush current testing, you typically want the highest value that the current has reached when the power is enabled.  The AC6800 has a peak hold current value that will store this value for you.  The unit stores the highest current value it has measured since that value was last cleared (either manually or from power on).  One key thing to remember is to always clear out the peak hold value before doing your measurement so that you know that your measurement is up to date.

The AC6800 can synchronize the enabling of the output to a user defined phase.  When you specify the phase, it will enable the output at that phase in the sine wave (anything from 0 to 360 degrees).  The combination of the peak hold measurement and this phase synchronization are what make this testing possible.  

I  did a video for the launch where I did a tour of the front panel, including a short description of how to do inrush current testing:

  



I also have a programming example on this topic.  Below is a snippet of a program that I wrote in VB.NET using Agilent VISA-COM:


That's about it for me this month.  Please let us know if you have any questions in the comments.  




Monday, June 23, 2014

New Agilent Basic AC Power Sources

I have mentioned several times before that I avoid posting product-only-focused material in this blog, but when we announce something new, it is appropriate for me to mention it here. Today, a press release went out about our new AC sources (click here to view). You may not realize it, but this press release marks the end of an era; these are the last power products Agilent Technologies will ever announce! Now don’t go all non-linear on me…..I’m sure we will continue to design and release new power products for decades to come. But as I mentioned in a previous post (click here), as of August 1, 2014, our products will be Keysight Technologies products and not Agilent Technologies products. So these new AC sources will be rebranded to Keysight in a few weeks, but because we are releasing them before the company name change is official, we have to release them as Agilent and not Keysight. Go figure….

Anyway, what are these new Agilent (soon to be Keysight) AC sources? Well, the model numbers will remain the same through the company name change and they are:

  • AC6801A (500 VA)
  • AC6802A (1000 VA)
  • AC6803A (2000 VA)
  • AC6804A (4000 VA)

This new AC6800 Series of basic AC sources compliments our previous line of more sophisticated AC sources (click here for those) by adding lower cost models and higher power. Here is what the new series looks like (of course, the big one is the 4 kVA model):
All four new AC6800 models share these features:
  • Output capabilities
    • Single-phase output
    • 2 ranges: 0 to 135 Vrms; 0  to 270 Vrms
    • 40 Hz to 500 Hz and DC
    • Sine wave (other waveforms with analog interface)
  • Measurement capabilities
    • Vac, Vdc, Vrms
    • Iac, Idc, Irms, Ipeak, Ipeak&hold, crest factor
    • Watts, VA, VAR, power factor
  • Other
    • Universal AC input
    • LAN (LXI-Core), USB, optional GPIB
    • Optional analog programming interface
The differences in the models are due to the output power ratings and can be summarized by looking at the output characteristics when producing an AC output or a DC output:

For a DC output, the graph above shows only the positive voltage and current quadrant (first quadrant). The output is equally capable of putting out negative voltage and negative current (the third quadrant) and the ratings are the same (except negative). These AC sources only source power; they cannot sink (absorb) power.

These AC sources do have one advanced feature: you can set the phase angle at which the output turns on. Coupled with the ability to measure peak current (and hold the peak current measurement), this is good for AC inrush current measurements.
To view the data sheet, click here.

So that’s the new line of basic AC power sources from Agilent and the last power products to be announced by Agilent. I wonder when the first Keysight power product announcement will be…..wouldn’t you like to know!?!?

Safeguarding your power-sensitive DUTs from an over power condition

Today’s system DC power supplies incorporate quite a variety of features to protect both the device under test (DUT) as well as the power supply itself from damage due to a fault condition or setting mishap. Over voltage protect (OVP) and over current protect (OCP) are two core protection features that are found on most all system DC power supplies to help protect against power-related damage.

OVP helps assure the DUT is protected against power-related damage in the event voltage rises above an acceptable range of operation. As over voltage damage is almost instantaneous the OVP level is set at reasonable margin below this level to be effective, yet is suitably higher than maximum expected DUT operating voltage so that any transient voltages do not cause false tripping. Causes of OV conditions are often external to the DUT.

OCP helps assure the DUT is protected against power-related damage in the event it fails in some fashion causing excess current, such as an internal short or some other type of failure. The DUT can also draw excess current from consuming excess power due to overloading or internal problem causing inefficient operation and excessive internal power dissipation.

OVP and OCP are depicted in Figure 1 below for an example DUT that operates at a set voltage level of 48V, within a few percent, and uses about 450W of power. In this case the OVP and OCP levels are set at about 10% higher to safeguard the DUT.


Figure 1: OVP and OCP settings to safeguard an example DUT

However, not all DUTs operate over as limited a range as depicted in Figure 1. Consider for example many, if not most all DC to DC converters operate over a wide range of voltage while using relatively constant power. Similarly many devices incorporate DC to DC converters to give them an extended range of input voltage operation. To illustrate with an example, consider a DC to DC converter that operates from 24 to 48 volts and runs at 225W is shown in Figure 2. DC to DC converters operate very efficiency so they dissipate a small amount of power and the rest is transferred to the load. If there is a problem with the DC to DC converter causing it to run inefficiently it could be quickly damaged due to overheating. While the fixed OCP level depicted here will also adequately protect it for over power at 24 volts, as can be seen it does not work well to protect the DUT for over power at higher voltage levels.


Figure 2: Example DC to DC converter input V and I operating range

A preferable alternative would instead be to have an over power protection limit, as depicted in Figure 3. This would provide an adequate safeguard regardless of input voltage setting.


Figure 3: Example DC to DC converter input V and I operating range with over power protect

As an over power level setting is not a feature that is commonly found in system DC power supplies, this would then mean having to change the OCP level for each voltage setting change, which may not be convenient or desirable, or in some cases practical to do. However, in the Agilent N6900A and N7900A Advance Power System DC power supplies it is possible to continually sense the output power level in the configurable smart triggering system. This can in turn be used to create a logical expression to use the output power level to trigger an output protect shutdown. This is depicted in Figure 4, using the N7906A software utility to graphically configure this logical expression and then download it into the Advance Power System DC power supply. As the smart triggering system operates at hardware speeds within the instrument it is fast-responding, an important consideration for implementing protection mechanisms.


Figure 4: N7906A Software utility graphically configuring an over power protect shutdown

A glitch delay was also added to prevent false triggers due to temporary peaks of power being drawn by the DUT during transient events. While the output power level is being used here to trigger a fault shutdown it could have been just as easily used to trigger a variety of other actions as well.

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Upcoming Webinar on High Power Source/Sink Solutions for Testing Bidirectional Energy Devices

Bidirectional and regenerative energy devices both source and sink power and energy. Correspondingly, a solution that can both source and sink power and energy is needed for properly testing them. In the past here on “Watt’s up?” we have talked about what two and four quadrant operation is in our posting “What is bipolar four quadrant power? (Click here to review). We have also talked about cross over behavior between sourcing and sinking current with a DC source that will operate in two quadrants in a two-part posting  “Power supply current source-to-sink crossover characteristics” (Click here to review pt. 1) and (Click here to review pt. 2). These give useful insights about the nature of multi-quadrant solutions for bi-directional test applications.



Figure 1: The four operating quadrants

Bidirectional and regenerative energy devices that are used in many applications, such as satellite power systems, alternative energy, automotive, and many other areas, operate at kilowatt and higher power levels. These higher power levels have a significant impact on solutions and approaches taken to address their testing.  Also, the nature of these bidirectional and regenerative energy devices are not all the same. This also has an impact in that the capabilities of the test solutions need to be different to address these different types of devices.

In my upcoming webinar on June 18th, titled “Conquering the High Power Source/Sink Test Challenge” I will be exploring the test needs of key bidirectional and regenerative energy devices and then go into the details of various test solutions and approaches for sourcing and sinking power and energy, along with their associated advantages and disadvantages. This is just a couple of weeks away. So if you are involved in this kind of work and are interested, or would just like to learn more, you can register online at the following (click here).  In case you cannot join the live event you will still be able to register and listen to seminar afterward instead, as it will be recorded.  I hope you can join in!


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Friday, May 30, 2014

Arbs! Arbs! Arbs!

Hi everybody,

We have a new intern here and we have recently been talking about the arbitrary waveform capabilities (from now on I will refer to this as arbs)  of our power supplies and I thought that this would make an interesting blog post.  This is a really cool feature that we offer in our products as it give you the ability to create an alternating signal using our DC power supplies.  The two types of arbs are the LIST system and the constant dwell arb.

The LIST arb is a feature that we have in quite a few of our products.  The N6700 family, the N7900 family, and even some of our older power supplies have this feature.  The "Arb" system in the N6705 DC Power Analyzer is similar to the LIST.  These LISTs can contain as many as 512 different points with a timing resolution as low as 1 us.  Each point consists of a voltage or current setting and a time.  The times can be different for each point.  A short example of a programmed LIST is:

VOLT:MODE LIST
LIST:VOLT 10,25,5
LIST:DWEL 5,1,4

In the example above, the voltage will start out at 10 V and stay for 5 seconds, then transition to 25 V for 1 s and then go to 5 V for 4 s.  As you can see there are 3 voltage values with 3 corresponding dwell times.

The second mode for arbs that is only available on the N6705B DC Power Analyzer and the N7900 APS is call the Constant Dwell Arb (CD Arb).  In this mode, you can program as many as 64K points but all of the defined points have the same dwell time.  If we want to do the same waveform as above, we need to choose what will be our dwell time.  Since the smallest dwell I used in my example is 1 s, I will choose that.  Here is what a small part of the code would look like:

VOLT:MODE ARB
ARB:VOLT:CDW:DWEL 1
ARB:VOLT:CDW 10,10,10,10,10,25,5,5,5,5

The code above will produce the same waveform as the LIST example.  CD Arbs can get pretty unwieldy when you have a ton of points but we do offer some tools in our 14585A Control and Analysis software that allow you to import and export csv files to make life a bit easier.

There are advantages and disadvantages to both.  As you can see, in some cases it is easier to program a list since it requires less dwell points and gives you more flexibility with what your dwell can be.  If your waveform has a lot of DC levels in it, then the standard list might work for you.  If you have a long, complex waveform the 64 Kpoints offered in an arb will most likely offer you the best option to replicate your waveform.

Whichever arb you pick, this is a very powerful tool.  I am thinking that I will follow this up at a future date with more information about arbs.  If you have any questions, feel free to leave us some comments.



Powerlifting Agilent style!

I have been working out at a gym including lifting weights since the early 1980’s. We have a small gym here in our office building that I use a few times per week. The other day, while doing incline bench presses, my mind was wandering and I began to wonder how much power it took for me to lift the barbell and weights.
I could put the barbell and weights on a battery operated lift we have here in the office and instead of the battery, use one of our power supplies to power the lift and measure the power while operating the lift. I also wanted to calculate how much power would be required. I admit that I had to take out my old physics book to refresh my memory on how to convert weight moved through a distance to watts, but this turned out to be pretty simple: the power is just the force (weight in newtons) times the velocity. Here is the justification:

Force is mass times acceleration. F = mass*acceleration = kg-m/s^2 = newton = N which is weight when the acceleration is due to gravity (weight = mass*gravity).

Work (energy) is force (weight) applied over distance. Work = F*distance = N-m = joule = J.

Power is work per unit of time. Power = J/s = watt = W.

So power in watts = W = J/s = N-m/s = kg-m/s^2-m/s = mass * acceleration * velocity = kg*gravity*velocity = weight*velocity (gravity = 9.8 m/s^2).

During my investigation, I did go off on a tangent for a short time looking at why we talk about measuring weight in kilograms even though kilograms are units for mass and not weight. It would be proper to measure weight in newtons, not in kilograms, but that’s a different story!

So when I lift 205 lbs (93 kg) a distance of 15 inches (0.38 m) in 1.5 seconds, I use 231 watts of power to do so (mass*gravity*velocity = 93 kg * 9.8 m/s^2 * 0.38 m/1.5 s). As I mentioned above, I wanted to see if I could measure something similar with a power supply connected to a battery operated lift by using our power supplies in place of the 24 V batteries. Here is what I found:
I did a baseline power measurement of just the lift lifting some wooden pallets needed to support the barbell I was about to put on the lift. I used 2 Agilent N7972A (40 V, 50 A, 2kW) power supplies connected in parallel (I needed the extra current capacity) and set to 24 V along with our 14585A Control and Analysis Software to capture the power over time. I could then add weight and measure the incremental power required to lift the added weight.
I found that the lift itself consumes 1502 W as my baseline measurement. Then I added a 288 lb (130.6 kg) battery compartment along with 295 lbs (133.8 kg) of barbell weighs for an added 583 lbs (264.4 kg). Again, I measured the power consumed by the lift while it moved the weights vertically and found it to be 1638 W. Lifting the incremental 264.4 kg consumed an additional 136 W. Let’s see if this makes sense with a calculation. The lift moved 4.5 inches vertically in 2.2 seconds which equals 0.052 m/s. The calculated power is then 264.4 kg * 9.8 m/s^2 * 0.052 m/s = 134.7 W. That’s very close to the measured 136 W!!
It is no surprise that the laws of physics work as expected here and that our power supplies can provide insight into those laws. Agilent has added new meaning to the term “powerlifting”!

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

DC Source Measurement Accuracy and Resolution – With Shorter Measurement Intervals

I had gotten a customer support request a while ago inquiring about what the measurement resolution was on our new family of N6900A and N7900A Advanced Power System (APS) DC sources.  Like many of our newer products they utilize a high-speed digitizing measurement system.

 “I cannot find anything about measurement resolution in the user’s guide, it must have been overlooked!” I was told. Indeed, we have included the measurement resolution in the past on our previous products. We did not include it as a single fixed value this time around, not as an oversight however, but for good reason.

Perhaps the most correct response to the inquiry is “it depends”. Depends on what? The effective measurement resolution depends on the measurement interval that is being used. Why is that? Simply put, there is noise in any measurement system. With older and more basic products that provide low speed measurements and inherently have a long measurement interval that the voltage or current signal is integrated over, measurement system noise is usually not a big factor. However, with the higher speed digitizing measurement systems we now employ in our performance DC sources, factoring in noise based on the measurement interval provides a much more realistic and meaningful answer.

For the N6900A and N7900A APS products we include Table 1 shown below, in our user’s guide to help customers ascertain what the measurement accuracy and resolution is, based on the measurement interval (i.e. measurement integration period) being used is.
  


Table 1: N6900A/N7900A measurement accuracy and resolution vs. Measurement interval

This table is meant to provide an added error term when using shorter measurement intervals. We use 1 power line cycle (1 NPLC) as the reference point at the top of the table, for the measurement accuracy provided in our specifications. This is a result of averaging 3,255 single samples together. By doing this we have effectively spread the measurement system noise over a greater band and filtered it out by the averaging. For voltage measurements the effective resolution is over 20 bits.

Note now at the bottom of the table there is the row for one point averaged. It is for 0.003 NPLCs, which is 5 microseconds, the sampling period of the digitizer in our DC source. For a single sample the effective measurement resolution is now 12.3 bits for voltage. Note also we provide an accuracy error adder term of 0.02%. This is taking into account the measurement repeatability affecting the accuracy.

A convenient expression for converting from number of bits to dB of signal to noise (SNR) for a digitizer is given by:

SNR (dB) = 6.02 x n (# of bits) + 1.76

The 12.3 bits of effective resolution equates to 75.8 dB of SNR, which is very much in line with what to expect from a wide band, high speed digitizing measurement system like what is provided in this product family.

As previously mentioned the effective measurement resolution is over 20 bits for a 1 NPLC measurement interval. This actually happens to be greater than the actual ADC used. While there is less resolution when using shorter measurement intervals, conversely greater resolution can be achieved by using longer measurement intervals, which I expect to talk more about in a future posting here on “Watt’s Up?”!

In the meantime this is just one more example of how we’re trying to do a better job specifying our products to make them more useful and applicable in ascertaining what their true performance will be in one’s end application.