Extreme High Voltage: Fooling Around Blows the 15kV Supply

Ooops. Don’t try this at home, folks! I popped something in my 15kV supply.

After a day of troubleshooting, I think I’ve isolated the fault to the oscillator board’s PWM chip, a common SG2524, and it’s in a socket, so it will be easy to fix, if that’s indeed the trouble. In stock at my supplier too, so I’ll know tomorrow if that’s the problem.
The power supply is from Advanced High Voltage Corp., model NRL 1337-01. I don’t have a schematic, which makes things a bit difficult. I got it at Mike Quinn’s in the Bay Area years ago for a few dollars and rarely use it; it’s the same one I used for the TEA laser and is supposed to be able to take some abuse…. but not this much, clearly. I hope the HV section isn’t shot. The board isn’t oscillating though so hopefully that’s the only fault because the HV section is encapsulated in nylon, of all things, and is completely sealed and non-repairable. Now that I have a couple of uses for it I’d like to have it working because it’s the only one in that voltage range I have.

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