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Glitch protection for tube amplfiers with HV PSUs

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OE5JFL has implemented the same idea for quenching the HV discharge current as I wrote about back in approx 2012. The idea is to short the anode PSU caps thru an inductor and a solid state device when an overcurrent event thru the tube occurs. The inductor prevents the current to raise to dangerous levels as the inductor tries to prevent the current dI/dt by building a magnetic field.

The above figure1 shows OE5JFLS thyristor circuit and 100-500uH inductor

Thyristors for voltages >1000 Volts are very expensive. For higher voltages you can use a cascade as shown above in Figure 2. I use four thyristors in series, switched by optocouplers, in my 3.5kV supply.

Figure 3 above shows a circuit for screen protection sreen in case of no anode voltage or screen overcurrent. Ig2>100mA will toggle the Flip-Flop via the optocoupler. The relay goes off and disconnects the screen. Voltage comes back after pushing the RESET key. Using the ordinary Z-diode stabilisation, overcurrent is limited to a harmless value during switching delay of the relay.

Overcurrent trip: High current in anode circuit caused by arcing or short circuit generates voltage drop across 10Ohm resistor. Flip-Flop toggles (Pin 3 low), switches off transformer and fires SCR to short HV capacitor.

For restart one has to switch off S1, the main power supply switch, and switch it on again after a few seconds. The series inductance for SCR protection is made from 10m of enamelled copper wire. Trip current is set by the 39k/8k2 voltage divider.

Before you test the circuit by producing a short, you should follow the step by step procedure, which is outlined as follows:

  1. Connect TP2 to ground, switch S1 on and short Pin 6 (CD4011) to ground. ===> Transformer must be off.
  2. S1 on, after plate voltage coming up, ground TP1 (transformer off), and then Pin 6 (CD4011). ===> SCR must fire now and ground high voltage.
  3. S1 on, ground Pin 6. ===> Transformer must be off and HV must be shorted.
  4. After successfully completing these tests, you should short the HV output with a thin wire to ground (0.12mm). This wire must not be melted when the HV-supply is shut down by the overcurrent protection.

PROCEED WITH CAUTION, THE AUTHOR IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR INJURY OR EQUIPMENT DAMAGE.

Credit to OE5JFL for the schematics and writeups. 

https://www.qsl.net/oe5jfl/flashover.htm

 

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Solar wind event of 12.May.2021

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The 12.May.2021 solar event caused major openings on 10 meters and above. I did this screen capture of the solar wind intensity to save for reference. One noteable observation is that the Bz magnetic measurement went to negative 20 for a moment. That is pretty significant.

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How to convert binary fractions to decimal ( fixed point arithmetics )

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Example for n = 110.101

Step 1: Conversion of 110 to decimal
=> 1102 = (1*22) + (1*21) + (0*20)
=> 1102 = 4 + 2 + 0
=> 1102 = 6
So equivalent decimal of binary integral is 6.

Step 2: Conversion of .101 to decimal
=> 0.1012 = (1*1/2) + (0*1/22) + (1*1/23)
=> 0.1012 = 1*0.5 + 0*0.25 + 1*0.125
=> 0.1012 = 0.625
So equivalent decimal of binary fractional is 0.625

Step 3: Add result of step 1 and 2.
=> 6 + 0.625 = 6.625
Example for n = 4.47 k = 3

Step 1: Conversion of 4 to binary
1. 4/2 : Remainder = 0 : Quotient = 2
2. 2/2 : Remainder = 0 : Quotient = 1
3. 1/2 : Remainder = 1 : Quotient = 0

So equivalent binary of integral part of decimal is 100.

Step 2: Conversion of .47 to binary
1. 0.47 * 2 = 0.94, Integral part: 0
2. 0.94 * 2 = 1.88, Integral part: 1
3. 0.88 * 2 = 1.76, Integral part: 1

So equivalent binary of fractional part of decimal is .011

Step 3: Combined the result of step 1 and 2.

Final answer can be written as:
100 + .011 = 100.011
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Arduino not visible on COM port. Cannot upload a sketch even if you have flashed a fresh booloader. Solution.

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If your Arduino does not show up on any USB COM ports even if you flashed a fresh bootloader, it may be because the sketch you flashed has messed up your USB serial settings on the Arduino. This sketch will prevent the Arduino showing up as a com port in Windows because the flashed sketch starts immediately upon reset and “blocks” the normal USB COM operation.

Solution:
1) re flash the bootloader with an ISP connected to the 6 pin header. I use a USBasp (cheap ISP clone).

2) Just so you KNOW the bootloader is installed. You can check that the bootloader is operational by plugging in the board thru the USB COM port (when you already have an open hardware manager windows in Windows).
You should see briefly a new COM device named “Arduino [name of board] bootloader”. This  COM device will quickly disappear again if you have a sketch messing up the serial settings.At least you know the bootloader should be OK.
3) Upload a completely empty sketch WITH THE ISP device. Important!:Do that upload with the ISP and NOT via the USB serial cable.

This is a completely empty sketch you can use:

void setup() {}
void loop() {}

I have fixed several dead Arduino boards that I suspected had hw problems this way. In fact the boards were OK. The problem was that a sketch already installed messed up the serial settings. The bootloader and hw was completely ok.

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RTOS on Arduino

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FreeRTOS Task for Blink LED in Arduino UNOProfessional software developers of time critical code often use a real time operating system (RTOS) in their work. The reason is that the OS is taking care of timing and scheduling tasks with higher priority. Now you can easily use an RTOS on your Arduino as well! Read Jain Risbah’s article over at circuitdigest: https://circuitdigest.com/microcontroller-projects/arduino-freertos-tutorial1-creating-freertos-task-to-blink-led-in-arduino-uno

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Finn posisjonen til masten som ditt 4G / LTE modem er koplet til med Celle ID! (4G / LTE Cell ID database with position info., Norway)

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Lurer du på hvor masten som ditt 4G / LTE modem er koplet til er lokalisert? (LTE Cell ID database with locations, Norway). 

Maybe this can help: I found a comprehensive database that contains approx 147000 lines at https://opencellid.org/ This dataset is made publicly available by Opencellid for download.

Here is the cell id data I downloaded for Norway:

 242.csv

Rename the file to 242.csv (it has a txt extension) and open it or import it in Excel.

You can then find lat and long position from the Excel cheet

Then enter that lat / long (with decimals and add E and N after the numbers) into the search field of Google maps