Hi Everyone,

Since the release of the 3D printable cell setup is focussed on getting people started with experiments as easily as possible. I thought I would design a gated oscillator that uses as few components as possible. Find the preliminary work attached.

This design uses a single CD4093 IC for both Gate and Main oscillators, plus the necessary inversion. It isn't perfect, but gives most of what is needed, I believe.

I'll update you as this progresses but it should work fine when coupled to a IGBT or Mosfet output, and, could be built quite easily on strip board if necessary.

I will upload scope captures etc when I get it finalised.

Best, even.

thanks for posting always interesting to see people interpretations

DD

No problem at all.

Very simple but powerful arrangement this. Cheap to put together.

Here is a breadboard scope of the non inverted output with the gate in yellow and the gated oscillator in blue.

Here is a second variation of the same basic idea. The difference between the two is around how the gating is implemented. In the first version, the main oscillator is gated via its "power" (one of the NAND inputs). This has the positive aspect of keeping the phase locked, but results in a delay of the main oscillator. There is always a trade off.

In this design, both gate and main oscillators are running independently, whilst this does not lock the phase in the same way, it does improve the stability significantly.

What might be a nice idea, would be to have a 'gate' pcb that a user could run two existing signal generators into. Personally I would likely go that route or combine the gating with an arduino for more accurate timing. Anyway, here it is for what it is worth.

where is the switching for HVDC to the series tube cells?
looks like a good pwm for pulse train and gating but remember the magic is in the step charge

Ah. I know. This is just the subcircuit for gated pulses. I left that out for clarity for now and will expand those elements. I should have made that clear.

I have some other alternate parts here to test before completing that aspect. I found a few different IGBT parts that I would try instead of a mosfet. Consider this a documented development in progress. This is why I called it gated oscillator design for now. To me that is the part that could be simplified most in terms of parts count, with the overarching idea to make something very simple to put together.

I tend to compartmentalise elements of design in this way. I have a few other things I want to try in this part first also, before moving to the transistor switching and ac/dc rectification parts, which may have a few options too.