HV CC Load

Introduction

I have a box of high wattage resistors that I chain together when I want to test load a power supply. For a better engineered solution I've designed this small high voltage constant current load. It uses a high voltage (1.2kV) power MOSFET as the load and a current sense resistor and OPAMP to set the current through the load. The load is limited to about 10W dissipation (allowing the heatsink to rise by 30°C above ambient) and is limited by the size of the heatsink. If I had used a bigger heat sink or a fan it would shed more heat. My project will load 10mA at 1kV, 20mA at 500V, 56mA at 180V. So it covers the range of applications like small CRTs, dekatrons and nixies.

This page and its documentation describes my version of a HV CC Load. It is fully open design all released under a Creative Commons ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

At this time no kit is available. I will print the required 3D printed case if you don't have a 3D printer.

Important! This project does NOT contain any AI features whatsoever. No AI help has been used in designing the electronics, designing the case or when writing this web page. Handcrafted!