How would one make a power supply for a 30,000w xenon lamp

[CommanderLake]

Photonicinduction is my favourite youtuber he's a highly qualified electrician with over 20 years experience on live high voltage lines and I was thinking...
He has a 30kW xenon lamp that was made for simulating daylight for high speed video capture for stuff like crash tests: www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sPjzWqSb2U
What sort of crazy variable PWM supply would this thing need to supply it full power at 43v DC and maybe even "pop it" as Photonicinduction says?

 

[Harald Kapp]

Easy: 30kW/43V = 698A

A starter battery could deliver this much current (e.g. 820A) for a short time (30s) at a much reduced voltage (7.2V instead of 12V).You'd have put 6 of these batteries in series plus you will require the starter electronics for the lamp, appropriate overload protection etc.

 

[CommanderLake]

I was thinking something like a monster diy variable switching supply contraption connected directly to Photonicinduction's 100A outlet...

 

[BobK]

How would one make a power supply for a 30,000w xenon lamp

One would not, unless one had a lot of experience, or a death wish.

Bob

 

[hevans1944]

I would not want to be anywhere near that puppy if you put in enough power to "pop" it, even with the orange plastic shield bolted firmly in place. Anyway, I think the orange plastic shield is intended only for protection during transport and would melt if left attached while the lamp absorbed 30 kW of power. A xenon lamp creates a LOT of internal pressure when it is operating at rated power input. To deliberately try to "pop" one seems like the epitome of <fill in the blank>.

As for powering it up and actually using it... note the water cooling on the anode and cathode connections. If the arc voltage is in the neighborhood of 43 V DC, you can probably get by with ordinary tap water without too much fear of shorting the lamp supply, but you still need to circulate the water and dump the heat somewhere... maybe use an automobile radiator and a fan. I have built (constant current) power supplies for high-pressure xenon lamps in the 300 W size. You need a pulse transformer (usually wired in series with the output) to strike the initial arc, but after that the power supply takes over. Warm-up time takes several minutes before maximum light output occurs. All xenon arc lamps require forced-air cooling lest the quartz envelope melt. Scaling up from 300 W (about 90 V and about 4 A) to 30 kW (about 43 V and about 700 A) should be pretty straight forward.

 

[CommanderLake]

Don't start giving me a mouthful of warnings I only watch him on youtube, I just want to know what sort of switcher could power it.

 

[Gryd3]

Don't start giving me a mouthful of warnings I only watch him on youtube, I just want to know what sort of switcher could power it.

To be fair, you should probably read the

Some topics may be considered inappropriate, unsafe, unethical or offensive. We are likely to moderate content which strays into following areas (this list is not exhaustive):

- Weapons
- Spy tools
- Hacking/Piracy
- Personal or public risk
- Offensive or threatening behaviour
- Spam
- General off-topicness
- Pseudo-science

People may give you warnings, but a moderator may make a judgment call based on observed knowledge with electronics and consider this a dangerous project.

No one has actually told you 'no' or closed your thread, and Hevans1944 gave a little info. Not the complete solution mind-you, but a DIY schematic complete with parts and connection diagrams could be very dangerous to someone unfamiliar/unknowledgable with the dangers of high powered devices.

 

[CommanderLake]

Its entirely hypothetical.

 

[hevans1944]

Its entirely hypothetical.

Oh, well then... If we are talking hypothetical, I suggest you ask Scotty to loan you some di-lithium crystals to drive your arc lamp. These could be so much better than a bank of three-phase hockey-puck thyristors (SCRs) and 100 V AC @ 1000 A grain-oriented silicon steel transformers.

 

[CommanderLake]

Are you taking the piss?

 

[BobK]

Alright, you start with 100,000 hamsters. Then each one only needs to generate 0.3W.

Bob

 

[KrisBlueNZ]

Nothing good or useful will come of this thread. It's time to close it.