Inside the 21st Century Power Test Lab

Focus:

Making high-fidelity measurements on high-performance power converters—when measured alone or in distributed power systems—can require a number of different test instruments encompassing multiple measurement domains. And with the performance of these converters and systems on the rise, the performance required of the test instruments is growing too. In this 5-minute video, Steve Sandler takes you on a tour of an advanced power test lab that contains an assortment of instruments for measuring various power supply waveforms and troubleshooting various power-related problems, particularly those encountered in power distribution networks or PDNs. Included here are spectrum and signal source analyzers that identify minute amounts of noise; vector network analyzers for assessing PDNs; and signal generators, frequency counters and scopes that measure ultra-fast transients. Sandler discusses the instruments’ capabilities and offers some guidance on the instrument specs required to measure power converters and PDNs, now and in the future.

What you’ll learn:

• How to understand what types of instruments and specifications are required to measure high-performance power converters and power distribution networks

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Author & Publication:

with Steve Sandler of AEi Systems and Picotest, Phoenix, Ariz. Video courtesy of SpinQ Studios (SpinQ.com)., How2Power Today, Feb 15 2014

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