SLAC P2 Marx Control System and Regulation Scheme

The SLAC P2 MARX Modulator consists of 32 cells charged in parallel by a -4 kV supply and discharged in series to provide a -120 kV 140 amp 1.7 millisecond pulse. Each cell has a 350 uF main storage capacitor. The voltage on the capacitor will droop approximately 640 volts during each pulse. Each cell will have a boost supply that can add up to 700 V to the cell output. This allows the output voltage of the cell to remain constant within 0.1% during the pulse. The modulator output voltage control is determined by the -4 kV charging voltage. A voltage divider will measure the modulator voltage on each pulse. The charging voltage will be adjusted by the data from previous pulses to provide the desired output. The boost supply in each cell consists of a 700 V buck regulator in series with the main capacitor. The supply uses a lookup table for PWM control. The lookup table is calculated from previous pulse data to provide a constant cell output. The paper will describe the modulator and cell regulation used by the MARX modulator. Measured data from a single cell and three cell string will be included.