Ultra-wide input DC-DC modules for railway applications

Conduction cooling for power supplies has many advantages, says Relec Electronics, amongst them lower maintenance and improved reliability due  to the elimination of moving parts when compared to fan operated supplies.  There are also applications where a fan may not be practical on the basis that  it may risk blowing conductive dust into an electronic system. Whatever the application, good thermal design can reduce component temperatures and increase reliable operation.

Relec says that its new Cincon  DC-DC bricks feature the latest technology and that the CHB150W12 (150W) and CHB200W12 (200W) half brick DC-DC converters have an ultra-wide, 12:1 universal input range of 14-160Vdc. They are claimed to be of rugged construction, making them suitable for use in railway applications as well as distributed power architectures, telecommunications, battery operated equipment and wider industrial applications. Both product families meet the railway standards EN62368-1, EN50155 and EN45545-2, but can also be used in a wide variety of applications where operation from multiple DC supplies is beneficial, for example in medical, broadcast, robotics and agricultural designs.

The new DC-DC converters from Relec are available with 5V, 12V, 15V, 24V or 48V outputs and have 3000Vac reinforced input to output isolation as standard.  Units operate with efficiencies up to 91% and case temperatures range from -40°Celsius to +100°Celsius. There are several standard control functions: remote on/off with either positive or negative logic, adjustment output voltage from -20% to +15% and there is also a user settable under-voltage lock out facility as well as output over-current, output over-voltage, over-temperature and continuous short circuit protection. Optional heat sinks are available to extend the full power range of the modules.

Hold up time can be managed across the entire input voltage range by connecting capacitance to the Bus control pin, for a system that fully complies to the requirements of EN50155 with any input supply voltage. Relec confirms that it offers full application support with recommended PCB layouts, external heatsinks or detailed thermal profiling. There is also support readily available for series or parallel connections, and redundant operation. Multiple modules can be connected to create larger systems which have the ability to synchronize output ripple using an external clock and the Sync control pin.