Anodising / Electroplating

Duvine Ltd, a leading designer and manufacturer of power supplies utilizing Switch Mode technology, has introduced a new addition to its family of rectifiers.

The exceptional efficiency of this type of technology has proved to be a great advantage for anodising / electroplating due to the amount of energy required for the electroplating process. These new units feature lower input cable/supplies and benefit from reduced running costs through power savings over the equipment design life.

This technology is relatively new in the electroplating environment, but it has been well proven over 30 years in other DC power conversion areas, specifically telecommunications and more recently offshore oil & gas markets, also for Impressed Current Cathodic Protection (ICCP) power supply markets.

The DD890 EP Power Supply is a switched mode supply system designed to provide up to 350 Amps maximum (voltage limited to 48V) and up to 60 Volts DC maximum (current limited to 280A). This power rating is achieved utilising 7 off rectifier modules each rated at 2.4kW, thus offering redundancy in the unlikely event of a singular module failure.

The input is 3-phase plus neutral with efficiency greater than 90% and a power factor better than 98% at 45-66Hz, with AC ripple on the DC line less than 1% at full load. It can operate in constant voltage or constant current mode. It has user programmable voltage and/or current sequence process control. The enclosure (800mm high x 600mm x 600mm) is floor standing, manufactured from mild steel to IP33 rating and cooling is via variable speed fans.

The operator can monitor and control the operation of the rectifier using a hand held/wall mounted programmer module (IP65 rating). During operation the output voltage, current and amp-hour reading (if selected) are displayed together with the time remaining till end of the process.

Programmable parameters include operating mode, number of stages in the process, voltage, current limit, output ramp rate and duration of each stage. There are also options for polarity reversal at the beginning of the process (with programmable voltage and duration) and activation of amp-hours meter. Operating parameters can be stored in permanent memory and re-called when needed. Up to 1000 processes can be held. The unit has built in power redundancy and protection against failures. In the case of a short circuit of the output the power converters will limit their output without blowing fuses or tripping circuit breakers. Normal operation is restored when the short is removed.