TRek Model 610E High Voltage Supply/Amplifier Teardown

What's up everyone! Figured I'd try something a bit different - a teardown of this neat piece of equipment! It is a TRek 610E HV Supply/Amplifier/Controller. It can deliver up to 10,000VDC at up to 2mA!! At only 20W power it is definitely not the most powerful supply I've come across, but it can deliver the highest potential by far!

This device was once part of a complex apparatus at my company that was used for attempting to encapsulate single cells into picoliter droplets (known as picodroplet encapsulation). But that project ended years ago and this thing sat in storage for years until I unexpectedly found it.

I don't normally do teardowns because I'll admit I'm still not knowledgeable enough in circuit analysis or electrical engineering to go into details on the circuitry. I love repair because it gives me the ability to get hands on experience teaching myself how a circuit works to solve whatever problem is going on. But I figured I'd give this one a go - let's take a look inside!

Note: For those of you worried about the X-rays, the max dosage from each tube is listed as 1.5mR/h (millirem/hour). What does that equate to in radiation? Well I'd have to leave both these tubes on (unshielded) for 30 minutes to be exposed to 1.5mR which is the equivalent of getting a dental X-ray. Obviously you wouldn't want to be around these for extended periods of time (unshielded), but for the purpose of this video, I think I will live ;)

UPDATE: The @Thesignalpath released a video on HV Amplifier design yesterday (link here:    • TSP #246 - High-Voltage Amplification...  . This video is fantastic and answers a lot of the questions/uncertainties I had about the 610E circuitry.

1) He defines what that long cylindrical tube is at the 12:45 mark. It is not a current monitoring device but safely provides feedback to the low voltage amplifier board via a custom resistive divider.
2) If you look at 6:37 mark, I completely gloss over this because I didn't know what they were, but you can see this plexiglass circle right beneath one of the HV tubes at the top right corner. That is actually a light pipe for an optocoupler! This optocoupler is what allows the output signal of the low voltage amplifier to reach the HV portion of the circuitry since there is no way to safely physically connect both parts of those circuits. Very cool!

Highly recommend you check out that Signal Path video if my video left you with unanswered questions!

6:04 – Teardown
15:27 – input voltage to main PSU
15:45 – Output voltage to main PSU
16:43 – Output voltage to main PSU waveform
18:25 – Testing in supply mode 0-1kV range
20:51 – Testing in supply mode 0-10kV range
22:50 – Testing in amplifier mode
30:15 - Outro