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The 106HVRF-2 High Voltage Neon Booster printed circuit board (PCB) copies a simple circuit devised by Al Biggs of SIE fame. Miniature neon lamps can be placed in series with a shunt regulator (the old Victoreen Corotron regulators or the new Codatron High Voltage Regulators) allowing two or more different regulated output voltages. SIE used this scheme in many gamma-ray / neutron tools principally to save the cost of a second regulator tube. See High Voltage Tips & Tricks for a more detailed discussion of this slick trick and a few others.
Anywhere from one to five neon lamps are jumper selectable, allowing up to approximately 300 volts of boost (about 60 volts per lamp). In GO/GOI/MLS COSMOS tools, a neon lamp is normally used to boost the output voltage about the same amount as filter network losses and to give a visual indication high voltage is present, and this board can be added to serve that function in tools not so equipped. It can also be used in tools with fixed value shunt regulators to boost and thus fine tune the voltage supplied to photomultiplier tube (PMT) based detectors (assuming enough raw HV is available to keep the shunt regulator happy and in regulation). The 106HVRF-2 PCB is compatible with either armor / chassis negative or armor / chassis positive line power. The 106HVRF-2 PCB measures 0.8 inches wide and mounts on two (2) inch centers.
The 106HVRF-2 High Voltage Neon Booster PCB is part of the 106 Radiation Tool™ PCB family. 106 Radiation Tool PCBs can be used to upgrade or repair tools, or an entire electronics section can be assembled from scratch using several PCBs (as in reworking an old tube / Nuvistor tool). All 106 Tool PCBs use readily obtainable components, which parts will continue to be available for many years to come, and all use convenient turret terminals for wiring connections. Due to time constraints on maintaining this website, the PCB illustrated below may not be the most recent revision of the board and / or circuit.
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