TRANSISTORIZED POWER SUPPLIES FOR A MASS SPECTROMETER

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Abstract
While a mass spectrometer itself may require a few hundred watts of regulated power for the magnet and only a few watts of regulated power for all other purposes, the regulating supplies often dissipate kilowatts. The construction of more efficient supplies using transistors and magnetic amplifiers results in substantial savings in the physical size of the supplies, the cost of their component parts, and the effort required for maintenance.Circuits and descriptions are presented for a magnet current power supply and a filament emission control that have been used in the mass spectrometer built recently at this laboratory. These illustrate the simplicity possible with transistor-regulated supplies, as well as the savings mentioned above. The mass spectrometer is a 12-in. radius 90° instrument used at mass 250 with a 5000-volt accelerating voltage. The magnet, which supplies a field of more than 5000 gauss over an area of 800 cm2 and across a gap of 1.9 cm, and which weighs three quarters of a ton, is supplied from a regulated supply dissipating about 50 watts. The filament emission control takes about 30 watts from the mains.

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