New Industry Products

High-Voltage Differential Probes for Challenging Power Electronics Environments

June 18, 2014 by Jeff Shepard

Teledyne LeCroy has introduced the HVD High-Voltage Differential probe series delivering high common-mode rejection ratio (CMRR) across a broad frequency range. The new HVD differential probes are safe, easy to use and ideally suited for a variety of power electronics measurements. The wide 1500Vp-p differential voltage range and large offset capability provides maximum flexibility for capturing gate drive and control signals floating on a 1000-Vdc bus. This performance combined with 1% DC and low frequency gain accuracy means the HVD differential probes enable high precision, high voltage measurements.

The HVD probes connect to the oscilloscope through the ProBus interface. The ProBus provides power to the probe so there is no need for a separate power supply or batteries. Attenuation is automatically selected based on oscilloscope gain range (V/div) setting and a probe autozero can be easily performed through the oscilloscope channel menu.

Many differential probes have high CMRR at low frequencies but the CMRR quickly drops as the signal frequencies increase. The CMRR for the HVD probes is exceptional out to very-high frequencies which greatly assists in the measurement of signals found in the noisy, high common-mode environments found in power electronics. The high CMRR combined with the low noise and high offset capability makes the HVD probes capable of measuring very small control signals floating on high common-mode voltages.

The HVD high voltage differential probe series has two models, the HVD3102 (25 MHz, 1500Vp-p, 1000 Vrms) and the HVD3106 (120 MHz, 1500Vp-p, 1000 Vrms). The US list prices are $950 and $1,350 respectively.