New Industry Products

medium power programmable dc electronic loads

December 05, 1999 by Jeff Shepard

The Sorensen division of Elgar (San Diego, CA) recently announced its MML Series of modular medium power programmable dc electronic loads for engineering and manufacturing applications. According to Elgar, the loads are designed for testing ac/dc converters, dc/dc converters, power storage devices and electronic components. The MML Series is available in three power levels from 100W to 600W and is designed to be mounted in either a benchtop or 19-inch rackmount chassis 7 inches (4U) high. The rackmount configuration is designed to house up to four load modules while the benchtop chassis holds two single bay modules. Individual MML modules are rated at 100W x 2 (dual output), 300W and 600W and can be synchronized or operated in parallel with other MML modules to offer up to 1200W in one chassis. The loads are also designed to operate down to 1V at maximum current rating with a maximum input of 80V. According to the company, users can program the MML loads using the keypad or an RS-232 interface or an optional GPIB IEEE-488.2 interface. Ten programs can be stored in EEPROM with up to ten sequences per program for automated testing. Safety and reliability features include protection from over-power, over-current, over-voltage, over-temperature and reverse polarity. The best way to test a power supply in this environment is to determine all possible load conditions and then simulate them with a programmable load. Our new MML Series electronic loads simplify this type of testing in a cost-effective way and can pay for themselves many times over by enabling optimized power supply design. One way to increase confidence in power supply performance is to test the supply over the full range of dynamic loading conditions, explained Don Novotny, Sorensen's corporate marketing manager. According to Elgar, all MML loads are CE marked and both models have a one-year warranty. Pricing for the MML chassis starts at $930 and $1,110 for the MML modules.