Design and Implementation of a Voltage Dip Generator for Robustness Tests

Abstract

Voltage dips (also called sags) are one of the most common electrical phenomena existing in the electrical network, which consists of the reduction of the effective value of voltage for a short period of time. Since manufacturers of electrical and electronic equipment are required to have a certain tolerance to this electrical phenomenon, a device capable of generating voltage dips in a controlled manner outside the electrical network is required, to be able to carry out robustness and verify that the regulations that characterize the phenomenon such as SEMI-F47, CBEMA and the ITIC curve are complied with. Considering the above, a device was designed and built that can generate them, being capable of feeding a load that demands a considerable current using equipment with sufficient capacity to supply energy and having the option of establishing parameters such as the magnitude, time and speed of reading data using an intuitive graphical interface that was designed using LabVIEW. Even though there are small limitations that are mentioned in this article, they can even be neglected if one takes into consideration that the cost of this implementation is up to six times cheaper than the cheapest commercial option on the market. The device can be used for devices that demand 1 kVA.