Published: July 15th, 2022.

Introduction to the Soft Start Safety Box

Emergency stop is the most important part of any electrical machine or electrical circuit, that can fail in a dangerous state where its possible to harm either humans, animals or materials. The Tesla Coil can be a dangerous electrical circuit, if there is a failure or someone without knowledge crosses a safety barrier.

The soft start to pre-charge the DC bus capacitors is wanted due to the inrush current a empty capacitor bank has. A empty capacitor present itself as a short circuit when charging is first started, this can make many mini circuit breakers trip or even blow fuses. Slowly charging them through power resistors to limit the charge current and get some charge in, before full mains current is available to the load, makes for a very easy startup sequence.

Safety

WARNING!: Working with electricity is dangerous, all information found on my site is for educational purpose and I accept no responsibility for others actions using the information found on this site.

Read this document about safety! http://www.pupman.com/safety.htm

Considerations on safety

The first version of my soft start box for 3 phased 400 VAC loads was just that, a soft start box. I wanted to include safety features like fault detection and emergency stop, but I also wanted to remain galvanically isolated from the mains supply, as it is the case with the interrupters and controllers that used a fiber optical link.

First I want to design a fiber optical link with a encoded signal, so that only a specific signal would make the safety circuits resettable. Secondly I also want it to be tolerant to failures, miswiring and if there is a fail, it should fail to a safe state.

Industrial safety relays are widely available and presents a lot of the wanted features, except fiber optical connections, at least at a affordable price. I had a Siemens Sirius 3TK2822/23 safety relay from machine teardowns and that can be used as a emergency stop device according to DIN EN / IEC 60947-5-5. Depending on the external circuitry, a maximum performance level PLe/Cat. 4 in accordance with DIN EN ISO 13849-1 or SILCL 3 in accordance with DIN EN/IEC 62061 can be achieved with this device. More about its detailed functions with the schematic.

Specifications of the Soft Start Safety Box

Schematic of emergency stop circuits

My largest challenge in this project was to make a fiber optical link that has a high fault tolerance and will fail in a safe state. I quite quickly set on make a fixed oscillator running at 666 Hz, but that could be virtually any signal frequency for the type of band pass filtering I wanted to use on the receiver. The schematic for the 666 Hz oscillator can be found in part 7 of the DRSSTC Show Controller project about the safety features. I tried my luck with very simple band pass filters like RC filters and discrete logic, Butterworth 2 Pole Bandpass Active Filter and a few other op-amp filters found on google. None of these turned out very stable and I could always get them to fail in a undesired state. Band pass filters are not designed with safety circuits in mind 🙂

I found the inspiration for what I needed, in the “Designer’s Encyclopedia of One-Shots” [1] from Fairchild Semi. On page 26, figure 16, a simplified band pass filter circuit is shown with very little details. Two low pass filters are used in a clever way along with proper timing to create the band pass window. I also used the Texas Instruments guide “Designing With the SN74AHC123A” [2]. The band pass filter output is evaluated by two independent LM331 op-amps that each has their own galvanically isolated relay to switch the safety relays monitored channels.

The safety relay have two instantaneous redundant enabling circuits with NO functions. The enabling circuits are for the safety-related deactivation of the mains supply and charging actuators. The safety relay is configured as “Monitored start” mode which is in accordance to DIN EN / IEC 60204-1.
When the emergency stop button is released and the reset button is pressed, the internal circuit of the safety relay and the external contactors are monitored to ensure that they are functioning correctly. With the safety relay, the ON circuit Y33/34 is checked for short-circuit. That means it is identified as a fault if Y33/34 is closed before the emergency stop button is reset. The devices also monitor the sensor circuits for cross-circuits. This is done based on various potentials in the sensor circuits.

Construction of the Soft Start Safety Box

June 12th, 2022

The enclosure parts was cut to fit and all holes for plugs and switches are made. All components and wiring is harvested from the old soft start box and reused as much as possible. All wiring in the main switching loop (CEE 32A) is made out of 6 mm² machine tool wire and for the CEE 16 A there is used 2.5 mm². The control input 230 VAC voltage is run through a EMI filter and feeds the 24 VDC power supply as well as the control power output plugs.

The optical safety receiver PCB with its add-on relay output PCB.

June 18th, 2022

Labels have been added to all plugs, switches and indicator lamps. Everything needs to be visually self-explaining to the operator. The soft start safety box is finally tested with the optical safety transmitter located in the 6 channel Tesla coil show controller.

Conclusion

The soft start safety box has been field tested with a total run time of 3 days, during a show. The start up procedure can be done gradually and checks can be made in a way that leads from emergency stop test to full power in a series of steps. The safety features bring in a safer way of working, as it enforces a certain sequence of steps and is constructed to combat wrongful operation.

The emergency stop was tested daily before each show and it was used once during a secondary coil failure. Works 100% as designed.

Demonstration

Design, construction and test video of the Tesla Coil Soft Start Safety Box.

References

[1] Fairchild Semi: Designer’s Encyclopedia of One-Shots (AN-366: May 2001)

[2] Texas Instruments: Designing With the SN74AHC123A (AN: SCLA014, October 1999)