Electrical Engineer graduate looking to get into pulsed power electronics - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / beginners

author: NolanFroese
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: April 30, 2025, 05:14:10 pm
content: I'm pretty much a newb, but I wanted to get a job at one of the start ups for the Fusion Reactor start ups. The electrical engineering requirement wants experience with high pulsed power generation VNAs and Oscilloscopes. They also want experience with PCB design as well.I have scrolled through the beginner videos that were pinned. I am thinking the first thing I should invest in is an Oscilloscope and a soldering station, but if anyone has any tips for someone starting out, please share. Also, some basic starting projects would be nice. The pinned posts are nice, but there's a lot to go through.

author: PascalNE
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 30, 2025, 07:40:10 pm
content: Speaking as a fellow beginner an oscilloscope would probably be a great investment its pretty much essential for power electronics.I don't know a tonne about HPPG but maybe a Marx Generator? I suppose it depends on how much power electronics was taught in your course dictates where you want to startIn terms of PCB design you'll probably pick it up as you start designing other projects and there's lots of resources here.If VNA experience is a must (I'm assuming you mean vector network analyser) maybe there is someone in your city that can lend you one or something like a hackspace nonetheless, this is probably the right place to be.

author: ME
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 01, 2025, 04:53:26 pm
content: Why not get a nanovna?, there for pennys and may help you learn with low outlay.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 01, 2025, 06:09:27 pm
content: Try to get a job as a technician at a high voltage lab and work your way up?Get a PhD for some type of high voltage electronics?

author: Terry Bites
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2025, 06:21:04 pm
content: Fusion is dead.It's fuelled by burning academic research grants (that could be better spent) and start up frauds.Look for a real job in something likely to succeed before time travel is up and running.You'll need some serious credentials and postgrad experience to get through the door of an HV lab. Unless you build your own of course!Contact your utility and power transmission companies for possible HV work experience and oportunities.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2025, 09:52:17 pm
content: The IEEE (in the US) has a division for pulse power: you might check their website.https://ieee-npss.org/technical-committees/pulsed-power-science-and-technology/This year's Pulse Power Conference is in Berlin, with deadlines almost passed.I attended one in Chicago a few years back (I was working with pulsed accelerators); it was cool.Some of the pulse generators were designed to make only one pulse, since bits of the equipment would explode to generate the pulse.The IEEE symposium on fusion engineering follows shortly thereafter:https://plasmafusion.eventsair.com/sofe2025June 23-26 at MIT.You might look for the proceedings of the two symposia to see what's really happening (as opposed to political discussions).

author: Psi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2025, 10:14:06 pm
content: Quote from: Terry Bites on May 03, 2025, 06:21:04 pmYour second statement I total agree with. Lots of companies burning through investors cash looking to be the first to crack profitable fusion, many with little hope of going anywhere. So there's a bit of fraud going on I'm sure. But it's mostly investors putting money into things that probably wont work on the off chance they do and that isn't really fraud. Though I'm sure they're stretching the truth to entice investors. But so does every advertisement to get you to buy goods and that's not considered fraud, though maybe it should be haha.But fusion is not dead, it's much closer to reality than it has ever been. For most approaches it's more of a materials science issue than a technical one now. We need to figure out containment and reaction longevity before we can pull heat out and do anything useful.Also trying to make everything smaller so it's easer to build and iterate. When it takes a 30 year project to build a test reactor the progress moves at a snails pace. But these's zero reasons to think the current problems are unsolvable and that fusion is dead.If I had to put money on someone it's probably Helion Energy, but this is not investment advice and I'm no expert on fusion nor do I work in the industry. I mainly think that Helion has an advantage due to their approach and how they can rapidly innovate due to the size and time to build new test reactors.

author: Psi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2025, 10:34:29 pm
content: Quote from: NolanFroese on April 30, 2025, 05:14:10 pmFor working with power electronics on PCBs you'll also want a way to measure current using the Oscilloscope.Some sort of current probe. There are a few options here and the cost ranges a lot depending on what sort of current you need to measure and the accuracy. For some situations you are more concerned with the current waveform than absolute accuracy so it's not always critical.There's the regular wire clamp oScope probe but that isn't useful for currents within the PCB tracks unless you're able to add loops to the PCB that you can probe, but that will change how the pcb works in a lot of cases so isn't practical.One option is some sort of non-contact magnetic hall effect current sensor you can touch to the PCB surface on top of the copper. There are ICs available that sense current in this way that you can use the build a crude probe out of but you need a reference to interpret what the sensor value means in amps assuming you're interested in more than just the waveform shape. One option is to design your PCB with this kind of sensor in mind and have predefined locations where you can probe with known parameters of copper width/thickness under sensor etc.. But that isn't always possible.I think I saw plans on here to DIY one a while back and i think there's an EEVBlog video on using a commercial one.Another option is having iSense resistors on the PCB and having a ground reference current sense amplifer ICs either on the PCB or externally wired to the iSense resistor and ground. You can then view the amplified signal on the scope. This works well for lower voltage stuff under like 50V which is, I'm guessing, what you are going to be playing around with to start with. So should work fine.