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Power supply flexes its muscle

Staff - February 1, 2004

Agilent's N6700 power supply packs up to 400 W of programmable power into just 1U of rack space with no vent space needed above or below the unit. Consisting of a mainframe and up to four modules, the supply can produce 50 W or 100 W from each module. The modules come in three grades: basic power, high performance, or high precision. The high-performance module, which is rated at 50 V, 5 A, and 50 W, can autorange to any voltage/current combination within its power and voltage range (for example, 10 V at 5 A or 50 V at 1 A).

All power modules feature a built-in DMM for monitoring DUT voltage and current, eliminating the need for an external shunt and meter. An optional 4096-point, 50,000-samples/s digitizer provides voltage and current measurements that show dynamic changes in power consumption.

The N6700 also features fast programming times: A module can change its output from 0 V to 50 V in 5 ms and from 0 V to 5 V in 500 µs. For system integration and communication, the N6700 mainframe includes IEEE 488, USB, and LAN ports.

Prices: mainframe—$2200; power-supply modules—from $450 for a 50-W basic module to $2480 for a 100-W precision DC module. Agilent Technologies, Palo Alto, CA. 800-452-4844, ext. 7858;www.tm.agilent.com .