Reply To: NIMBY FUD

[delt0r]

Not quite the reply you want(not from LPP). But having done some HV work previously I can comment on the general issues of arcing. Basically any HV things tend to have some issues because insulating is really harder than it looks. Furthermore insulation degrades over time. Expensive HV cables are not rated for very long. There are a lot of physical process that matter at this level. Not all well understood and most highly stochastic. It only takes one electron to get enough energy to knock off more electrons… and now you have a lot of current and heat where you really don’t want it.

Now add the pulse nature and high currents that a DPF has. This further compound problems quite considerably. The biggest issue i would guess is the high stresses that the magnetic fields would place on everything. This means each pulse there are strong forces trying push everything apart, and no matter how strong everything is, things will flex a little. This can then compromise insulation by cause physical damage or by simply providing somewhere to seed a discharge.

A lot of HV equipment has arcing issues. The trick is to not let it destroy the device.