Chroma 62006P-100-2 Power Supply Review

on Equipment, Review

Chroma ATE has been quietly making really good power supplies for a long time. Today I’m going to talk about 62006P-100-25 which is a 100V 25A power supply with a built in arbitrary function generator. I’ve been using one now for about a year and it’s definitely the best value for the dollar out there now if you need a high end power supply.

The power supply is a switchmode design which means that it can be a little noiser than some linear supplies. The datasheet specifies the ripple voltage to be 85mVpp or 10mV rms which is a little on the high side, but I’ve never come even close to those values. The ripple with a 5A load is more like 10mVpp, which is quieter than my HP 6024A (also a switcher). I also haven’t been able to make it go unstable like some Xantrex models I’ve tried which is a huge bonus. There’s nothing worse than trying to debug a board to only find out it’s the bench power supply.

I really like the meters on the power supply too. It’s the first power supply I’ve seen that has 4.5 digit accuracy measurements built in and they’re actually close. The only issue I’ve seen is that the accuracy decreases a bit a low voltages/currents. Note that I’ve never tried to recalibrate them and that could resolve the issue. I also appreciate the direct keypad entry for voltage and current values. It’s extremely handy for limit testing. But there’s also an analog style knob for adjustments too if you prefer that instead. But here’s the best feature of this power supply:

ISO transient
ISO transient

The green trace is the power supply output and the black trace is the circuit under test. For this test the power supply is simulating an ISO 16750-2 automotive engine crank waveform. How cool is that? The only other way I can think of to generate this waveform is to use an arbitrary function generator and a bipolar power supply. But all the bipolar supplies I’ve looked at have stringent load requirements for stability and a lot more output noise. Another plus for the Chroma!

Programming the Chroma for this waveform is actually pretty easy and you don’t need to purchase their software to do it. Basically you write 1 program in 3 pieces. The first program is the initial voltage dip. The second program is the sine wave and the last program is the final output value.

For example, for the Class IV waveform shown above:

Program 1:

  1. 12V output, 10 A max, manual mode (so the power supply waits for enter to be pressed before starting the waveform)
  2. 6V, 1.2V/ms, 10A max, timed for 5ms
  3. 6V, 10A max, timed for 15 ms
  4. 7.5V, 0.03V/ms, 10A max, timed for 50ms

Program 2:

  1. 7.25V, 0.02V/ms, 10A max, timed for 20ms
  2. 7.02V, 0.02V/ms, 10A max, timed for 20ms
  3. 6.81V, 0.02V/ms, 10A max, timed for 20ms
  4. 6.66V, 0.02V/ms, 10A max, timed for 20ms
  5. 6.54V, 0.02V/ms, 10A max, timed for 20ms
  6. 6.50V, 0.02V/ms, 10A max, timed for 20ms
  7. 6.52V, 0.02V/ms, 10A max, timed for 20ms
  8. 6.60V, 0.02V/ms, 10A max, timed for 20ms
  9. 6.73V, 0.02V/ms, 10A max, timed for 20ms
  10. 6.91V, 0.02V/ms, 10A max, timed for 20ms
  11. 7.13V, 0.02V/ms, 10A max, timed for 20ms
  12. 7.37V, 0.02V/ms, 10A max, timed for 20ms
  13. 7.63V, 0.02V/ms, 10A max, timed for 20ms
  14. 7.89V, 0.02V/ms, 10A max, timed for 20ms
  15. 8.09V, 0.02V/ms, 10A max, timed for 20ms
  16. 8.27V, 0.02V/ms, 10A max, timed for 20ms
  17. 8.40V, 0.02V/ms, 10A max, timed for 20ms
  18. 8.48V, 0.02V/ms, 10A max, timed for 20ms
  19. 8.50V, 0.02V/ms, 10A max, timed for 20ms
  20. 8.45V, 0.02V/ms, 10A max, timed for 20ms
  21. 8.34V, 0.02V/ms, 10A max, timed for 20ms
  22. 8.18V, 0.02V/ms, 10A max, timed for 20ms
  23. 7.98V, 0.02V/ms, 10A max, timed for 20ms
  24. 7.75V, 0.02V/ms, 10A max, timed for 20ms
  25. 7.50V, 0.02V/ms, 10A max, timed for 20ms

Program 3:

  1. 12V, 0.045V/ms, 10A max, timed for 100ms

Then you go into the program configuration, link program 1 to program 2 and configure the number of times to loop program 2 (10 in this case). Then you link program 2 to program 3. This entire program can be entered using the keypad or downloaded using the RS232 or USB port if you have that option.

The Chroma 62006P-100-25 is a pretty good power supply by itself, but adding the arbitrary waveform generator makes it killer!