I am working with high voltage arcs a lot but I have no way to measure the voltage. What is a good way to measure very high voltages (up to tens of thousands)?
Electronic – High voltage meter
high voltage
Related Solutions
Use a variable high voltage power supply to generate a voltage that is about as high as the one you want to measure.
Place a voltmeter between both voltages and regulate the HV power supply until you can't see any difference.
Now both voltages are the same and the voltage source you want to measure isn't loaded.
The HV power supply either should have a calibrated scale control or its impedance should be low enough to measured its voltage directly.
use reading of voltmeter
to regulate HV power supply
+----------------------+
| |
v high impedance
variable HV ----------------(V)--------------- voltage source
power supply you want to measure
You could use a transformer to multiply up the current.
The image shows a current transformer working in the normal way for measuring very high currents. The measured current will be 1/N times that in the red cable. Basically you want to do the opposite.
Get a large iron ring, and loop your cable through it 10x. Then loop another small wire through the ring and measure the current in that.
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Best Answer
One way is to use a high-voltage probe. For example if you check the B&K PR 28A Datasheet you'll see it's rated for 1kV to 40kV DC and 1kV to 28kV RMS AC. As a ballpark price they are currently $US72 at Digikey. They include a 1000:1 divider to bring the voltage down to levels that normal test equipment can deal with.
I have seen DIY solutions in the past, but of course you'd have to be very careful with the materials used and the construction so I wouldn't really recommend it. Especially if you don't have to knowledge / equipment to test insulation breakdown.