Why THD below 2 % matters on an industrial DC supply
Ripple is not a cosmetic number. What it does to plating finish, to bath chemistry, and to the life of everything downstream.
Total harmonic distortion is usually presented as a line-side courtesy — something you keep low to be polite to the utility. On a plating or electrowinning rectifier it is a process parameter.
What ripple does in a bath
Deposition rate follows current. If the current has a significant AC component riding on it, the deposition rate is modulated at the ripple frequency. On a bright nickel or gold bath, that shows up as banding, dullness or inconsistent thickness — and it is not recoverable by polishing.
What it does upstream
Harmonic current does not do useful work, but it does heat transformers, load neutrals and trip protection that was sized on RMS assumptions. On a shared supply, one badly behaved rectifier degrades power quality for everything else in the building.
The number we hold
Our industrial DC supplies hold THD below 2 % across the CC-CV range — 0 to 1000 Vdc and 0 to 1000 A, from 50 W benchtop units to 500 kW installations.
What to specify
- The current ripple you can tolerate at the load, not just the input THD.
- Whether the supply runs in constant current or constant voltage for the majority of the cycle.
- The duty cycle. A rectifier at full current for twenty hours a day is a different thermal design from one that peaks for ten minutes.
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