IGBT discontinued

[aless2056]

Personal,

The company has some equipment for corona discharge treatment that uses the IGBT IRG4PC50UDPbF, this item was discontinued and in its place the manufacturer recommends the IKW30N60DTP.

We use it in an equipment that gives electrical discharge in the plastic film and sometimes it pierces the cylinder that receives and is leaking to the ground. And even with the protection of the circuits, sometimes the IGBT burns if it stays in this condition for a long time, we change it and go back to working normally, but recently the item was discontinued and the manufacturer recommends another item.

We bought this item but realized that it works normally, however when this cylinder hole occurs it burns directly, it is not as resistant as the previous one.

I don't understand the terms of the datasheet, to compare in depth. But what I read in the datasheet the original has Icm and Ifm of 220A and the replacement has this value in 90A. I'm not sure what this parameter is and if it's causing these burns

A personal help

[fourtytwo42]

I think you should ask the equipment manufacturer as they will know how the circuit is supposed to work!
Short of that you would need at least the schematics for anybody to have much of a stab at your problem or at least the make and model of the equipment, most people here don't have crystal balls 

[Siwastaja]

I don't want to sound rude but this sounds like you need to find a competent power electronics designer. It's a larger job than you may think.

Semiconductors are not supposed to fail and replaced on a regular basis, so the original circuit did not work properly. Just a different batch of the same IGBTs could have had the same effect of making magic smoke event even more frequent.

Fast current sensing, desaturation detection, etc. are normal parts of IGBT gate driving logic. There's likely a shortcoming here.

Designer's job includes checking (running calculations, whatever; they know the circuit they designed) if a part can be substituted.

[f4eru]

Which exact brand and ref is your generator ?
Yes, it smells like a design fault, and/or missing protections.
I would recommend a HV resistor in series with the output, that can soften any HF generated from discharges

Octopart and findchips often are great to find some obsolete components, and removing some letters trailing the ref can be useful :
https://www.findchips.com/search/IRG4PC50

[aless2056]

The equipment is Chinese and old, it has been around 6 years and the manufacturer no longer exists.

The equipment uses signals from current transformers to send the control board and cut the trip.

A friend told me that it might be necessary for IGBT to have SOA (short circuit safe operating area)

But I don't know what that means for sure

[fourtytwo42]

The equipment is Chinese and old, it has been around 6 years and the manufacturer no longer exists.

Says it all really, go buy something from a reputable company that cares about it's customers!

[Siwastaja]

Fixing Redesigning cheap crap to work is a great learning experience into power electronics, but it's a daunting task. Definitely do it if the target is to design such devices in the future. If you just need a working device and don't have much prior experience on designing power electronics, this is a no-go.

[ebclr]

You still can buy the IGBT

https://detail.tmall.com/item.htm?spm=a230r.1.14.18.33086b847qQfco&id=623881122354&ns=1&abbucket=2&skuId=4410237724507

https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?catId=0&initiative_id=SB_20210621012857&SearchText=IRG4PC50UDPbF

"Quem procura encontra"