I have a PIC application that needs to turn on some SCR's in inverse parallel th
at control a big heater.

These things operate on 480Vrms and usually 350Arms.

My task is to implement power control via phase control.

My plan was to hit the gate with about 300mA via 120V from a stepdown xformer of
f of the 480V and a 50W power resistor to limit
it to 300mA.  (Well within the Peak gate power)  I want to use an opto-triac to
switch the 120.

After reading some various app notes however I found some info stating that you
should never drive the gate with over 30V or so.
Will the gate resistor be enough? Or will the turn on transients eventually kill
 the SCR?

Anyone have any experience controling anything like this?



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Richard A. Smith                         Bitworks, Inc.
rsmith@bitworks.com               501.521.3908
Sr. Design Engineer        http://www.bitworks.com