Powering Health: Power Supplies Highlight Efficiency and Safety

The medical industry demands power supply solutions prioritizing precision, safety, and reliability to support applications ranging from diagnostic tools to surgical equipment. As medical technology advances, power systems must evolve to meet performance and safety standards. These requirements include minimizing patient leakage current, ensuring high efficiency, and simplifying device integration for manufacturers.

Advanced Energy, Bear Power Supplies, and Murata Power Solutions have recently introduced potential solutions for these challenges. Advanced Energy’s Excelsys FC4000 delivers a combination of capacitor charging and AC-DC power conversion. Bear Power Supplies has shipped a 750 W CF-rated power supply that exceeds global safety standards for cardiac diagnostics. Meanwhile, Murata’s PQC600 offers 600 W of power in a compact and highly efficient design. These innovations highlight the evolution of power solutions in the medical field, offering improved efficiency and design flexibility.

Electronic equipment. Image used courtesy of Adobe Stock

Advanced Energy

Advanced Energy’s Excelsys FC4000 addresses the growing complexity of power supply needs in medical lasers. Traditionally, capacitor charging for high-voltage applications required separate power supplies, which increased design complexity and space demands. The FC4000 combines capacitor charging with an 800 W AC-DC supply, offering a solution for powering high-voltage and low-voltage components in a single platform.

Advanced Energy’s FC4000 component. Image used courtesy of Advanced Energy

The FC4000 can deliver up to 4 kJ across 250 to 1,000 VDC, supporting faster charging at lower voltages and reducing treatment times in aesthetic and surgical applications. Its integrated design allows up to 10 isolated outputs configured in series or parallel, providing flexibility for diverse operational needs. The system’s pulse-to-pulse repeatability of ±2 VDC helps ensure consistent performance.

The FC4000 is designed with efficiency and compliance in mind. It aligns with EC60601-1 and IEC60601-1-2 standards while reducing size and weight by 30%. Features like its 90% efficiency rating and advanced digital control via PMBus further support reliability and ease of integration, making it suitable for demanding medical applications.

Bear Power Supplies

Bear Power Supplies’ 750 W CF-rated medical power supply is engineered specifically for cardiac diagnostic instruments, where patient safety is crucial. Meeting the requirements of the IEC 60601-1 3rd edition standard, this power supply isolates the AC line from the patient’s heart with a low leakage current of less than 5 µA, exceeding the standard’s maximum of 10 µA. Achieving such low leakage is critical in cardiac applications, as excessive capacitance can introduce unsafe currents. Bear’s isolation techniques minimize this risk, ensuring the power supply provides safety for patient-connected devices. Measuring 11.5” x 4.25” x 3.7” and equipped with a quiet, temperature-controlled fan, this power supply is also compact and adaptable for various medical environments, from operating rooms to primary care settings.

Custom 60-watt AC/DC Bear power supply for a portable medical instrument. Image used courtesy of Bear Power Supplies

Bear Power Supplies also stands out for its customization capabilities. The company builds custom power supplies with non-standard output voltages, unique form factors, and encapsulation, which allows manufacturers to meet specific application requirements.

Murata

Murata has introduced the PQC600, a 600 W open-frame AC-DC power supply designed for medical and industrial applications, including hospital beds and medical equipment. Its compact size, under 1U in height, allows it to deliver high power density while meeting the space requirements of modern devices.

Murata’s PQC600 power supply. Image used courtesy of Murata

Certified to the IEC 60601-1 edition 3 medical safety standard, the PQC600 provides two means of patient protection and meets IEC 60601-1-2, 4th edition, for electromagnetic compatibility. The power supply has a 95% efficiency rating at full load and features an advanced interleaved power factor correction and back-end synchronous rectification for enhanced thermal performance. It is suitable for applications requiring reliable, efficient power solutions and can be configured in parallel for greater scalability.

Advancing Medical Power Solutions

Advanced Energy, Bear Power Supplies, and Murata demonstrate how innovation in power supply technology can advance medical applications. By addressing the evolving demands of the medical industry—these companies provide solutions that could potentially improve patient outcomes and device functionality. As medical technologies advance, power supplies will remain critical to meeting the sector’s requirements.