4. Paralleling

The SLx Series MagnaDC power supply supports two architectures for operating multiple units with their outputs connected in parallel, delivering current beyond the rating of a single unit. In MagnaLINK Master-Slave operation, units are synchronized over MagnaLINK™ and behave as a single higher-power product: the master provides a single point of control, aggregates measurements across the system, and shares the load equally among the units. In Direct Parallel operation, units operate independently on a common output bus with no inter-unit communication, trading single-point control and aggregated measurement for redundancy and scalability: because no unit depends on another, the loss of a single unit does not take the system offline, and the architecture scales past the Master-Slave unit-count ceiling.

Table 4.1 Master-Slave vs. Direct Parallel

Attribute	Master-Slave	Direct Parallel
Inter-unit communication	MagnaLINK™	None
Control	Single point (via master)	Each unit controlled independently
Measurement aggregation	Yes	No
Load sharing	Equal across units	Unequal (see Direct Parallel)
Redundancy	None — one failure takes the whole system offline	Automatic — regulation transfers to another unit; others keep supplying the load
Maximum units	12	No limit encountered to date
Setup	Plug-and-play auto-configuration	Stagger voltage set-points per unit

Note

Do not mix Master-Slave and Direct Parallel units in the same system; operate every unit in the system in the same mode. Magna-Power Electronics validates each specific parallel configuration in its test department prior to shipment.

• 4.1. MagnaLINK Master-Slave
  • 4.1.1. Network Overview
  • 4.1.2. Master-Slave Multi-Module Operation
  • 4.1.3. Master-Slave Multi-Product Operation
• 4.2. Direct Parallel
  • 4.2.1. Voltage Regulation and Load Sharing
  • 4.2.2. Wiring and Control
  • 4.2.3. Redundancy and Scalability