of change of the current in the high voltage system and information indicative of incipient arcing conditions when the remaining signal exceeds a predetermined reference level high voltage is removed from the electrostatic system application_number US 35049882 A description turning now to the drawings and particularly to fig1 a simplified schematic circuit diagram is shown for a high voltage dc power supply 10 incorporating an incipient arc detector circuit 11 in accordance with the present invention the power supply 10 includes a high voltage step up transformer 12 having a primary winding 13 and a secondary winding 14 an ac power source 15 is connected through a switch 16 to the primary winding 13 the ac power source 15 may be of any suitable type such as a commercially available line source or preferrably it may be in the form of an oscillator having an output at a frequency substantially higher than a commercial line source for the following description it will be assumed that the ac power source 15 is in the form of an oscillator having an output frequency on the order of 2000 hz a high voltage alternating current appears across the secondary winding 14 this voltage is applied through the voltage multiplier ladder network 17 formed from a plurality of diodes 18 and capacitors 19 the high voltage output from the network 17 is applied through a current limiting resistor 20 to a terminal 21.