Re: Re : resistive V inductive ballast

• To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
• Subject: Re: Re : resistive V inductive ballast
• From: FutureT-at-aol-dot-com (by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>)
• Date: Sun, 12 Sep 1999 12:12:07 -0600
• Approved: twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net
• Delivered-To: fixup-tesla-at-pupman-dot-com-at-fixme

In a message dated 99-09-12 06:49:22 EDT, you write:

<< why am i seeing such a drastic drop in voltage by going to a resistive 
ballast
 compared to the inductive ballast i was once using????
 
 > Scot D >>

Scot,

I've never used resistive ballast alone, but it does seem to me that it
would waste a lot of power (read lower voltage).  I can't really see
any good reason to use resistive ballast only (heat = power loss),
except maybe to save money.....for instance if someone happens
to have a few heaters, etc, but no inductive items that could be 
used as ballasts.  In the few cases in which I've used inductive
ballast with some extra resistive ballast, the resistive ballast always
reduced my output spark length, for the same power input (as
would be expected).  

Some other advantages of inductive ballasting, besides the obvious
advantage of energy storage instead of energy wasting, is that the
inductive ballast will more strongly limit the current when the gap
fires due to the shift in reactance due to the tank capacitor being
effectively out of the circuit at that point.  When the cap is charging,
the cap/ballast combo can result in beneficial resonant or inductive-
kick type charging effects.

Cheers,
John Freau

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