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Re: pig ballasting



Tesla List wrote:
> 
> Original Poster: CTCDW-at-aol-dot-com
> 
> Hello everyone,
> 
> I have now heard about resistive ballasting, inductive ballasting, and both
> at the same time. 

snipperzzz...



Hi Chris..


I tried both resistive and inductive ballasting and found that inductive
is the way to go    reason why....

resistive ballasting by itself ( i tried multiple hot water heater
elements) 
reduces the amount of voltage going to the pig as you use the resistors
to limit the current   lets say you want to supply the piggie with 15
amps  to do this you need a resistor of 16 ohms  ((( 240V/15A =
16ohms))  but since the piggie has its own resistance it creates a
voltage drop across the 16ohms... and the piggie sees less voltage 

inductive ballasting reduces the current but not the voltage ( not by
much anyway) 
my present setup uses 3 EI cores wound with #10 TTHN solid core copper
wire 
each EI core is modified a bit to produce a different current draw ... 
as you add each EI core into the system the current delivered by each EI
core increases the current to the piggie    there is one drawback to
this system ... the inductors can cause a surging or bucking between the
current limiting inductors and the piggie   to solve this a low ohm
resistor ( but hi power ability) is placed into the system to "balance "
things out 

to find large EI cores look for burned out car battery chargers ( the
roll around type), old welding machines, or the charging units for those
huge computer back up systems  check the local salvage yards also



Scot D