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Re: Franceformers
Tesla List wrote:
>
> Original Poster: Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>
>
> Hi All,
>
> Nathan and I have noticed that transformers made be France tend
to die
> rather easily. Is it just us, or is France perhaps not the transformer
> manufacturer of choice. They seem very well made from the outside and all
> but I notice that the junk yards are really full of them (perhaps a bad
> sign). Hard to say without pulling them apart and seeing if they have
> obvious defects (I am working on that). The transformer that died on me
> was new and had spark gaps, RC filter, and MOVs across it and blew in 5
> seconds at 50% power. The gaps never fired... That seems rather
> dramatically poor... Perhaps the neon sign folks have a better idea of
> which brand transformers they do and don't have to replace all the time???
>
> Just curious as to what people think of France Transformers...
>
> Cheers,
>
> Terry
Terry and all,
Interestingly enough, Franceformers are considered to be the top
performing/most reliable NST's (at least in their design application) by
many of our local neon guys! A side-by side comparison with many of
their competitors shows that they are significantly larger that
identically-rated models from other vendors. It's a poser why you're
seeing a higher-than-expected failure rate - time for some autopsies?
Personally, if I had to buy a new one, I'd go with one of our local NST
providers: Actown-Electrocoil. They use vacuum impregnation with epoxy
resin, and it's about the closest you'll get in finding a "bullet-proof"
NST. Unfortunately, they're not repairable. You can read about them at:
http://www.thomasregister-dot-com/olc/industrialcoils/2a.htm
-- Bert --