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Re: Hey Bert (or anyone else) tell me something...



Hi Cabbott,

Your welder is connected in series with the primary of your pig. What the dial
 on the welder tells you is not of interest. In order to get "warm" with your
 pig, you can first leave the secondary of the welding xformer unconnected.
 This way your pig will recieve only a small amount of current. After gaining
 some experience with your pig you can now start to load the secondary side of
 your welder. For max power you can short the secondary of the welder. If you
 donīt short the secondary, you will need to design a load capable of heavy
 currents (up to 250 A in your case). You donīt need ohms for this, just
milli-
 ohms, so heavy pieces of steel, copper, etc would do nicely. The dial lets
you
 change the output current of your welder, which in turn changes the amount of
 current going thru the primary and hence your pigs current, too. This type of
 ballast is known as an inductive ballast. The best combo to Vreg a pig would
 be a combination of resistive loads (to keep the max current at capable
 levels) and inductive loads (to fine tune your pigs Vout).

Last Note: The inductive ballast you planned to use ONLY WORKS if it has a
 transformer. If itīs one of these new high tech inverter welders it WONīT
 WORK, as the welding current isnīt inductivly regged. (They use a
rectifier, a
 HF circ and a ferrit xformer to reg the output current. If its light
weight at
 that amperage you probably have an inverter welder. If its nice īnī heavy it
 prob has an iron core xformer and you can use it.

Coiler greeting from germany,
Reinhard