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Re: Still more ballast problems w/Pig



In a message dated 10/21/98 5:31:12 PM Pacific Daylight Time, tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
writes:

<< 
    Thanks for your responses in the past.  Now I have had my pig for 3
 weeks now and it still pops a 30 amp breaker with the home make ballast
 alone.  If I put a 3 KVA H&R x-former in series with the ballast it will
 work fine for a few minutes until the H&R x-former starts to over heat and
 I turn it off.  The way I have been testing the pig and ballasting is
 making a Jacobs latter as the load for the pig.
     My ballast is the core of a 40 amp variac that I gapped with 1/16"
 acrylic.  I have wound 150 turns of 10 gauge Romex(house-hold wire) on it
 and I measure 14.8 mH and 5.8 ohms. The impedance is 11.379 ohms, this
 should draw only 21 amps of current yet the breaker pops seconds after it
 is thrown.
     Is the variac ballast saturating?  I do know it seems to work with the
 H&R x-former thrown in series with it, but a 1-2 minute run time is
 unaccessible.
     Any ideas and or suggestion.  These are as always greatly appreciated.
 After all the labor I put into that ballast it is very frustrating for it
 not to work and also knowing coilers do this all the time and have success.
  What am I missing.
     
 Again, thanks for your responses,
 
 Dwight
  >>

Dwight,

Do you have a variac to ramp up the mains power slowly?  You might want to use
a couple of ohms of resistance in series with your ballast.  That is how I run
my 5kva pole transfromer.

Ed Sonderman