Re: Interesting inductor observation

[FutureT-at-aol-dot-com (by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>)]

In a message dated 7/21/00 7:18:49 AM Pacific Daylight Time, tesla-at-pupman-dot-com 
writes:

> Original poster: "Oxandale, Terry" <Toxandale-at-SPP-dot-org> 
>  
>  My friend and I had this very same conversation last week. Here was a
>  copy of what I sent to him

Terry,

This is most interesting, since I was not aware of these characteristics.
This may go a long way in explaining the differences folks are encountering
using variacs, vs. welders and other ballasts in their TC's.  I use a 
homemade straight core ballast with a relatively large number of turns
(maybe 300), and this may help explain why it works so well (in addition
to saturation issues).

Cheers,
John
>  
>  
>  
>    Thanks for the comparative note on your ballasting. My intuition (not
>  technical by any means) is that a pure air core reactor would be the
>  ideal reactor. This is because the field lines are purely reacting with
>  adjacent conductor and are not "contaminated" with the core
>  magnetization. A big iron core with a few windings is basing the
>  reactance upon the core, where the "no core, and many winding" reactor
>  is basing it's reactance on the current countering itself directly. It's
>  almost like the core has a lot of electrical inertia and there by
>  comparing it as low friction-high inertia object, verses the air core
>  reactance being compared to high friction-low inertia. 
 snip