Re: Ballast inductor.

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

In a message dated 10/4/00 12:49:54 PM Pacific Daylight Time, 
tesla-at-pupman-dot-com writes:

> Original poster: "Grayson B Dietrich" <electrofire-at-juno-dot-com> 
>  
>   On Tue, 03 Oct 2000 08:22:17 -0600 "Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
>  writes:
>  John, I recently procured a pair of 10kVA ~7.2kV piggies, and am looking
>  to build an inductive ballast for it. I have all the 12 gauge wire I
>  would need for several hundred windings on a 3.5" form, or just a few
>  hundred on a larger one...     ...I'm looking for something that I could
>  limit the current input with to as little as 4 or 5 amps at minimum, then
>  open out for 20 A or more.  We can probably get welding rods,  though "I"
>  pieces from trannie cores would be hard for us to find...
>  
>  Any comments, please.
>  
>  Who did build your ballast?
>  
>  
>  Grayson Dietrich

Grayson,

Most likely the ballast I made would work ok with your pigs.
If you put the pigs in series, for a higher voltage then less
ballast L is needed for a given current input.  The number 12
wire is good in a way, because the resistance gives a built-in
resistive ballast to prevent thumping, etc.  You could load up
the core with welding rods which work OK, but may get 
somewhat hot from eddy currents.  The ballast was built by
a fellow coiler named Jerry Marra who gave up coiling.  I 
bought the 7.2kV pig and ballast from him.  The design was
actually from Harry Goldman of the TCBA.

John Freau