Ballast bulk buy trial ballooon

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Steve White by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <slwhite-at-zeus.ia-dot-net>

I am in the process of building a pole transformer powered coil and I have been
somewhat frustrated by the available solutions for the current limiter or
ballast. Arc welders have duty cycle limitations, typically 20% in 10 minutes.
Resistive ballast is extremely inefficient. Variacs are prone to saturation.
What I want is a purpose-built ballast with adjustable current limiting. What I
have in mind is something similar to Richie Burnett's custom-built ballast as
seen on his web site.
 
Having been inspired by the OWL bulk buy for toroids, I have been investigating
a similar bulk buy for ballasts. I gave some specifcations to TMI in Chicago.
This is a transformer manufacturer who will custom build to our specifications.
I gave them the following preliminary specifications.
 
Max current : 50 amps
Duty cycle : 100%
Frequency : 60 Hz
Working voltage : 240
Adjustment method : plastic shims to adjust an air gap between E and I sections
 
They mailed me back the following quotation.
 
1 pc.    $475.00
5 pc.    $403.25
10 pc.    $340.82
20 pc.    $309.60
25 pc.    $303.36
 
Lead time is 3 to 4 weeks. Considering that a new Miller AC-225 arc welder is
about $230, these seem like very reasonable costs. The arc welder would only
have a duty cycle of 20% and wouldn't handle anywhere near 50 amps. We can
change the specifications to lower costs such as reducing the maximum current
from 50 amps to whatever. I figured that 50 amps would allow us pig coilers to
grow to 10 KVA if needed.
 
Is there any interest out there in coil land?