Re: To cut or not to cut

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

Original poster: "Barton B. Anderson by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <tesla123-at-pacbell-dot-net>

Hi Jim,

I cut the core in one of my large variacs to use as a ballast. The "only"
reason I did this was to
run as much current as possible through the ballast. Had I had one or two
more variacs (or larger
than 30A types), I wouldn't have done it, however, I didn't and just made
the choice to do it after
running up the current and saturating it. If your planning on running near
saturation, then the best
thing I can think of is to stack a couple of variacs. If you don't have
them available, then you may
want to first just try it as a ballast without cutting first. If you begin
to saturate, you can then
make the choice to cut it or find another for stacking.

Take care,
Bart

Tesla list wrote:

> Original poster: "Fred Bultman by way of Terry Fritz
<twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <royaloakmin-at-home-dot-com>
>
> HI,
>
> I have a pair of GE 30 amp variacs that I am planning on using as the ballast
> for my 10kva pig. Should I have the core cut to prevent saturation? I
know that
> this will ruin it as a voltage control variac. Does anyone have any
experience
> with cut vs. non-cut?
> Thanks,
> Jim Bultman
> G-2
> G-1141