Re: Saturable Reactors (another one to ponder)

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

Original poster: "BunnyKiller by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <bigfoo39-at-telocity-dot-com>

Tesla list wrote:

> Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>"
<BillEaver-at-aol-dot-com>
>
> Hi all.
> I don't remember who first brought this up on the list but it is
> very clear info on this string.
>
> http://www.tpub-dot-com/neets/book8/32m.htm
>
> Denis Despins
> KC6TRW

Hi All...


dont know if I was the first to spotlite this page but I did mention it...

I did a couple of weeks of learning and experimenting and found that for a
truely
saturable core reactor is required to run at the near peak of saturation of
the core.
Without the BH curve info of the core, one will have a difficult time
configuring the
number of winds and wire size needed to nearly saturate the core at the
required
amperage rating ( inductance) one wishes to have. What I didnt understand
about SCR's
was the useage of DC voltage on the center leg. With an AC supply and a DC
controller,
somewhere along the line there is going to be a value of flux that will be
"controlled" and on the down swing of the AC, there will be no added value
of the DC
component, thus no controlling factor involved. So...with my diminished
wisdom I chose
AC as the controlling factor for the center leg. Depending on how you wired
the center
leg, you could end up with either a downward factor ( decreasing amp flow)
or an
upward factor ( increasing amp flow) as you increased the voltage on the
center leg.

Obviously I was no where near the saturation point of the core I had used
and only
increased or decreased the flux flow by aiding or opposing the load current
flux with
the setup I had configured.

The down side to this experimental farce was that I found that the amount
of power
required to reduce/increase the current in the load windings was nearly
equal to using
a variac on its own accord to control the initial load.

A few questions arose form this adventure ....

do you wind the core for minimal running inductance ( control power off)
and start out
with a hi amp availability and risk failure of the controller and watch the
inductance
supply the load with full current?

or...  wind the core for maximum inductance and oppose the flux ( reduce
it) and cause
an increase of amp flow? ( is that right? )

the last question I had was ... was I actually controlling the flux? or by
increasing
the voltage on the center winding, was I creating a transformer that
increased the
voltage to the load which caused the load to increase its performance? (
the lite bulb
got brighter  in fact it blew out).


still looking for a work shop version of a hi powered current controller.....


Scot D