Re: Welder Weirdness

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

Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <Tesla729-at-cs-dot-com>

In a message dated 5/26/01 12:58:18 PM Central Daylight Time, 
tesla-at-pupman-dot-com writes: 


>
> I also suspect that the coil system is far, far more 
> efficient when using the welder as ballast as opposed 
> to the twin MOTs.  I think I'm actually getting 
> longer, brighter sparks with much less current, as 
> evidenced by the cool power cord and spark gap. I wish 
> a had a big analog ammeter. 
>
> Any of you welder/pig users have insight to share? 
>
> Greg 
> http://hot-streamer-dot-com/greg 
>
>



Hi Greg, 

I've noticed when I changed my power supply from two 7200 
volt PTs to a single 10 kVA, 14.4 kV pole pig, ballasted with 
a 225 amp Linclon arc welder, that I also got bigger sparks 
from my 12" coil with less current draw, according to my pa- 
nel ammeter. Like you, my 28 amp, 0-280 volt variac and the 
# 10 AWG wiring never get warm to the touch and with the 
variac all the way up (-at- 240 volts), it only draws 40 to 45 amps 
with the welder set at 225 amps. With the PTs, it drew around 
50 amps at around 200 volts into the pig and I got around 8 ft. 
streamers. Now with the pig, I get 8 to 10 ft streamers drawing 
only 6 to 8 kVA. One thing that I didn't mention is that I had no 
external ballasting with the PTs aside from the variac. 

Sparkin' in Memphis, 
David Rieben 

PS: Check out the coil at < http://www.nex-dot-net/kilroy/david/ >