Re: Variacs and current draw

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

Original poster: "Shaun Epp by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <scepp-at-mts-dot-net>

Hi Matt and Terry,

I had a 12/60 transformer, but mine was high power factor and I had a 5 amp
variac.  I found out through trial and error that I could only get about 6
amps off the variac ( a general radio model), severely limiting my tesla
coil.  I later measured about 13 amps draw on my system.  Why didn't the HPF
correct this??  I guess I'd have to know what the internal capacitor value
was.

Shaun Epp


----- Original Message -----
From: "Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
To: <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Sent: Friday, October 11, 2002 4:58 PM
Subject: Re: Variacs and current draw


> Original poster: "Terry Fritz" <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>
>
> Hi Matt,
>
> About 14 amps!!  Variacs can be pushed pretty hard but a 5 amp variac is
> probably really too small.  But...  If you add 200uF of PFC caps then you
would
> be at 8 amps which would probably be in range of a 5 amp varaic.
>
> Cheers,
>
>         Terry
>
>
> At 05:19 PM 10/11/2002 -0400, you wrote:
>
> >
> > How much current would the average 12/60 transformer draw. The reason I
m
> > asking is that I want to use a variac with it but I don t know which one
I
> > can get. Is 5amps enough?
> >
> >
> >
> > Matt
>