Re: Non ballasting a pig?

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

Original poster: "Jason Johnson by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <hvjjohnson13-at-hotmail-dot-com>

I have to disagree. I think that this is a very common myth among tesla
coilers, that you HAVE to have a ballast with a pig. PT or MOT powered
coil. I run an MOT powered coil with two unmodified MOTs and absolutely
no ballast, and a PT powered coil with no ballast, either can run almost
indefinately (only limited by the spark gap heating) on a 120 volt 15
amp breaker (well the PT did until I lost the cap). I remember an old
school coiler running a 5kva pig powered coil with no ballast as well
(he was never on this list to my knowledge, and lived in the UK) and he
suffered no bad effects. My coils are not setup in any odd fashion, just
the simple spark gap in parrellel and capacitor in series configuration.
Anyway the point I'm trying to get to is that I beleive that with a
properly designed spark gap (I use a rotary, when I used an airblast gap
the MOTs would eat fuses and breakers) a ballast shouldn't have to be a
necessity in almost any system. Anyone that was at the first Geek
Teslathon can attribute to my coils performance without a ballast. It
really is well behaved and can be smoothly adjusted with the main
variac.

I do agree with you about the plug and no switch. However this could
happen with an NST farm even and makes the use of a properly rated
contactor and emergency cutoff switch almost mandatory on all but the
smallest system.

<< Jason R. Johnson >>
G-3 #1129
The Geek Group
http://www.thegeekgroup-dot-org/

"The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and
stupidity."
 -Albert Einstein

>        With total respect possible, I think you may need to may need
to study
> some more before you go about building a pig-powered coil. I'm not
sure of your
> electrical / HV experience?
>        Any HV transformer that is not current-limted ( a pig,
potential
> transformer, even a MOT) needs to have some sort of ballast. If you
plug one of
> them straight into the sockect, It will draw infinate amps, heat up
wiring, and
> make you prey the circuit breaker kicks.  Plus if someone were to be
very
> hap-hazard and not even use a switch (I hope no one would do that) The
plug
> could become welded into the outlet.