Re: homemade ballasts

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

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

Tesla list wrote:

>Original poster: "Gregory Peters by way of Terry Fritz
<twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <s371034-at-student.uq.edu.au>
>
>Hello all,
>
>I have currently been using two welders in parallel to ballast my 
>PDT. However, two welders isn't exactly space efficient, so I would 
>like to make my own ballast using either an EI core or tube full of 
>metal rods. Is there any reason why I can't use stranded pvc 
>insulated wire for this purpose? Everyone seems to use solid core 
>THHN wire. Firstly, what the heck is THHN? I can't find any reference 
>to this type of wire in any Australian catalogues. In any case, other 
>than magnet wire, I can't find any solid core wire that is thick 
>enough to handle ~50 amps.
>
>Cheers,
>
>Greg.
>
>
>
>
>
Hi Greg..

THHN is an insulation rating that describes the material  ( in this case 
type of plastic) heat range... etc.

If you cant find a #6 or 8 wire use 2 #10's in place of the 6 or 8
when I wound my inductor I used 3 # 10's for the expected amps involved ...


Scot D