RE: homemade ballasts

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

Original poster: "Steve Mach by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <gossamer-at-cox-dot-net>

Hi Greg, In North America THHN is defined in the national electric code as :

Flame retardant, heat resistant thermoplastic, 90 deg.C.
Approved for dry and damp locations.
Thickness for #14, 12 AWG is .38mm / 015", 10AWG is .51mm / .020"

This may help you in cross referencing to wire available "down under"

SM

-----Original Message-----
From: Tesla list [mailto:tesla-at-pupman-dot-com]
Sent: Tuesday, September 24, 2002 8:57 AM
To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: homemade ballasts


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.