Re: Variac Ballast?????

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

Original poster: DRIEBEN-at-midsouth.rr-dot-com 

Hi Ed,

How many (or what percentage) of the variac's windings are you using
to ballast your 5 kVA pig? I know that you said that you were also us-
ing a 240 volt variac to control the voltage as well as the Luxtrol
for current ballasting.

BTW, my latest pole pig score is a freshly rebuilt 15 kVA, 14,400/240
volt PDT with a beefy 2% impedance rating. This should be all the
transformer that I need if I can ever get back into building large-
scale Tesla coils. Right now it's just driving a Jacob's ladder and
ballasted by a 225 amp Lincoln stick welder whose guts were taken out
of the red metal frame and submerged in 4 gallons of SAE-30 non-deter-
gent motor inside a plastic files organizer box from the stationary
section of Walmart. I was even able to mount the amperage selector
knob switch in the plastic lid of the box and can use this to control
the input to the transformer. It's an almost perfect fit ;^)

David Rieben

----- Original Message -----
From: Tesla list <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Date: Thursday, April 8, 2004 4:11 pm
Subject: Re: Variac Ballast?????

 > Original poster: Esondrmn-at-aol-dot-com
 >
 > In a message dated 4/8/04 7:19:03 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
 > tesla-at-pupman-dot-com writes:
 > Randy,
 >
 > I have a Luxtrol light dimmer variac rated at 5,000 watts.  I use
 > it uncut
 > for ballasting my 5 kva transformer.  I also use a .8 ohm resistor
 > in
 > series with it.  It limits the primary current to about 30 to 35
 > amps.  It
 > does groan a little but I agree, I am not going to cut it.
 >
 > Ed Sonderman
 >
 >
 >