Re: Variac Ballast?????

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

Original poster: Esondrmn-at-aol-dot-com 

In a message dated 4/8/04 2:50:39 PM Pacific Daylight Time, 
tesla-at-pupman-dot-com writes:

David,

I am using the whole thing, connected at both ends with the wiper not 
connected.  I was using the wiper at one time and tried adjusting it at 
full power and got an arc at the brush.  Now, I just leave the wiper out of 
the circuit.

Ed Sonderman

>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