Original poster: "Gerry Reynolds" <gerryreynolds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Hi Gary,The current and power I measured was at the wall plug with a kill-o-watt meter and the variac was at max 140Vac, I believe 240uf is overcompensated but I dont think that would explain all of it. My back of the envelope calculation shows that extra 80uf would consume an extra 4.2 amps (reactive). Power factor with 160uf was 0.95 if I remember correctly. I add the PFC right across the NST (downstream from the variac). Baring something else, your NST's must have been "hotter" than mine. Did you ever measure the Vs_oc and Is_ss at a Vin of 120Vac??? I presume you are running at 120pps. What Cp were you using???
I'm currently running 15/120 (with 320uf PFC) and pulling about 18 amps on a 20amp GFI magnetic release type breaker and dont trip it (other than powering up the variac). My Cp is 56nf (2.6*Cres), but I fire the SRSG at 24500V (~16.8J bangs, 2KW processed). Knowing your E*BPS might be useful.
Gerry R
Original poster: "Lau, Gary" <Gary.Lau@xxxxxx> I can say with certainty that the 20A draw is real, if not understated. It's not sufficient to just say one is using a 15/60. The other crucial factors are cap size and whether above-nominal mains voltage (i.e. 140V from a Variac) was used, though I could not have predicted the current draw in advance. I recall that when I tried using a very large cap (.03 or .04uF, don't recall) with a static gap, I couldn't keep the 20A breaker from tripping. Regards, Gary Lau MA, USA > Original poster: "Gerry Reynolds" <gerryreynolds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> > > Hi Gary, > > Sounds like a good solution. I'm curious about the 20A draw with a > 15/60 coil. I used 160uf PFC for that configuration and got about > 8.7-9 amp draw at the wall plug (real power was about1040-1080 watts) > using a SRSG. >