Original poster: Steve Conner <steve@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Hi Gerry,
What happens if the load is a PIG where the SG is firing??? It
seems like the load wont limit the current then
I think you just have to hope that the saturable reactor has enough
stray inductance left over, even once it's saturated, to ballast the
pig enough that the spark gap can quench. My gut feeling is that it
probably would work fine. From reading the archives, it seems people
successfully use ungapped variacs as ballasts, and these probably
run in saturation most of the time.
When I really think about it, it seems that a small ballast choke
sized to run the maximum power you want, combined with a pair of
back-to-back SCRs wired like a huge lamp dimmer, would function
identically to a SR, but be a good deal smaller and lighter. But i
guess we want to keep the silicooties out :-<
Steve