RE: Saturable Reactor Ballast from MOT's

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: "J. Aaron Holmes" <jaholmes@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

I wouldn't set the expectation of being able to touch
the cores anyway.  No matter what you do, you can't
ground them all or you'll either short your control or
one or more MOTs.  Phasing considerations may also
force you to wire core-to-coil.  So there will always
be cores floating, if not at high AC voltages, then at
DC voltages you'd still probably want to avoid :)  If
they all float, then perhaps you can touch one, or
maybe select pairs :)

Bolt 'em all to a cheap plastic cutting board, then
drop that in a bucket full of oil.  The thought of
getting your hands all oily will curb temptation to
touch anything :)

Regards,
Aaron, N7OE

--- Tesla list <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Original poster: Steve Conner <steve@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
> Hi Curt,
>
> Great work! That has to be the easiest way ever to
> make a saturable
> reactor. But I thought of one thing that might cause
> trouble: There
> could be up to 2000V AC on the node where the two
> secondaries are
> connected together. At the moment, you have it
> arranged so this is
> the MOT cores.
>
> I think this will stress the insulation a fair bit
> and you should
> swap it so the high voltage appears on the MOT
> output lugs where it
> was originally designed to. In other words: connect
> the two MOTs'
> output lugs together, and connect the DC control
> voltage leads to the cores.
>
> If you decide not to change the wiring, whatever you
> do, don't touch
> the cores while it's operating >_<
>
> Steve Conner
> http://www.scopeboy.com/
>
>
>