Re: [TCML] Subject: current & fuses

[Ed Phillips <evp@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

mark olson wrote:

> Please correct me where I am wrong.
> My understanding is that current and voltage are inversely proportional.
> therefore my xfmr mains current draw should be x where 15000V / 120V = 
> x / .120A so x=15A.
>
> The xfmr is dead. case is swollen. Should I bother to de-pot it and 
> attempt a rebuild / shunt removal?
> Would an ammeter redlined @ 15 A aid in setting SRSG?
>
> Am I Waaay off base??
>
> BTW, my next door neighbor, a carpenter, solved the cap blowing 
> problem, the cases of these little oil filled snubbers
> should not be touching. One shorting to case will cause adjacent caps 
> to short to case. A serpentine string solved that.
>
> Now I wonder what over amped the xfmer. Of course, after a long day, 
> several beers, and my propensity to "pour the coal to it"
> is a factor. I am only getting < 40' streamers instead of the supposed 
> 70'"o 80" possible. Is this due to an under-sized toriod?
> Or only 700 turn secondary instead of 1000+ ?
>
> Thanks again,
> Marko 

Sorry to hear about your transformer - those are hard to come by. Note 
that when operating such a transformer with capacitive load of suitable 
size you can draw a lot more than rated current from it - what had you 
measured? Another question - were you using a variac to adjust primary 
voltage and was it set to provide more than 120 volts? You might just 
have overheated the windings due to excess core loss and the swollen 
case sounds like overheating rather than voltage breakdown. Another 
possible reason for fuse blowing if you're using a big variac is that it 
can draw a very large starting current if it's switched to the line at 
the wrong part of the cycle.

Ed

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