On 7/12/12 5:29 AM, Bob Arenella wrote:
yes, but how long ago was that.. I've got a few 40+ year old variacs out in the garage that I bought surplus 15-20 years ago..I have 3 1256D variacs. Picked up one at a ham fest for $50, two others at a garage sale, $10 each. All 3 cleaned up nice and all work! 73, bob N2OAM
I think the OP was commenting that prices are going up for this kind of thing and/or that they are getting scarcer in the surplus chain.
Sooner or later, someone is going to make a "solid state variac" kit for pig powered spark gap TC duty.. Should be easier than a SSTC in some ways. 15 years ago, I fooled with this using a 555 + FET in the middle of a bridge rectifier to replace a smaller 4 Amp Variac driving a fan. It worked ok, but was too complex for the application.
Or, perhaps repurposing inexpensive variable frequency drives use for induction motors... they typically can adjust both frequency and voltage.
_______________________________________________ Tesla mailing list Tesla@xxxxxxxxxx http://www.pupman.com/mailman/listinfo/tesla