[Building a ballast for my pole transformer]
I recently finished restoring this pole transformer that got filled with water. It was quite a big job.
Now what can the average man (or even the abnormal one) do with a 25kVA, 11kV high voltage transformer in his shed? Connect the low voltage winding to the mains through an inductive ballast and draw arcs off the high voltage side of course. 😀
The original ballast I built was way inadequate for the job and cremated itself in approximately 45 seconds. I mentioned this to Kram and he gave me some pieces of large transformer to make a better one.
Here we can see the remains of a high voltage test transformer that also cremated itself, and another large coil of heavy wire that Kram said was from a UPS transformer. All sweet smelling and possibly even PCB free. 😀
For my first attempt I took the UPS transformer coil and packed the left over laminations into it.
This didn’t have enough inductance and popped my 32A circuit breaker instantly.
This had too much inductance. It only drew 10A from the mains and made a thin and wimpy spark.
This combination was just right.
Sadly it dragged the workshop mains voltage down enough to chatter my contactor and destroy it. 🙁 It won’t pull in even unloaded now.
Oh well, it was only a British General. 🔥
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