The secondary winding on my first attempt would most likely hold up if I switched my 12 wire to 10 wire, but limited space in the core makes it hard to get the appropriate amount of turns, and I think the idea of building from scratch would be educational, plus I can't find a lot of info on it out there so it would be nice to get some "practical" information about a project like this out there and circulating.A welding transformer is a step down transformer that has thin primary winding with a large number of turns and its secondary has more area of cross-section and less number of turns ensuring less voltage and very high current in the secondary. I looked at saturable core reactors, sounds like something out of Iron Man, and it will bear further experiments, but I think the DC circuit makes a saturable core an unrealistic option as the added complexity and engineering to get the appropriate values would put this into the "ambitious" category. (Government software projects, for instance!!)Īmbitious.maybe but I don't think so, Arc welding technology is a hundred years old, and I am not looking to make a super deluxe ultra efficient transformer, just something that will take a 110v ac current on a 15 amp breaker and get maybe 60 amps and 20 volts out without popping the breaker.Įlectrical steel would be nice, but part of the aim of this project is to make it out of available/low cost materials I don't think electrical steel counts. I know that's not what you want to hear but, as an Engineer with a fair amount of experience here and there, I have seen my share of projects that failed because of over-opimistic starts. If you really need a welding transformer, why not look for a s/h one? That would be a significant loss of your time and money investment. Do you have test equipment to measure its performance before you plug it in? It worries me that you could be making a very effective smoke-making machine. One problem is that a welding transformer should not be what you'd normally call a 'good transformer'. I have actually wound straightforward, low power, step down transformers (using a kit of laminations and a formers) where the spec was fairly non-critical and they did their job ok. You are short of experience of materials and design and, also, it involves fairly hazardous quantities of volts and power! To be honest, I reckon this project is a bit ambitious to start your transformer building career on.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |