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Registered Member #89
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 02:40PM
Location: Zadar, Croatia
Posts: 3145
Hi everyone!
Welcome to this awesome arcing contest that is a must-try after you've burned out all your flybacks which are harder and harder to find theye days, or just to enjoy some of the most extreme transformer punishment in the world!
I was messing around with an IGBT half bridge and a pair of ATX transformers driven in reverse, in attempt to build a plate supply for some of my tube projects. Then I thought I might try and draw some arcs of it - which turned out more fun than expected!
The two transformers alone didn't give much of a show, so I added a full wave doubler followed by a big smoothing inductor - arcs up to 5 inches without the variac even turned to a full (I had a problem with diodes blowing up though, taking igbt's with them). The transformers are ballasted by a hefty 10-turn air core inductor to limit the current.
First a very crappy picture of the setup (Sorry as my digicam is dead)
So here be a run with two transformers and a doubler, producing some 5 inch arcs:
Switching to a quadrupler didn't really make so much improvement. Only got up an inch or so more.
Now some simple rules, while leaving the contest mostly freelance...
- the only power transformers that can be used are PC power supply transformers (in reverse, of course) in any number or configuration. Moar is always good although I think that the most practical category would be two series transformers like I used.
- voltage multipliers of any size and configuration may be used on the output of the transformers, although I think a doubler pays out the most.
- any driver circuit may be used as long as it's not a higher voltage source that we even get as output here (which is low kV) and so on!
Hope you guys still have the balls to revive some of the old spirit of this site, and beat me ofcourse!
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ATX transformer arc contest
