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4hv.org :: Forums :: Tesla Coils
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SSTC blowing variac fuses

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Shaun
Mon Dec 17 2007, 11:44PM Print
Shaun Registered Member #690 Joined: Tue May 08 2007, 03:47AM
Location: New Jersey, USA
Posts: 616
My sstc (Steve Ward Mini-style) has been unable to work off my variac because it constantly blows the fuse.

Everything about the coil looks fine, all waveforms are normal, new GDT, hell it even runs off a 12V lead-acid powering the bridge (w/ 2.5A draw)!

But when I plug it in to the variac (8A fuse), and slowly dial it up, once it passes about 10V, *pop*, and the fuse is blown. Ive been thru a pack of these trying to fix it, to no avail. Now I have 5 more; hoping for some suggestions. (BTW, the variac works fine with other loads; drill, lamp, etc.)

I'm not that pissed tho, because usually when I see a blown fuse the first thing I think is, "FETs must be dead", since they usually just fail short and blow the fuse that way. This time, the fuse blows and FETs survive.

I have a home made current probe that is showing me a clean 5Apk sine wave on the primary, however primary voltage seems to ring up to 4x the rail.

Has anyone else had this problem before? Because I sure don't want to plug it into the mains in this condition.
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Steve Ward
Tue Dec 18 2007, 02:11AM
Steve Ward Registered Member #146 Joined: Sun Feb 12 2006, 04:21AM
Location: Austin Tx
Posts: 1055
Your power input diodes are ok?
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Shaun
Tue Dec 18 2007, 02:34AM
Shaun Registered Member #690 Joined: Tue May 08 2007, 03:47AM
Location: New Jersey, USA
Posts: 616
Hmm... that would cause problems for AC but not DC...makes sense... I'll check right now.

EDIT: Steve, you are both a gentleman and a scholar. It was the rectifier. It was shorted, but instead of just shorting the AC, it was shorted in two halves, so that it was feeding my bridge AC. Luckily I didn't have my filter cap explode or something...anyway thanks its working again.

Now to deal with those pesky flashovers...
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Steve Ward
Tue Dec 18 2007, 03:58AM
Steve Ward Registered Member #146 Joined: Sun Feb 12 2006, 04:21AM
Location: Austin Tx
Posts: 1055
Been there, Done that... shades

I usually just use these monster 25A bridges now for everything since i got 100 of them on ebay for 10 bucks... its pretty hard to blow them up so its been a problem of the past.
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Tom540
Tue Dec 18 2007, 04:16AM
Tom540 Banned on 3/17/2009.
Registered Member #487 Joined: Sun Jul 09 2006, 01:22AM
Location:
Posts: 617
Damn 100 for 10 bucks. Now that was a score! The surplus place here charges like 3.50 each for those.
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Shaun
Tue Dec 18 2007, 05:28AM
Shaun Registered Member #690 Joined: Tue May 08 2007, 03:47AM
Location: New Jersey, USA
Posts: 616
The one I blew was a 15A 600V; the new one is a much larger 40A 1200V. So reliability shouldn't be a problem
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Bauerb2
Tue Dec 18 2007, 12:03PM
Bauerb2 Registered Member #973 Joined: Tue Aug 28 2007, 07:32PM
Location: Pittsburgh, PA
Posts: 66
that's funny you had this problem, because it happened to me a few days ago. the litle rectifier i had kept shorting on me and my fuse always died. i need to find a good rectifier that can handle the power.

100 for 10??? lucky you. i've found a few on ebay, but not close to that price

how do these ones look? Link2

or these
Link2

-Andrew
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