Rick,
The ferroresonant transformer is not really resonant at all since the winding that feeds the capacitor is wrapped around a portion of the core that is a saturable reactor. Resonance and saturable reactors don't really go together, but in this case we do have circulating energy in a ferroresonant transformer which consumes about 20% of the VA rating of the device. So for a 1 KVA ferroresonant transformer the power draw when unloaded may be about 200 watts, and this is pretty much a constant. Therefore with a 1 KVA load, the power input would be 1.2 kva. Every line cycle runs the core into saturation, and this creates eddie core losses, heat, buzz, and a quasi square wave output. The output is not a sine wave unless yours has a harmonic filter. Therefore a true RMS meter is needed to accurately measure the AC voltage. These are really neat devices using very old technology. Jim JKO --- Rick Brashear <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > A while back we had a lengthy discussion about > ferroresonant > transformers. I received a lot of excellent advice > and help. I have > finally been able to apply what I learned to a large > ferroresonant > transformer that produces about 24 volts AC and when > all is said and > done the rectified and filtered voltage is about 33 > vdc, but drops to an > average of about 27 vdc when loaded with a 5 a amp > load. The > transformer itself is capable of 50 - 75 amps. It's > a big one. It > seems during the discussions someone made the > statement that these > transformers had a considerable "buzz" and I can > verify that, it hums > like crazy. It was also said that they run rather > warm or even hot. > That's what I'm curious about. How hot? I left it > on for about an > hour with no load at all and I can barely put my > hand on the top of the > core. Is this normal? Should I use a fan with it? > It uses a 15 mfd @ > 660 vac capacitor to attain resonance and it is new, > so I don't suspect > a problem there. It draws approximately .9 amp from > the ac line when > idling, so I don't feel that is excessive. Do they > just run that hot? > > Thanks for wading through all of this. > > Rick/K5IZ > > > ______________________________________________________________ > AMRadio mailing list > Home: > http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/amradio > Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.html > Post: mailto:AMRadio@mailman.qth.net > AMfone Website: http://www.amfone.net > AM List Admin: Brian Sherrod/w5ami, Paul > Courson/wa3vjb >