Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <FutureT-at-aol-dot-com> all, for those who have experienced dangerous self-braking of larger sync motors when used with the phase controller, did you try all positions of the variac during shut-down? Maybe some positions will prevent the self-breaking? I forget if this method was tried already. John Freau