Re: Arc Welders as Rheostats??

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Barton B. Anderson by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <tesla123-at-pacbell-dot-net>

Bill -

The variac is the ballast. Think of ballast as a current limiter. It can be
resistive,
inductive, or capacitive. Inductive current liminting is the norm where
typically variacs
or welders are used as they can be hooked up without modification.
Alternating current
flowing in an inductor causes inductive reactance which is an opposition to
current flow.
As the wiper is moved, the number of windings between legs changes, varying the
inductance, varying the inductive reactance, limiting available current the
load will
attempt to draw.

Take care,
Bart


Tesla list wrote:

> Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>"
<Teslamagnifier-at-aol-dot-com>
>
> Ditto the question
>
> Does the ballast go before or after the variac??ie
> line--variac--ballast--HV transformer--line
> or
> line---ballast--variac--HV xformer---line
> ??
> Bill