115/230 was standard in many areas of Ontario in the '60s
Rural light bulbs were rated at 135 for a reason. The line voltage in many rural distribution systems were straight 135 AC - not center tapped dual voltage. The DISTRIBUTION was 135 volts - very few transformers - and therefore wide voltage variations with load. Each farm might have a 30 amp servive - 50 amps was HUGE. Under full load, the branch circuit voltages could drop to 110, and under light load, the full 135 was present - so the bulbs needed to be 123 rated or they would pop very early in their projected life.
A) A transformer, including those with one winding that is fixed & one that moves [aka "motor"] has iron as part of its design. The iron is part of the inductive reactance that limits the flow of current.
Too little XsubL = too much current == smoke.
The iron required is inversely proprtional to frequency. The lower the line freq, the more iron needed. Aircraft use 400 Hz. to save weight.
So running 60Hz anything [transformer-based] on 50 is iffy at best. Maybe you can limit the current, maybe the duty cycle is low enough that you can get away with it.
B) Voltage: The US and other countries use 220~240 volts, the exact value is of little concern. What *IS* important is that in the US, the center-tap is grounded at the main breaker and is called "neutral." (This is called "split-phase" but NOT two-phase, please.) In other places, one end of the 240 is grounded.
So in the US, no part is more than 120V above ground; in other places, 240v. Further, most of the control circuits run on 120.
Now, if your gadget is really 240v, not 120-0-120, and things are up to the 240; then it should work. A water heater is one I might bet on. Others, YMMV.
There is one idea I have. Can you get a 120-0-120 generator, and size the pulley ratio to spin it at whatever rpm [likely 1800 or 3600] to get 60 Hz out?
Oh, an important exception or two. MANY power supplies for computers and entertainment gadgets are "switchers". Laptop power supplies are the most obvious.
A switcher rectifies the AC line into DC and then makes AC of oh 100-500 Kilohertz, has a transformer, then rectifies that output to the DC needed. Why all that? Cuz that 100+Khz transformer is TINY and cheap vice a 60Hz one.
Such could care less what the input frequency. [Within limits...]
Further, lots of laptop switchers are rated "100-240V AC in" - without changing a switch. Others such as desktops have that {120|240} setting near the cord receptacle.
I'd assume any inverter welder was rated for 50-60 Hz but RTFM.
That was my first idea. Hang the generator on a frame and drive it with a 50Hz electric motor, belted to give the correct RPM at the generator. But this would mean any time I was going to use my stuff, I'd have to fire up and run a large electric motor. Power is not cheap there and going up rapidly.
I really think I'll be OK. My Bridgeport is rated 50/60Hz right on the motor. Anything else I can hang a 3 phase motor on, I'll do so, along with an inverter, or simply replace the motor there with a 50Hz. All my hand power tools run brush motors, no problems other than slightly lower RPM. The blade welder is 220, though our 220. But while I seem to be getting slightly conflicting info here and there, it seems unlikely that'll be a problem as the full load cycle is very short. The oven shouldn't be an issue with a proper step down, and the hand held spot welder, well, I haven't used it here in years and years, starting to think I just might sell it. I've finally found someone down under that knows a few real electricians, she's going to see if any will field a few questions from me. That should set things straight.
I've found all modern wall warts (so far) are rated 110/220, 60Hz/50Hz and auto switch. My mill DRO, computers, laptop PS, and a host of other times, will just need plug adapters.
BTW, I took two computers back last time, an older HP for her folks, and a fairly nice Dell I built up out of a yard sale score. The one for her folks, I set to 220 here. But hers, I was installing software and setting up the night before we left. Yup, forgot to switch the PS to 220.
Let me tell you, that's one HELL of a bang when a 110 PS gets socked with 220! Needless to say, it died an instantaneous death. Luckily the PS out of her old computer was a match, and the computer itself was fine.
Best of luck with your toroid **IRON CORE***. It won't be made from plastic...LOL
They are the most efficient type of core and possibly even a ferrite (powdered) iron construction for even more efficiency. I doubt that was a concern but sounds good.
Ok, have finally found something workable, if not cheap. There's a company that makes isolated step down transformers using toroidal transformers. No iron core to get hot! Should have at least thought of this myself, I'm using one in the power supply for my CNC mill.
These are not cheap, one sized to run my oven or spot welder cost over $500. Lower power units cheaper of course. But something important pointed out to me, these meet current Australian Standards which is a very big deal for insurance should anything ever happen. Have any significant electrical fire in the shop and insurance finds out I was using a home brew step down setup, and I'm screwed.
So, probably going to just buck up and pay the piper, unless I learn that a licensed electrician can build and self certify a similar setup. I've run 14 years here with a shop I wired myself, with nary a problem. But...
Thanks all for all the good advice and suggestions. I think I've settled this issue for good.
Sigh. That 'Toroid' is wound from steel tape. You can't make a decent 50 or 60 Hz transformer without it. the loses would be sky high, and it would go up in flames from the losses. The advantage to toroidal transformers is lower losses of the magnetic fields, which makes them more efficient, and less likely to affect other equipment with a stray alternating magnetic field.
115/230 was never standard **to supply** in Ontario! It was the result of long lines and voltage drop that was acceptable to the regulating bodies for customer delivery voltage (+/- 10% = 108-132Vac) HEPCO didn't care much in the rural. They were the chief cook, bottle washer and the hydro police.
The rural lines are so long and so poor at times that the voltage can be pushed up a bit with the usage of capacitors at the customer ends. Ontario Hydro was notorious for this as they used the depreciating copper concept and could only feed from one end of the line. This usually worked except for the long outages caused by not being able to feed from both ends in an emergency (f*ck the rural customer). Anyway, the power factor correction capacitors raised the voltage during **ALL** times so that when the load was light the poor bastard at the end of the long skinny run of copper had voltage up to 140-150 volts! This wasn't acceptable but they closed their eyes to it and got the farmers to buy high voltage (rough service) bulbs. Motors liked it but bulbs didn't.
Again...yes you got 135Vac at your house but not by design or on purpose. On pole tapchangers had similar problems. To correct the 90Vac for the poor bastard at the end of the long line up to 105Vac (barely livable) the pole top tapchanger would step up the voltage by it's limit...usually 10, 12 or
15% boost. The poor bastard across the street got the 135Vac into his house too. Again, not intentionally.
Many older homes in Kit had the old 120V 2W service. In one lady's home as I walked from room to room she screwed in lightbulbs and walked back and unscrewed the last rooms bulb! She had ***a single *** 25amp main screw in fuse for a main fuse! Then they proceed to bitch about how their bills have been outrageous at $21 for the two months and can't afford this nonsense! LOL, Scary! She unplugged her cone heater, by her rocking chair, when she wanted to use the 120V stove!
Most of Wilmot farms houses had the old 50/70A breakers in them. It was 50 ampere on each 120V leg and 70A total on a 240V loads. Most are gone now, but I have been out of that part of the business since the 80s.
As an aside: In later years OH started distributing 3phase 4W transmission lines. Grounding a neutral every chance you get becomes a problem with high voltage transmission lines but it the standard practice. Any voltage drop on a transmission line gives a voltage drop in the neutral due to any unbalance (neutral) and on a 4W system. On a 27.6kV system you can have a few hundred volts, easily! Now tie that neutral to one end of Wilmot and the other end to the far end of Wellesley and you have a (reduced by parallel earth path) few hundred volts across the county, in the ground. This is what they call "tingle voltage" As a rural boy (I think) I am sure you would be familiar with cows dying of thirst after they got a zap in the yap from the water trough, a few times. If you fix it, there, the next farm gets it worse. Some get shocks in the pee-pee when taking a shower between the shower head and the metal tub...LOL Some other story time...LOL
Have a good one!
115/230 was standard in many areas of Ontario in the '60s
Rural light bulbs were rated at 135 for a reason. The line voltage in many rural distribution systems were straight 135 AC - not center tapped dual voltage. The DISTRIBUTION was 135 volts - very few transformers - and therefore wide voltage variations with load. Each farm might have a 30 amp servive - 50 amps was HUGE. Under full load, the branch circuit voltages could drop to 110, and under light load, the full 135 was present - so the bulbs needed to be 123 rated or they would pop very early in their projected life.
No steel **wound** anything. If you wind anything through the toroid hole current will be induced into it (eddy currents) like a nother winding and iron will get hot. The steel all goes around the loop and the copper goes through the doughnut hole. Laminations are created to avoid this effect by keeping the iron "loops" as small as possible.
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---------- On 8/10/2011 6:06 PM, Michael A. Terrell wrote: Sigh. That 'Toroid' is wound from steel tape. You can't make a decent 50 or 60 Hz transformer without it.
Ok, have finally found something workable, if not cheap. There's a company that makes isolated step down transformers using toroidal transformers. No iron core to get hot! Should have at least thought of this myself, I'm using one in the power supply for my CNC mill.
These are not cheap, one sized to run my oven or spot welder cost over $500. Lower power units cheaper of course. But something important pointed out to me, these meet current Australian Standards which is a very big deal for insurance should anything ever happen. Have any significant electrical fire in the shop and insurance finds out I was using a home brew step down setup, and I'm screwed.
So, probably going to just buck up and pay the piper, unless I learn that a licensed electrician can build and self certify a similar setup. I've run 14 years here with a shop I wired myself, with nary a problem. But...
Thanks all for all the good advice and suggestions. I think I've settled this issue for good.
I have scrapped damaged torodial power transformers. You can see the coil of steel that forms the toroid. You have to be careful not to let it get lose, or you'll have it going all over the place like a broken steel tape measure.
The furnace in question probably runs over $1000 new. A new transformer large enough to power it would be less than $200. I sold a couple used weatherproof 15kVA 480/240 to 240/120 transformers recently, and was glad to get around $100 each for them.
Perhaps that was a deterrent in popularity more than just their hard to wind costs. I usually dealt with them as current transformers and inverter power supplies mainly with their small ferrite cores, some with laminations, some split core laminations (So they could be opened for insertion of conductor) but they were harder to make to real accurate ratios (think clamp-on)
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