cheapower2012:
I'll try to answer your questions and statements in the order posted.
If the output of the tpu is clean or can be filtered it is possible to use an
inverter to change it from hv dc to 120 ac.
We agree here. It is my belief that the DC output was fairly clean with just a little hash and ripple on the output.
If there was appreciable noise, it would have caused the inverter to malfunction, as inverters are not that well filtered and generally rely on the clean output of a sealed lead acid battery (SLA). Of course he may have included extra filtering in the modification.
The fact he changed the transformer in the triplite
inverter says really nothing it could be to use higher voltage windings or to be able to
hide a battery and a small inverter, its a draw.
Agreed again, this could go either way. It's just information to put in the flowchart.
What is the purpose in your opinion, of the relay in the modified triplite inverter.
Don't get too hung up on the relay, just about all of the older high power inverters have one or more high current relays. In some cases the relay is activated from the microcomputer control board. A light duty power-on switch on the front panel initiates the start-up and allows high current power to flow to the inverter section only after a fault diagnostic check says OK.
Haven't counted lately but I've got a large section of my basement filled with inverters of all kinds from a few hundred watts to 5 kilowatts. They all have high current relays that are activated by the power on switch of the device.
Hoping when I get the TPU (or equivalent) working I can use these to build power packs of all sizes with a clean AC output. Some of my inverters are resonant types with clean low distortion sine wave output.
Regarding Dr. Schinzingers letter:
To further our discussion, the reason you can not use small transformers within or at
close proximity to your unit is because of the leakage fields of magnetic flux. They
induce currents into nearby circuitry and most likely cause frequency changes in the
operating point of the control unit.
This teaches us that there was no ferrite or tapewound core inside the TPU or all of the B field would have been entrained into the metal core, and the unit would not be sensitive to external ferromagnetic materials as an air core would. This is a large clue, yet people are still discussing the possibility of a ferromagnetic core???
Think about a metal locater: it is an air core search coil and is sensitive to external ferromagnetic objects which change the frequency of the oscillator tuned circuit, of which the coil is the main component. The search oscillator is heterodyned against another shielded oscillator BFO to produce a close to zero beat frequency. any nearby metallic object detunes the search coil, lowering it's frequency and producing an audible beat note.
There will be all kinds of harmonics present within this field extending past
the radio frequency range.
A Theramin also works on high frequency, a few hundred kilohertz. With heterodyning, beat notes are produced in the audible range and this device, while mainly relying on capacitive detuning, would also be affected by ferromagnetic objects in it's vicinity.
If I were to compare the two I would say that toroidal
transformers would be more susceptible. This may be contrary to common thought.
Toroidal transformers have all their flux aligned with the grain of the steel used
in them. This is the reason for their reduced size as compared with E I cores.
The first statement is counter intuitive to me. I would think ferromagnetic cored toroidal transformers would be less, not more susceptible to radiated fields.Not too clear what the doc is trying to say here. For a given power rating, reduced size means less magnetic fringing, a magnetically tight structure, no leaks.
Toroids will always saturate quickly, however, E I transformers ramp up to saturation levels slowly. If
anything, I would suggest you work with E I rather then Toroids. In either case I
believe you will find that you will have to place the inverter well outside the collector
coils.
What the doc says here is generally correct, but there are many exception based on selection of core materials etc e.g. it is possible to cast a ferromagnetic toroidal core with materials that allow slower saturation.
Note also that there are several types of E-I construction, e.g. non-interleaved, interleaved, gapped middle leg, non-linear gapped middle leg, adjustable gap and combinations of all this and there are more variations. Each has a specific application.
Of course if SM places ferromagnetic materials inside the collector coils, it will cause a certain amount of detuning and SM would have to go through a retuning process. It is also possible that the ferromagnetic material would distort the fields and make the unit inoperable or only partially operable.
Just wondering what inverter he was referring to in this sentence?.
Attached is a photo of a Stancor isolation transformer, a little larger capacity than the one in SM's inverter.
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