Mine's BIGGER than yours!!!!

Hey Dale,

With one that big, you belong in a circus side show!

hello guys and gals.............

I wonder how high your electric bill be after running it for few hours ?  This month my electric bill was 118 dollars and i HAVEN'T run any trains lately.

the woman who loves the S.F.#5021

Tiffany

Woo Hoo Dale!! The BINFORD Model#ZW-5000 what a find!!! The Tooltime hosts would be proud!

Ron

Or maybe ZW-G for Gigantic.  Great for running trains and arc welding - simultaneously!

These transformers have 208/240V inputs.  I am going to hook one up to 120V and see what voltage I can get out by series connecting the secondaries. 

I may need to use a Variac to start it up.  If I abruptly slap that coil across the AC line, I will probably trip the breaker. 

I already have that surge problem with a power supply I built out of a pair of 20 amp Variacs in parallel to give me 0-100V DC at up to 40 amps.  This supply was built for an electroplating project in Chemistry class when I was in college many years ago.  I used 160 amp diodes.  I guess I could use that supply on my G-gauge garden railroad to run a bunch of trains very fast....

That's funny. Maybe you could take up welding and make it into a business opp.

Ron

Should be interesting.   120v in should get you 60 volts out.  120v in on the 208 volt leads would be proportionally less. maybe 50 volts.  Taps are usually +or-5% or in 5% increments (4) taps maybe another 20% down to 40 volts. out.  Should be interesting.  

BBBBZZZZZZZZZTTT Hey ware did Dale go? Oh he's over in the neighbors yard and he's smoken! 

That’s a mean looking piece of equipment, better get some lineman’s gloves.

How long do you think it would take to strip and clean all th copper out of that monster?

Test results:

I was able to find the 208/240V leads.  I applied 120V to the 208 tap.

The other two (identical) windings give me "off-center tapped" windings with 49.8V on one half and 18.6V on the other half.  The 18.6V would be pretty good for running trains.

How much current is available?  I don't know, but the wires are #8AWG, and there are two coils available.  I would guess at least 60-80 amps, and I wouldn't expect much voltage sag under load.  This device was originally intended for 208/240V operation, which means when I use it for 120V operation I have more copper in the circuit than is necessary, but my guess is that the copper is so big that it wouldn't be much of a penalty for this application.

The core magnetizing (no-load idling) current draws only 15VA and 9 watts.  The toroidal core is very efficient.  In comparison, a Lionel 180 watt brick draws 36VA and 4 watts idling.

Actually, I wouldn't want to try this on a layout.  The instantaneous current during a derail, before the circuit breaker or fuse can act, would be sky high, welding everything in sight!

I was hoping you would say that!

This thing would be VERY dangerous to use on a train layout. As long as everything was on the track and running properly, things would be fine. But during a derailment this thing could supply enough current through a shorted circuit to melt everything between it and the shorted circuit.

Can you imagine what 60+ amps through a 14 gauge wire would do? The wire would glow like a light bulb filament, and then the insulation would catch fire and melt.

No thanks.

At the point of supply there needs to be a fused/circuit breaker (suggested no more than 7.5 amps per circuit) distribution system. It's kind of like bringing a 200 amp service into your house but you really don't need 200 amps at a wall outlet.

I have used some magnetic circuit breakers on my layout, and they are fast enough to catch any shorts very quickly.  Fortunately, I had them in my junk.  I don't think I could afford new ones!