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Should I leave my transformer in circuit permanently?

imported_brian_m

Cast Iron
Joined
Jun 25, 2006
Location
Oregon
I understand that having two 3 phase motors in operation at the same time somehow stabilizes the operation of an RPC. I have two individually switched pieces of equipment intermittently feeding from one RPC ( by that I mean either or both motors could be running at the same time ) and I recently added a transformer to power a third motor.

Does a transformer left permanently in the circuit act like an operating motor to help stabilize the RPC? Should I leave the transformer powered when the 3 phase circuit is in use or should I use a disconnect to remove it from the circuit?
 
Add a disconnect for your different voltage circuit. That means you will not be adding transformer inrush to the RPC every time you start it, and won't be wasting power either.
Rob
 
What you're asking...

Brian, what you're asking is wether an idling transformer (no load connected to the secondary) applies sufficient reactive load to help balance the RPC's output, and the answer is no. It applies a reactive load, and it consumes a small amount of power (in comparison to it's full load capacity), but it doesn't serve the same augmentation that you'd have with an additional idler motor.

Now, if you had a load on the transformer... capacitive and resistive, and the math was right, then it very well COULD be used to do such a thing, but there wouldn't be much point in it with respect to the power-economics of RPC balance- the efficiency/performance gains at the output end would be substantially less than the effort/power put in on the input end... particularly when compared to say... connecting another motor, or just switching on another machine.
 
Thank you for the explanations, these are valuable nuggets of information that we electrically challenged individuals put into our memory banks.
 
Hee hee...

You're not truely electrically challenged 'till you've got a burn spot on each arm, and drool running down your burned-up shirt... but let's not see it come to that. ;-)
 








 
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