Adjust your mains voltage with a standard transformer.
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- Опубліковано 5 жов 2024
- This video shows how a standard transformer can be used to boost your mains supply voltage or reduce it for equipment that is struggling with the existing supply voltage.
The transformer only needs to be rated for the current of the load and the voltage difference.
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When I saw the video description I guessed what you had in mind, and I was right. This comes up with regularity in the antique radio forum, where a lot of that older gear was spec'd for "110V" power input, and apparently a lot of folks tend to see a lot higher voltages at their location, like 125V or so. It tends to add to the longevity of tubes, and particularly things like unobtainable power transformers.
Usually by the end of the video I'm picking my eyelids up off the floor thanks to Big Clive's soothing baritone, but all the excitement of playing with mains kept my eyes bright and attention rapt! Which is unfortunate because I've only had an average of less than 5 hours sleep every night this week, and I'm starting to struggle to make it through the day at work.
I've not been getting much sleep this week either. Not sure if it's the same thing, but at the transition of seasons I go through a sleepless spell.
Maybe it's because you're a geek up late
@@croyce7699 we are all here because we are geeks. And hence we naturally tend to being nocturnal. It's in our genes! :-)
I think the change of season probably plays some part; it's been raining a lot here in Sydney lately, and while it's not been overlay warm, it does make it just humid enough to be uncomfortable under the sheets. But for me it's probably more work-related stress. Got more than 4 projects due to be completed in the next few weeks, but people keep giving me more things to do.
@@UpLateGeek I recommend night driving videos. I'm partial to Tokyo freeways myself.
Good demo of boost buck. The radar I worked on when I was in the naval service had a similar system. It used a center tapped variac coil as the secondary and the neutral was fixed to the tap. Then a sliding contact ran across the whole secondary picking off the correct voltage moved by a servo connected to the voltage regulator circuit. It was dated from WW2.
I love it when something goes wrong and it is still included. Great vid as always. Thanks Clive
By connecting one side of the primary to one side of the secondary, as in the drawing at 8:30 , you are essentially converting a dual winding transformer into an autotransformer.
Yup. But so much easier to get a standard transformer to do it with.
Is there a way to quickly detect a broken primary then before smoke escapes the device in question? A circuit that disconnects if the primary fails?
@@l3p3 Not really. The first clue is usually sudden enthusiastic behaviour of the equipment. Particularly if it's a 240 to 120 transformer.
that'd be quite exciting
Does the secondary winding insulation have to be able to handle 240V though?
I have an American RV(motorhome) that has a built-in transformer to drop the shore power down to 110v for its built-in appliances. Mains supplies at campsites can be considerably below spec. My fridge freezer is constantly switching to gas because it's seeing a slightly lower voltage than 110 and spits its dummy with an error message.
I've been racking my brain to find a solution for this and now you have given it to me! Ingenious!
I'll be putting a video up on my channel when I do this mod and crediting you with the fix.
Simply brilliant!
Thank you Big Clive!
I feel like a variac would be the best option for your situation. As different campsites would have different voltages (due to resistance in the cable, I'm assuming). So I feel like a variac and a multimeter would allow you to correct the voltage drop accurately. Just an idea. Good luck with fixing the issue you have.
I’ve never seen an RV that uses more then 110. Are you sure you don’t mean the transformer taking 110 and making 12 for the lights and the controls for your fridge?
In North America all power is supplied at 110 volts per line. For 220 volt appliances two 110 volt lines with opposite phases are used.
American RVs use either use a 110 volt 30 amp supply (smaller RVs normally) or 220 volt 50 amp supply. The 30 amp plug has three prongs, one hot, one neutral, and one ground. The 50 amp plug has four prongs, two hots with opposing phases, one neutral, and one ground.
Check out the RVGeeks channel, specifically this video about the Huges Autoformer. They love their Autoformer as it conditions and levels out the voltage so all appliances are happy.
ua-cam.com/video/E2NdhNa-ZTQ/v-deo.html
tallman11282 that’s not true about the 50amp one. I’m reading that only some very high end coaches might use 220 but it’s rare. From what I can understand is that the outlet is a 120/220 outlet but it is wired for 110 and they use it to prevent people from overloading a smaller service.
I understand that quite well. Reason being that I own some 1980's-vintage JDM audio gear, designed for 100v. And while I've heard of folks plugging it into 120v, here in the States, I've always erred on the side of caution & ran them on a transformer. Also, due to Japan's quirky mains setup, the equipment is 50/60Hz switchable.
Also, I've run my vintage & antique Christmas lights w/ about 95-100v for the same lamp-life reason, that you mentioned. Also, some of the really old lights were meant to run on 110v (as was common in the early 20th). They've lasted for years, that way.
Just out of interest, what does the 50 / 60 Hz switch do? Surely audio gear just converts mains into lower-voltage DC for the electronics, the frequency shouldn't matter. I'm confused!
"The power companies are run by greedy little, ... yes"
That's why we need their Smart meters, to help 'us' manage better!
He wanted to say "bureaucrats", maybe.
i think he was gonna say bastards or fckers lol
I expected gremlins
Definitely greedy little shits!
Wow! That is such a fascinating and useful idea.
I must have over 50 books on electronic circuits and ideas and have never come across this implementation of transformers. I was also worried about how much power capacity the secondary could handle, but since the current is only going across the original voltage of the secondary it means a secondary originally rated at 10 amps could handle a 10 amp load at 220V in this dropper arrangement.
Thanks so much for sharing. 😎👌🏼
Back in the film camera days, I used a transformer wired in boost configuration to make ordinary bulbs brighter for photography use. Yes, it shortens the life, but using ordinary bulbs was far cheaper than buying those 4 hour life photo bulbs.
Which was fundamentally the same thing. Over-run lamps for higher output at the expense of lamp life. The series transformer winding probably helped stop them failing with a bang too.
For the curious, some rule of thumb relationships for overvolting/undervolting incandescent lamps:
For a given relative RMS voltage Vrel=V/Vnominal
Power: Vrel^1.5
Luminous Flux: Vrel^3.8
Luminous Efficacy: Vrel^2.3
Color Temperature: Vrel^0.4
Life: Vrel^-14
Those are all relative values normalized WRT the corresponding nominal value. There are other models, but these are the ones from the ERCO design handbook iirc.
If using a triac, the actual RMS voltage needs to be known or calculated. Many meters (Fluke 77) use back-calculation from a simple average and will read significantly low for small conduction angles.
Really? The carat '^' is used to denote exponentiation. This usage is utterly ubiquitous. I could probably attempt to use proper superscripts, but does anyone expect formatting to work in youtube comments?
That said, 5% undervoltage yields the operating condition:
93% nominal power
83% nominal lumens
89% nominal efficiency
98% nominal color temperature
204% nominal hours
... which should follow the expectations from your simplified statement of the same model.
So my question of your simplification would be "what's the expected operational characteristics of a lamp running at 1/(sqrt(2)) of the nominal RMS voltage?" Believe it or not, that's not an unheard-of operating point for some lamps.
If you get the significance of that operating point, you might also start to realize that both our simple rules of thumb start breaking down in this case -- particularly for predicting lamp life. (hint: filament vibration)
You're right about that.
It is pointless arguing with you.
@@PSUQDPICHQIEIWC i tried figuring out what that scenario would be but failed... 1/sqrt(2) should be an ac with the peaks att 230/110 instead of RMS? But when would that happen?
Oh that’s right most people can’t just turn a screw to change the voltage in their house.
What kind of screw?
Yeah, you generator-people have a bit more control over your voltage with those new fangled AVR things.
Big Generator album, another Yes reference.
Always boggles me,at to voltage or turn the wire round and it takes it away lol i understand it just puzzles me when i see it lol
Not just that, he's a solar guy too. Those sine wave generators are cool for being pretty versatile, not gonna lie
Interesting concept, I was involved some 40 odd years ago with a regulation device which used this principle automatically, a unit sensed the outgoing mains voltage to operate high and low contacts which caused relays to drive a motor friven Variac either way which fed the primary of a transformer the secondary being in series with the output. The Variac was so arranged to either add or subtract to the incoming supply. I think the maker was Berco.
You wouldn’t be making that motion if you were slipping it into the hole
Nah mate... she was on top.
dead roo lmfao
depends if the insulation has sagged down through the hole
"Insulation" prolapse
Those holes are generally warm and soft inside..
Rofomao!!! Tisk! Tisk! Now... this is an educational channel... keep you mind out of the potty! What would fanny flambou say!
These type of transformers are commonly known here in the US as buck/boost transformers.
Usually with 2x 115V primaries and 2x12v secondaries, so you can adjust your output by +/- 12 or 24V
I love this one Big Clive! So disappointed I never though of it!! Thanks for sharing your knowledge. So many people are protective of the things they know, if more people shared knowledge like you, the world would be an easier place!
Thanks Clive. I learned something today.
Very elegant solution.
I didn't know about the additive or deduction feature of this method, youtuber Dynoguy showed this method to run a 415 to 415 volt VFD from a 240 to 120 volt transformer.
Excellent detailed explanation and demonstration Clive.
What a brilliant observation you make. The current load is carried substantially by the secondary winding ! Great. Of course we have to hope that the secondary is wound and insulated in a way that will withstand full mains voltage. Down here in Australia, my home voltage is regularly up around 258 Volts (I live close to a sub-station). I have a Chandelier with around 50 x 4 watt LED candle globes, you know the ones with a 50,000 hour life that seem to be outlived by any old filament lamp. I really want to reduce the voltage to these lamps, to improve their longevity. However given that they probably have a lousy power factor, the load current may be substantial. I am only making some wild guesses here, but say the power factor is 0.2 then 50x4/.2 = 1000 VA and 1000/258 = 3.9 Amps, this is getting uncomfortably close to the rating of the transformer you are using. As the transformer would be located out of sight and out of mind in a sawdust insulated ceiling space, I fear I might be solving one problem and creating a far more serious problem. Fire !! but that is Ok.
Wow I never knew that about transformers and now you just demonstrated it I can see it makes perfect sense.
Odd how we never got taught this stuff at college in the late 70s. I wonder if they either knew about it and decided it was too dangerous to teach us or didn't actually know.
Great vid.
I got similar crimper in a set complete with a multi box of crimps from Amazon last year, only its only got the 4 crimp grips not 6 like yours, I love em, much better than the crappy scissor like manual ones.
Hey a nice little trick! I'd love to see more videos like this.
Thanks for the tip! Sometimes the simplest solutions are the least obvious.
I just used a dimmer on the transformer, rated for inductive loads. the dimmer was adjusted just enough to give an output of the transformer of 11VAC, slightly dimmer than full power, but made very little difference in brightness of the 12v downlighters, but made a massive improvement in lamp life. However you still need to use quality lamps, as the longest lasting ones were made in the EU irrespective of brand, and the best of them all were GE lamps made in Hungary, the next best were made in the old Tungsram plant in Poland for Phillips and Osram. the worst were GE lamps made in the PRC, almost as bad were the GE lamps "Made in the USA", which were made in Mexico, the worst of which had a 50 hour life on average for the batch, and not one made over 100 hours. They were in a string on a 500VA transformer, and the others in the string were Osram and Phillips, which lasted fine.
As the dimmer is a switched triac that only lets part of the mains waveform through, thats a good way to make such transformers make really nasty buzzing noises
Very neat. I never would have thought that would be the effect of looping through the secondary winding. Great video!
More mains voltage experiments please. We love them
you just transformed my live. also those ferrule pliers - they significantly transform your life too.
The bucking transformer configuration is used on some antique radios to compensate for today's higher voltages.
I actually have a commercial product that has two toggle switches and allows for bypassing the transformer, putting it in boost mode, and putting it in bucking mode.
Did this back in the 80's when I was servicing video cameras. Ordered in a light box for color bars (glass chart) and it came if from Japan with a rated voltage of 100 volts. Our line voltage was 125. Down to the local Radio Shack and picked up a 24 volt transformer. Mounted it in the light box with the secondary used to drop the mains and got pretty close to 100 volts. Light box worked fine through to when I sold the business in 2002.
I never thought I'd hear Clive quote Human Resource Dominator.
Wonderful trick. Why I never knew this I cannot say. The logic becomes obvious on examination, but one must look before one can see!
248v would be low for urban Australia, 252v has been standard at a bunch of places I've lived & worked, and apparently the power company won't even investigate if it's less than 260v
We were getting 270 fairly often at our place (north west NSW) about 5-6 years ago. Dodgy neutral connection on the pole apparently. They fixed it real fast when we reported getting electric shocks in the shower.
I don't feel so concerned now, I frequently see 250v at my place (South West Sydney) and wondered if that was a bit high. My house is very close to a transformer which is hanging on a power pole directly in front my house. I don't have any issues with electrical devices burning out except for the time I bought cheap Chinese LED lights rated at 220V, that only lasted two weeks.
252v is still within reasonable bounds, anything more than that is a bit naughty.
yep, i'm 25m from our distribution transformer ... my UPS reports an average of 251V .. spikes to 255 for a good 3 hours during peak times.. RIP our LED drivers which we are replacing every year
We are nominal 230 Volts here in Australia now but the +/- tolerances have been widened out. With 240 Volt nominal the limits were -10% thru +5% giving 216 - 252 Volts.
Now with 230 Volts and backyard solar and wind farms our limits are -10% thru +10% giving 207 - 253 Volts there are now time limits on the excursions as well, if it's over volts for only a few minutes they won't look at it. The grid is no where near as stable as it used to be and there's nothing the power companies can do to fix it while authorities keep approving back yard solar installs.
Ray
Years ago I worked for company which had three phase variacs to produce a stable output voltage. Auto Voltage Regulator (AVR) as they were called by the manufacturer. They used a buck and boost mechanism which would adjust the arm of the variac's to gain the ideal output voltage. Interesting watching the AVR in service when a kettle or heater was turned on and the AVR would swing the arms in a large movement which would decrease until the arm settled at the new position on the variac's.
I'd love to see that in action!
I am learning something new every day off you Big Clive!! Top Man!!
For a while years back I had access to a Claude Lyons self-regulating variac. A beautiful beast, 2kVA if memory serves, RMS sensing with adjustable dead zone to avoid brush-destroying chatter. Not cheap, but about 30x cheaper than an equivalent semiconductor jobbie. I was working on PAT Tester Test Gear (ie a Portable Appliance Tester Tester Tester) and you couldn't really have a 1kW load test with any old mains voltage. I'm not sure Claude Lyons sell them any more. Meanwhile, Class D keeps getting better so semiconductor solutions with SCPI / USB / Ethernet backends are quite affordable.
This makes me want to put a capacitive dropper in series - it’s just a feeling I get from watching bigclive take apart cheap lighting fixtures in other videos. 🤠
William Squires , Dear me. I hope you use great caps and don't use the device very often.
This actually solves a problem i was having that i thought could only be solved with a custom transformer. (Running japanese equipment on 230v. I have lots of 230 to 115v transformers but no 230v to 100v so this is excelent) Load would be around 4 to 5 KW if anyone is interested
In the US these are called buck-boost transformers and are available in all kinds of power ratings and voltages. I've mostly seen them where you want to convert between the 208 of 3 phase and the 220 of single phase
Ah the wonders of Clive Live!
Love that iris type clamp! Also idea with the transformer. Never thought of doing it that way.
Had an engineer come and read our meter a few weeks ago and he told me not to let the power company install a smart meter as they are easily hacked. I mentioned this channel and that you said they could be set to read apparent power. The engineer told me that the meters are already switched over. He also said that if you have the powerline adaptors for your home network, that anyone who can remotely connect to your meter can also remotely connect to your network as it is already behind any router firewalls.
Properly configured powerline should have unique encryption configured which is intended to prevent this issue or prevent your neighbors from hopping on to your LAN. Certainly the very old D-Link adapters I have here have a procedure you can follow that allows them to be paired with a unique key and AES encryption. How bulletproof that encryption is, is a whole different question
I think your meter reader may not have been on the ball with his technology. While I'm sure that everything can be hacked, your meter probably doesn't have the facility to communicate over the wiring.
These are sometimes called a bucking transformer or a boost transformer, depending how you wire it. Its a useful trick to knock down the line voltage with stuff in the junkbox.
I like that crimping tool. I just bought a standard, ratcheting, bootlace ferrule crimping tool but now I want that one.
You can also connect this transformer like a real autotransformer:
Connect primary and secondary in series, of course check the phase ("polarity"). Then connect the mains to the lower end of the primary and the upper end of the secondary. The load is connected to the primary. In this way you lower the magnetization of the core a little (winding voltage) and it should run cooler. This would be especially important if you have a 230V to 12V transformer instead of a 240V to 12V).
I've got a couple of things in mind where I want to drop the voltage as in the video.
I understand how it works in the video, but you've caused me some confusion.
Please elaborate a little as per your suggestion.
Been 250 since 2 years ago. I can still remember it being 230 in the 90's
More people in Britain = more amps on pylons. Increase volts slightly = less amps.
Owww K... the interesting things Big Clive teach's us is wicked!
I did that ages ago, used a toroidal to get a 220 volt supply for a rework station. It's on here somewhere (and in the house somewhere).
Why substract the secondary? It's better to put the primary and secondary in series. This also reduces the voltage of the primary and thus the losses in the transformer.
I did a "voltage booster" likie this some time ago using an old approx. 15V transformer. Helps with voltage sag under load and makes my "prodiż" (sort of mini oven) go slightly hotter... Boosting from approx. 600W to 700W :) (rated: 650W at 220 V)
I didn't understand much of what you said, but I enjoyed it anyway.
Thank you for this informative video Clive, much appreciated.
Clive, im with you, power company wise.
Im resisting the demands to change my ordinary meter.
Well that’s a handy trick to have in the box!
Cheers, Clive!
I'd rather watch an hour long Big Clive project making video rather than a Science Fiction movie tbh.... Way more worth my time
5:02 "I've been all John Ward" pmsl... Although I must confess I've started using them too.... my dirty secret.
Love your transparent plug.
That's a great idea, thanks Clive
Clive, another excellent video. Thanks.
On another note, I see you have a clear plastic mains plug. I only discovered these a short while ago and converted them into nightlights. One of ‘your’ capacitor dropper full bridge circuits and 2 leds. All sealed and works a treat. I’d send pictures but don’t know where to.
In Poland I tend to have 225-230Vac in my socket. However a lot of equipment I have has only a 220/240V switch. So I just install small transformers(couple VA) inside their cases to bump to voltage to 240V. Especially for tube stuff as heater voltage is getting too low or too high. In a different location I see 250V very often. Kettle is boiling the water faster, which is not so bad. I don't use my vintage stuff there so it's not a problem.
Super useful. Could be fun or melty to repeat the process across several transformers .
I used to live in an area where our 120v would venture as high as 135v and we did indeed lose light bulbs that way. You can buy special higher voltage bulbs but you pay thru the nose. Wish we'd had transformers like that.
Ferule crimpers are an awesome piece of kit.
Here in 125VAC land and in the middle of nowhere we were having a problem with our mains floating rather high. We called our power company and informed them of the problem. They hooked up a mains logger and ran it for a few months. After gathering the needed data they replaced our "pole pig" with a voltage regulating one.
Jammit Timmaj sounds like a nice power company
@@samuelseidel6148 Not really. If I can prove they didn't keep the line within standards I can sue and easily win for replacement value of everything in the house, even if it still worked.
I love trying to show an apprentice something that doesn't go to plan, I usually explain to them what I was expecting and ask them to find out why it didn't work to distract them while I figure out what I did wrong
Maybe I'm seeing wrong, but your drawing is putting mains across the secondary with the lamp in series (240V over a total voltage capacity of 12V secondary + 12V lamp). I think you need to connect the live terminal to the wire between the secondary and the lamp and not to the original terminal in the transformer - only then it will be converted to auto-transformer.
The goal is to not use it as an autotransformer. Also, it’s not a 12V lamp but rather a 220V lamp, so the secondary would still drop the 12V and feed 228 to the lamp which is much more tolerable than 240V.
That is really very clever never thought of that but makes complete sense
It's about time for another Q AND A while you build a project
It is indeed.
@5:30 in Oz they are known as 'Bootlace' crimps.
Ever wonder how life would be if the battle of the currents went the other way, with Edison defeating Tesla? I've been exploringing parallel realities and finally came across one. They used flywheel in a vacuum generators that were spun up to speed by the milk woman in one neighborhood and fly by nighters in another. Their society had developed a zero point module extracting energy from a device with a self contained region of subspace. Unfortunately we had to leave early, two competing teams had apparently developed cold fusion and created a black hole on the same campus. Details are sketchy since both teams are busy developing methods to exit a black hole...
Here in the US you can buy ultra-long life incandescent lamps. They are just rated at 130 volts, and when run on 115 to 120, they last forever.
Tonight on Big Clive, we have an electrician griping about the cost of electricity from his power company!
Its called a "bucking" transformer, and yes, you can use a common low transformer for the application. Besides incandescent bulbs (including halogens), it also useful for microwave ovens. If you ever get a microwave oven transformer, and crank it up, on a variac, you'll notice that it starts to go into saturation, just under nominal line (mains) voltage. In North America, where we run at 120VAC, try to "buck it" to just under 120V by a couple of volts. At some commercial buildings, they have 208V 3phase, with a 120V tap. 120V x sqrt(3) = 208V. But often, the building has 220V air conditioners. So the building electricians tap the facilities transformer to output 220V 3phase. This raises the 120V to 127V. That is the case at my workplace.
Cheap , compact and simple way to do it. The other and bulky way would be an isolation transformer made of two back to back transformers with different primaries voltages.
"I remember when I fixed a grow lamp for my friend with this technique" Big Clive 2018 😂
That see though plug is sick. Never seen one of them before.
Great possible uses of that big box of transformers in the back.of the shed.
Great video, thanks Clive.
Congratulations 🎊 you've invented a Buck-Boost transformer. 😁
Thanks Clive I never knew you could do that.
Something I learned the hard way is you can't clean the tarnish off the contacts of old tungsten bulbs. They are amazingly bright and crisp when put up but it's less amusing when you are replacing a bunch of blown bulbs a few weeks later. The tarnish also helps mitigate transients from the bulb or fitting vibrating.
Great. I learnt something new today. Thanks
Got one at work to, the ferrel doens't stick in the crimper, as others do sometimes. ( it's a Knipex btw)
Agree with previous comments. The diagram loops the 240V live primary to 12V secondary to load. The actual set-up loops 240V neutral primary to to the 12V secondary. Maybe I'm being thick here but ....?
The secondary can be inserted in either live or neutral. Since I had wires floating around during the demo I chose the neutral for safety.
That particular pause after ''greedy'' was actually quite descriptive ... It contained several GIFs for ''nothing'' - i.e. nothings :-P
I wish I had known this back when I had a shop with 3 phase power...3 phase is nice but it's annoying that we only get 208v from 2 hots. I'm surprised 32v transformers aren't more commonly sold for this purpose.
I understand that for reasons of self-preservation you wanted to handle a neutral jumper wire between the windings, rather than a live one. However, newbies may be confused by the inconsistency between your diagram and your demo. The demo was equivalent to an autotransformer in which you grounded the tap, so that neither output wire was a neutral. Both were live, at 240V and 12V relative to ground. Not good practice in circuits with single-pole switching and protection. :)
The only thing that was grounded was the case. The secondary winding can be put in either the live or neutral path.
Clive, you might want to check the setting on your pliers, it usually is set too low in the factory. Google "WHL #40 pliers" for my comparison with a "made in Germany" tool that is one order of magnitude more expensive.
I'd be interested to see what value the power factor is after configuring it that way. 🤔
Or put a massive variac on your consumer unit feed and reduce the voltage by turning a dial ha ha.. Great video Big C 😎
He actually took apart a "whole household energy saving unit" that does exactly that, reduce the voltage of your entire house from 240 to 220V. Spoiler: Most devices with switching power supplies from your computer to your phone charger, would use the same amount of power and devices that contain heaters like washing machines would simply take more time until they are finished. The only things that really profit from that are pure resistive loads like incandecent lamps which would also be dimmer and last longer but using LEDs would be much easier and more effective. So the device doesnt really save any power at all but also consumes power itself, its entirely useless unless you have a lot of decives that only work on 220V I guess.
Interesting and useful video, thank you. When your refer to the “neutral” of your 2 conductor 240 VAC (2 Phase) input supply, don’t you really mean ‘one leg’ as we normally identify it in the States?
Excellent video once again Clive! This might come in real handy one day.
It's 3:00 am for me... Yet this is so interesting that I can't sleep lol
Here in the DK, we normally have 230V +/- some, normal appliance is rated 220-240V, to accommendate those up's and down's, some of the really cheap lightbulb, we can buy here, is sometime only rated for 230V and will die faster.
Fascinating, top tip. I wonder if it affects power factor much?
Great Stuff.
Just what I need, now I need a transformer for my project....
Few people in general understand the effect of different power line FREQUENCY. If the equipment (transformer or motor) is made for the American markets, it is made for 60 Hz. If it then is used even at the same voltage (110 to 120 V) at worldwide common 50 Hz, it is likely to “cook”, due to the magnetic saturation that takes place at the lower frequency. The difference in the acceptable voltage may be as much as 20%. Probably people in Japan understand this better, because they use 50 Hz in part of the country and 60 Hz in the other part.
Anyway, the formula for designing power transformers contains the frequency in the denominator. For a lower frequency, same power and voltage, you need more iron in the core or more turns in the winding to keep the transformer from saturating.
Awesome video👍 I didn't know that you could use transformers in such way
Perhaps we could revisit transformer power rating topic to minimise toxic smoke. Part of the general education for the hobbyist.
Yasss big Clive loves the rave tunes
I build exactly this last month for old radios
“If you have a really high powered load”, oh I do Clive! I do! Lol