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Re: Resistance of Oven Element
Hi Chip, Ed, Kristian and everyone,
One can indeed blow fuses by connecting an
inductor (e.g. variac) to the mains alone. The mechanism has to do
with residual magnetism in the core. If switch-on coincides with a
mains peak of the "wrong" polarity, the core temporarily saturates
losing most of its inductance and presenting a near zero resistance
to the mains. This is actually a real headache for designers of large
power amps who particularly choose to use toroidal transformers where
leakage inductance is rather low. I have popped circuit breakers by
simply switching on a variac turned to zero. A matter of luck in
timing basically.
Malcolm