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Re: saturable reactor vs choke



Original poster: "David Rieben" <drieben@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Kevin,

A "choke" is a simple coil of wire, usually wrapped around an iron core to increase the effective inductive density to AC.
The total amount of inductance of the coil is fixed and it
cannot be varied unless the coil is physically changed. Of
course, the coil can be made with multiple taps to give more
range of current control to a fixed load.

With a "saturable reactor" (SR), in addtion to the "working"
inductive coil, there is also a "control coil" of usually many
more turns of smaller guage wire than the main "working"
coil. A relatively low, variable DC voltage is introduced into the control coil to control the magnetic saturation of the iron
core so as to control the current flow through the main
working coil. This allows infinite range of the current that's
allowed to flow through the main working coil, irregardless
of the source load.

David Rieben


----- Original Message ----- From: "Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, April 12, 2006 11:10 PM
Subject: saturable reactor vs choke


Original poster: "MakingLightning" <MakingLightning@xxxxxxxxxxx>
What is the difference between a saturable reactor and a choke?
What are the plusses and minuses of each?
Which would be better for controlling current on a tesla coil?
Kevin