Notice that the wikipedia article you reference keeps saying, "magnetic amplifiers were used for...".

A magnetic amplifier's benefit to modern electronics is similar to a buggy whip's benefit to modern transportation.

 

Notice that the wikipedia article you reference keeps saying, "magnetic amplifiers were used for...".

A magnetic amplifier's benefit to modern electronics is similar to a buggy whip's benefit to modern transportation.

And you also may have noticed that the article states that they are using them as voltage regulators in ATX power supplies, Which is what I want to use them for. just because something is old does not mean it isn't useful. Transformers are extremly old, and they are everywhere.

Magnetic amplifiers appear to be a better solution to voltage regulation then voltage regulators are because of their high efficiency. They don't dissipate the extra power as heat, which is a very desirable quality that silicon regulators do not appear to have.

 

And you also may have noticed that the article states that they are using them as voltage regulators in ATX power supplies

There isn't a single modern ATX power supply using them today unless you know different. Example?

 

Magnetic amplifiers appear to be a better solution to voltage regulation then voltage regulators are because of their high efficiency.

FYI, that is completely wrong. I designed power supplies and power converters (linear, switcher all different topologies) for 25 years and mag amps are not used in the power supply industry for a wide variety of reasons. In the late 70's and early 80's, 120 Hz SCR control designs were popular. Since the magnetic components were huge and heavy, they were not popular and better designs were found immediately.

The advent of cost effective fast switching bipolars caused a transition to switcher topologies and in the mide 80's, FETs began to take over most designs because they were cheaper than BJTs and did not have as much stored charge to switch.

I have done designs from about 20W to 10 kW and I can honestly say I have never heard of a mag amp design.

And BTW: "new and fancy" doesn't always equate with "better" as the infamous CUK topology turned out to be pretty useless for all but a very narrow range of applications. Off line flybacks/half bridges carry most of the load these days up to the 400 - 500W ballpark.

 

Visually a mag amp device may resemble a transformer but the operating principle is quite different from a transformer - essentially the mag amp is a saturable reactor. It makes use of magnetic saturation of the core, a non-linear property of a certain class of transformer cores. For controlled saturation characteristics the magnetic amplifier employs core materials that have been designed to have a specific B-H curve shape that is highly rectangular, in contrast to the slowly-tapering B-H curve of softly saturating core materials that are often used in normal transformers.

The transformer is probably going to cost more than the car I drove to college.

 

FYI, that is completely wrong. I designed power supplies and power converters (linear, switcher all different topologies) for 25 years and mag amps are not used in the power supply industry for a wide variety of reasons. In the late 70's and early 80's, 120 Hz SCR control designs were popular. Since the magnetic components were huge and heavy, they were not popular and better designs were found immediately.

The advent of cost effective fast switching bipolars caused a transition to switcher topologies and in the mide 80's, FETs began to take over most designs because they were cheaper than BJTs and did not have as much stored charge to switch.

I have done designs from about 20W to 10 kW and I can honestly say I have never heard of a mag amp design.

And BTW: "new and fancy" doesn't always equate with "better" as the infamous CUK topology turned out to be pretty useless for all but a very narrow range of applications. Off line flybacks/half bridges carry most of the load these days up to the 400 - 500W ballpark.

JFI: In the 60's and Early 70's, there were power supplies for Telecom Equipment handling 100A @ 50 V! (that's 5 KW). They used Magnetic Amplifiers for regulation. I have played around with these.

Ramesh