I have access to a lot (100's) of old power transformers probably 1000va - 2000va and I think almost all of them come from old APC UPS's. Many of these use a primary winding of 2" wide x 20 - 24g copper roll instead of wire, which is actually pretty useful in itself as there are some with about 30-50ft of the copper sheet/roll (what's the right name?). I've tested many of these and they have a split secondary of 12/24v and they are made to charge the 12v batteries in the UPS.
I think these would obviously be ideal for a battery charger as high amperage chargers of good quality are pretty expensive. I can also set it up as a 12/24v charger which is somewhat uncommon in chargers. IDK how useful the 6v chargers are as they seem to have been more common in older battery chargers when there were a lot of vehicles that still ran from 6v - so alot of chargers pre ~1990 seemed to often have the 6v option.
Another idea was to make a "magnetic chuck" or "magnetic vice" to hold parts when doing work on it. I'd probably cut the top of the laminations off and either remove one winding or leave it alone, and then run DC voltage through the primary to make an electromagnet. These are very nice size of the steel body being 3.5" wide x 4"-6.5" long x 3.75" high so these are pretty large and weigh 18-36lbs
I also find transformers like this one, which has a total of 4 windings, 2 on each side with both sides having identical windings. This thing weighs about 50-55lbs and IDK the VA rating, I suspect it is 3300VA. I was wondering if this transformer could be used as an isolation transformer by inputting the 120/240 into the primary of side A - running the output of the secondary on side A into the secondary of side B, then have the primary of side B be the output (120/240v) of the isolation transformer. Would it work this way? Would there be a better way to do this?
I think these would obviously be ideal for a battery charger as high amperage chargers of good quality are pretty expensive. I can also set it up as a 12/24v charger which is somewhat uncommon in chargers. IDK how useful the 6v chargers are as they seem to have been more common in older battery chargers when there were a lot of vehicles that still ran from 6v - so alot of chargers pre ~1990 seemed to often have the 6v option.
Another idea was to make a "magnetic chuck" or "magnetic vice" to hold parts when doing work on it. I'd probably cut the top of the laminations off and either remove one winding or leave it alone, and then run DC voltage through the primary to make an electromagnet. These are very nice size of the steel body being 3.5" wide x 4"-6.5" long x 3.75" high so these are pretty large and weigh 18-36lbs
I also find transformers like this one, which has a total of 4 windings, 2 on each side with both sides having identical windings. This thing weighs about 50-55lbs and IDK the VA rating, I suspect it is 3300VA. I was wondering if this transformer could be used as an isolation transformer by inputting the 120/240 into the primary of side A - running the output of the secondary on side A into the secondary of side B, then have the primary of side B be the output (120/240v) of the isolation transformer. Would it work this way? Would there be a better way to do this?
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