Zero To 132 Volts AC or DC !

I was walking home with my wife one day after lunch in one of the many Asian restaurants we have in Oahu.
Walking is a good thing.
Gets your heart working harder, you break a sweat, and you lose some weight you did not need to lug around in the first place.
While Hawai'i is a very beautiful place, we have many shopping carts parked around the island filled with garbage.
Nobody really knows who fills up the carts, but there they are beckoning the attention passers by.
Sometimes they are way too gross to bother with.
And then there are the times when there is a little gem just sitting there begging to be claimed..................

I had found a piece of electronics lab equipment. A variable bench power supply with a giant Isolation Transformer in it.
The thing was covered in oil, water, and other forms of grunge you would not want to get covered in.

After bringing the thing home I hated to even touch the thing, it was so dirty and greasy.
So I put it into the tub and got busy with a screw driver.
I removed the sides as this was where all the screws were that held it together.
The top fell off when the sides were removed.
My hands were filthy.
I was grossed out.

When I set the unit on its feet my jaw dropped.
There sitting before me was an Auto-Transformer looking as new as the day it was made.
Also included was a meter that had four scales with LED's to indicate the scale being used, a nice bezel for the meter that needs painting, and various switches with cement resistors and diodes.
No real heavy electronic circuits one would have to be an engineer to figure out.

The heavy transformer it came with was cooked. Covered with oil and dirt and water, I was not gonna touch it.
Transformer went to a re-cycler.

Step 1 And Parts Is Parts

Ground Score:
One Staco Energy Products Type 291 Auto-Transformer for free. Worth +/-,   $150
One Dixson, inc. Meter with 4 scales and 4 LED indicators, 1 for each scale.


Junk Box:
0 to 150 Volt DC meter
4 gang DC binding posts

Wood:
Lauan plywood 12"x18"x3/8"
3/4" plywood

9/7/11 I went to a Ham Radio flea market over the weekend and found 2 more
           Variable Transformers that were Motorized for a dollar each !

Comments

[throbscottle]

Looks suitably "mad scientist". I like it :-)

[pfred2]

You scored big! I had to pay for my autotransformer and it isn't nearly as nice as the one you got. Sweet setup you did.

[drbill]

Thanks pfred2.
All told I found one and purchased two more @ $1.00 each.
The dollar ones were motorized with sixty rpm clock motors so I also got some nice inch and a half standoffs out of the deal.
There is something to be said for Amateur Radio Flea Markets.

[pfred2]

I'd imagine if someone decided they didn't want a Variac anymore the things are little boat anchors. So they'd let them go for cheap instead of carrying them around like the stones that they are. I do a lot of sales and stuff but I never seem to run across them. I'd like to get a higher current one than the one i have now, but I guess the one I have now is doing what I need it to do. I've both input and output fused on it, so if I try to draw too much one should blow I hope!

[error32]

But why not put some caps on your dc output to stop the annoying ripple voltage?

[drbill]

BTW, I was wondering when you plan to post a project ?

[drbill]

Gotta get the caps first. Under the small white meter there are two binding posts.
The red and black on the right are un-filtered DC and the other two will be filtered with caps. I still need a resistor for the bigger meter so I don't smoke it.

[zazenergy]

This is a great Instructable, but you need to add a main image of the final project to the intro step. Please do that, and leave me a message when you have so that we can publish your work.

Thanks!