OK so welcome back to part two of the series on ballasting for neon bombarding systems. In this post we’ll take a look at the principals of inductive ballasting, and why it is a better bet for neon workshops than the resistive techniques we looked at in the last article.
If you missed part one you can read it at Ballast to basics.
After getting hold of a usable bombarding transformer the next step was to try to buy or build the necessary controls to allow it to be used to successfully process tubing. In this post I’ll discuss some of the theoretical background involved in designing high power ballasts: next time I’ll go through the design, prototyping and build of the choke to control my bombarder.
The electrical controls for a neon bombarder are actually quite simple: one or more on / off switches to control the low voltage supply to the transformer and a current limiting device to allow the current to be varied over a range of levels. Ideally the current control should allow the current to be adjusted smoothly over a wide range: from one hundred milliamps or less to currents exceeding one amp.
Working together the vacuum pumps, manifold, and bombarder form the basic requirements for processing neon lighting. The pumps and manifold allow units to be cleaned (heating) and then emptied of impurities (evacuation), before a small quantity of one or more rare gasses is added at a controlled pressure (filling).
The bombarder comprises all the electrical equipment needed to provide the high voltage, high current power required for the heating and cleaning process inside the unit.
OK, welcome back and thank you for sticking with me past the first post! Before I jump into all the technical details, plans, sketches and so on, I wanted to post a quick overview or recap of what I’ve been doing over the last year or so since the project kicked off. Take this as a brief tour or status update: I’ll go through things roughly in order as you walk into the shop.
Continue reading “Welcome to the jumble: we’ve got fun and flames”
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