Slightly Rusty Crompton Sovereign, Does it Work....

Well I'm sure you're all sat on the edge of your seats, so, does the slightly rusty Sovereign work?

...of course it does!

The ballast was showing about 0.4Mohm to earth at 450vdc which is acceptable considering it was still wet. After running for an hour or so, that figure went up to over 1Mohm at 500vdc. I'm thinking about putting the ballast in the oven tomorrow on a very low temperature (60-70 degrees C) which should dry it out even more and put that figure right up.

Links to pics of this fitting: Ballast Fitting

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Comment 1 to 9 of 9

Page: 1

Slyspark

[07 Mar, 2019 at 11:46 PM]

Of course it worked, was there ever any doubt?

fluorescent

[07 Mar, 2019 at 11:50 PM]

Eh, a little, I thought the earth leakage would be worse. Long term it may still fail due to corroded windings or what-not. I reckon I'll give the ballast a very quick clean up and blast over with some cheapy radiator enamel, then put it to use in a fitting in the man shed, see how long it lasts

Slyspark

[08 Mar, 2019 at 12:05 AM]

Better than binning it, nice to try and save SRS gear, it's getting quite rare!

FrontSideBus

[08 Mar, 2019 at 08:40 AM]

Indeed, still a bit earthy though lol.

lasagafield

[08 Mar, 2019 at 12:08 PM]

It's like it didn't even know it was rusted. If the ballast isn't too bad clean it up and enamel it. I don't think the fitting has long until it becomes a ferric dust pile.

Andy

[08 Mar, 2019 at 04:17 PM]

Good stuff. I would have thought just running it for a day or two solid should dry it out better than the oven as the heat is generated from within, driving out the moisture.

fluorescent

[08 Mar, 2019 at 10:48 PM]

Aye didn't need the oven in the end. Was up to 7Mohm (at 500vdc) this morning just from being in the garage overnight. Had it running most of today, tested at 15Mohm when switched off this evening

Related story & where the oven idea came from: When our motors at work used to get down to unacceptable earth leakage levels, they'd be sent away where they put them in a gigantic oven for several hours and have the dirt & dust blown out of them. It definitely worked! They'd go from say 250k leakage to over 10M

AngryHorse

[09 Mar, 2019 at 12:49 AM]

Astounding Shocked

fluorescent

[26 Mar, 2019 at 11:55 PM]

Earth leakage figure is up to 300M ohm now after running this for about 3 hours today, this figure is higher than some of the ballasts I'm currently using regularly in other fittings lol. I've bought a tin of cheapy radiator enamel so I'll blast it over with that and put it to use in a currently gearless Crompton Star I have soon.

Comment 1 to 9 of 9

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