Before I do my system a mischief, I thought I'd ask!

[Kember]

I have had these units knocking about for a while and I recall (perhaps wrongly) that they are hospital grade voltage regulation units or somesuch for sensitive medical equipment

Please forgive the awful photos. The circuit diagram in picture three shows whats inside. It looks like there is nothing more sophisticated than a bank of smoothing capacitors, but it is a long time since my Physics O Level, so I thought I'd check with the more technically literate here before plugging them into my amps or CD player: :sofa:.

There is a kettle lead on one end which presumably links to the machine it is to be used with and an IEC inlet on the other side, presumably for a power cable.

11662

11663

11664

Any thoughts from the assembled multitudes please?

Thanks

Peter

[agk]

I concur with your conclusion, smoothing indeed. Where did you come across those originally?

[Kember]

I concur with your conclusion, smoothing indeed. Where did you come across those originally?

Andrew,

I'm b*ggered if I can remember! Going gaga... Might have been t'Bay. More likely some totter merchant in a high street somewhere.

Best

P

[agk]

As long as it wasn't the local hospital :lol:

[Kember]

As long as it wasn't the local hospital :lol:

I was wondering why they were all flatlining! :lol:

[Firebottle]

Hi Peter, that looks like a unit to give Power Factor Correction to whatever unit is plugged in with a low power factor.

I've nicked this description from elsewhere but it describes what PFC is:

Power Factor is a measure of how efficiently electrical power is consumed.
The ideal Power Factor is unity - or one. Anything less than one, (or 100% efficiency), means that extra power is required to achieve the actual task at hand.
This extra energy is known as Reactive Power, which unfortunately is necessary to provide a magnetising effect required by motors and other inductive loads to perform their desired functions.
However, Reactive Power can also be interpreted as watt-less, magnetising or wasted power and an extra burden on the electricity supply.
Power Factor Correction is the term given to a technology that has been used since the turn of the 20th century to restore Power Factor to as close to unity as is economically possible.
This is normally achieved by the addition of capacitors to the electrical network, which compensate for the Reactive Power demand of the inductive load and thus reduce the burden on the supply.

They don't regulate the voltage in any way. A plug in energy monitor (look up on ebay) usually gives a readout of the power factor as well as current consumption and supply voltage etc.
Low powered kit such as CDP and TTs woudn't benefit from power factor correction.

Cheers,
Alan

[agk]

Hell, in a world where folk spend ludicrous money on power cables and blocks it certainly won't do any harm to try them on amps. By ludicrous I mean more than £30 by the way.

[Kember]

Hi Peter, that looks like a unit to give Power Factor Correction to whatever unit is plugged in with a low power factor.

I've nicked this description from elsewhere but it describes what PFC is:


They don't regulate the voltage in any way. A plug in energy monitor (look up on ebay) usually gives a readout of the power factor as well as current consumption and supply voltage etc.
Low powered kit such as CDP and TTs woudn't benefit from power factor correction.

Cheers,
Alan

Alan

Thank you for your help. One further question - what could I use them for - washing machines etc? Or amps as Andrew suggests? I have a big beefy valve amp and a couple of Naims.

Best

Peter