We used this transformer when working on the Silvertone Console.\u00a0 I plan to use it frequently in the future.<\/p>\n
[Today’s run: Pike road 5+ miles]<\/p>\n
One thing I picked up at the Jackson, MS hamfest in January was an old isolation transformer.\u00a0 It was lying under a guy’s table of stuff.\u00a0 I asked him how much he wanted for it and he said $10.\u00a0 Good deal!\u00a0 So I bought it.<\/p>\n
An isolation transformer is a transformer.\u00a0 So it has a core material with two or more coils of wire on the core.\u00a0 (In this case just two).\u00a0 Transformers only work on alternating current of some type.\u00a0 The electricity coming out of our wall sockets is alternating current (AC), and you will frequently find a transformer in the power supply of something electrical you plug in to the wall.<\/p>\n
Most of the time a transformer is used to change the voltage of the AC source, stepping up or down.\u00a0 They do this by having a different number of turns around the core for the wall-socket side and the electric gizmo side.\u00a0 The difference in turns gives you a different voltage; the ratio of the turns is also the ratio of the voltages.<\/p>\n
But an isolation transformer doesn’t change the voltage.\u00a0 What it is supposed to do is isolate the wall-socket side from the electric gizmo side so that there is no direct current path from one side to the other.<\/p>\n
One place they use these things is to provide power to a boat while it is docked.\u00a0 If you don’t use an isolation transformer you can get nasty galvanic corrosion on parts of the boat.<\/p>\n
I don’t have a boat.<\/p>\n
Another place to use an isolation transformer is when you are working on an electronic gizmo and you want to measure things.\u00a0 Without an IT you may have voltages between the box of the gizmo and the box of the volt meter or oscilloscope or whatever.\u00a0 That would be bad if you are touching both of them.\u00a0 But the isolation transformer keeps that from being a problem.<\/p>\n
Anyway,\u00a0 when I got this thing someone had cut the cords off of it, both the wall-socket side and the electric gizmo side.\u00a0 So I opened it up and wired it back up.\u00a0 Markings inside lead me to believe it is a Stancor GIS-1000<\/a>. I used the diagram on this page<\/a> to wire it up. I also used gorilla glue to attach an electrical box to the top.\u00a0 That lets me turn off and on the connection on the electric gizmo side of things.<\/p>\n We used this transformer when working on the Silvertone Console.\u00a0 I plan to use it frequently in the future.<\/p>\n
![\"isolation](\"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/GEDC0013-700x467.jpg\")
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