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Questions about ballasts (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I'm using an instructable as reference for a project and it says to use anything available that draws 5-10A as a ballast. Examples were a hair dryer, I thin toaster, and also an incandescent bulb as a test article.

I don't quite understand include any of those things in the circuit. Is it as simple as ripping the guts or if a hair dryer to get to the heating element and writing it in with the exposed leads?

Any general information on ballasts that aren't for florescent lighting would be very helpful

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Okay, it sounds like we're more or less on the same page and that this is more of a workaround to achieve a certain amount of amperage, but in an uncommon way, that leaves a lot up to the imagination (introducing a bit of risk)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Yes, slightly inefficient but it's an interesting workaround. I would say just grab a plug in lamp and splice the cable on the netral but this project really should have an earth connection for safety. Grab an extension lead and a standard ceiling socket, cut the female head off the lead and mount the light socket to some timber and pass the earth through and bond to any non-live exposed metal. Smashing the light also functions as a ghetto emergency stop button :) Edit: be aware that DC suffers more voltage drop than AC, keep the lines short or use thicker cables to compensate