Connecting the Variac to the mains

Today I finished the wiring to the SRSG (synchronous rotating spark gap), added IEC female connectors to the two outputs from the variac and slapped o a 13amp plu onto the input to the variac. Although I'm not yet ready to test the Tesla coil charging circuitry I can now test the variac up to full voltage.

Here the variac is plugged into a 230v mains outlet. The SRSG 240v feed from the variac module is connected to the correct input on the Tesla coil base. The main Tesla coil feed (0v -110v) is left unconnected but tapped by the volt meter.

The variac dial was set to zero and the on/off switch thrown. The synchronous motor spun up immediately and the meter continued to read zero. Rotating the variac knob resulted in an increase of RMS AC voltage on the meter.

The reading were as expected and hoped. The printed scale around the variac knob isn't that accurate, but I didn't really expect it to be, it's really just a guide. Think I will mark on a couple of accurate markers.


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