Saturday, March 05, 2011

Attendees: Ron Crane and Stan Paddock.

Ron Crane and I have been working on the strange power consumption for the German IBM 1401.
Ron called me up this morning and asked if I would like to come in today when we would not bother anyone else. I said yes.

What we learned:

1. Both the Connecticut and German machines have 4 Ferro-resonance transformers. 2 in the 1402, 1 in the 1401 and one in the 1406.
2. The Connecticut machine runs on three phase 120/208 60 HZ power.
3. The Connecticut machine runs the Ferro-resonance transformers by connecting them between two legs of the input power. (208 volts)
4. The German machine runs on three phase 280/380 50 HZ power. To minimize the input voltage to the Ferro-resonance transformers, the Ferro-resonance transformers are connected from a leg of the input power to neutral. This supplies each one 220 V instead of 380 V if they were connected leg to leg like the Connecticut machine.
5. If we determine the power of each Ferro-resonance transformer, we could switch the source to one or more and thereby balance the total load to the German machine.
6. We also have to determine how the inputs to the Ferro-resonance transformers map back to the input power.

Stan Paddock