"Tim Williams" wrote in message
...
"Harold & Susan Vordos" wrote in message
...
For what reason? Ohm's law says it makes no difference aside from
losing
a little in heat to the transformer. Is there something I'm missing
here?

If you have too much resistance, you won't be able to dissipate the
required
amount of heat at a given voltage. (Likewise, if you used too little, you
may have to run it off 120V - at an excess of current.) If you put in too
much wire, it may well be that the ultimate temperature will be too low at
240V! However, a stepup transformer will put more voltage on it = more
current = more power.

Tim

Understood. I was going on the assumption that one would select heating
elements for the voltage at hand, so it made no sense. Chromolox makes a
wide variety of heating elements, many of which would likely lend themselves
to the building of a furnace. One might be wiser to pay for the right
element instead of involving a transformer, if for no other reason,
economics and space savings. Running the elements at the recommended
voltage might be a good idea to prevent over-heating them, shortening their
useful life considerably. I'd also question the safety of higher and
higher voltages, although one of my machines runs off 480, achieved by the
use of a three phase 240/480 delta transformer. I had no alternative,
though, the motors didn't lend themselves to being rewired to our standard
voltages. It is a German precision grinding machine.

Harold



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