On 8/9/2011 10:06 AM, James Waldby wrote:

For 1400 watts at 50Hz you need a transformer with a core weighing
75 to 100 pounds (at 60Hz, figure 20VA per pound; 5-10% lower at
50Hz, see eg table A in ref [1]) so it might be worth considering
whether to buy the transformer in Australia vs buying one in the US
and shipping it. If you can contact the power company in Au where
you'll be going, ask if they have any disused 2:1 transformers
sitting around that they'll pay you to haul off.

In general, almost everything I've looked at is a bit, to a -lot- more
expensive there. Since I'm shipping a whole container full of stuff, an
extra hundred or two pound transformer is nothing.

Thanks for the additional info on transformers, just left a message with
my buddy's electrician friend. Hopefully he can help me find something
suitable used at a good price.

BTW, do you know if the 4 heating elements of your Thermolyne 1400 are
in series, parallel, or series-parallel?

From the manual, mine appears to have just one element, cast into the
ceiling and side walls. There's one wire in and one wire out.
Ned's is 220, and from the model number, I think a bigger oven and
certainly wired differently.
If a transformer as you've outlined, properly sized, will do the job for
me then I'm set. In reality, I may well never need it there, but if I do...

Better to have tools and not need them than need them and not have them!


Jon