On Tue, 23 Feb 2010 22:42:35 -0500, herzog@frontiernet.net@frontiernet.net
wrote:
>We got around to discovering the why
We learned that in the pro audio world too, again with the power supplies
for big power amps. If you've got a couple of racks full of power amps
that all fire up at the same time, you can take out the main breaker on
the inrush current when the switching happens at the peak of the AC cycle.
Not good in a large public gathering! A number of pretty good solutions
were implemented by different manufacturers and system designers. Because
our loads consist of many large amplifiers, most of those solutions
involved some form of time-sequencing the turn-on of those amplifiers, a
few seconds apart. This worked quite well, and become the most common
solution. A few companies also used some form of "soft start," which also
worked well, but was more costly.
BTW -- the nature of audio is that it has a very high peak to average
ratio, so that average power is FAR less than peak power, but amplifiers
must be built to supply that peak power. So in the real world, breakers
never trip on loud peaks of program, but only on turn-on (or equipment
fault).
73,
Jim K9YC
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