Neon Sign Transformers, OU or not ?

[Farmhand]

Here is the data sheet from just two Neon sign transformers.

The calculations I make from the rated output figures tells me they are both overunity or they have a greater output power rating than the max input rating.

Is this false advertising ? Or is it Overunity ? Or am I missing something again ?

http://www.evertron.net/datasheet/006_0054.pdf

http://www.evertron.net/SP230V/006_0083.pdf

Seems I am either calculating it wrong the ratings are false or they are in fact producing more power than they use.

I have seen many Neon sign transformers with even higher output ratings as compared to input, up to 4 times and more.

Can anyone investigate how this is possible ? I think I know how they would do it.

Can anyone get hold of a Neon sign transformer Schematic for a sign transformer that shows similar "funny" ratings for us to look at ?

Or am i missing something ? A lot of people seem hungry for OU and yet here it is advertised for sale.



Anyone up for an investigation ?

[ibpointless2]

Here is the data sheet from just two Neon sign transformers.

The calculations I make from the rated output figures tells me they are both overunity or they have a greater output power rating than the max input rating.

Is this false advertising ? Or is it Overunity ? Or am I missing something again ?

http://www.evertron.net/datasheet/006_0054.pdf

http://www.evertron.net/SP230V/006_0083.pdf

Seems I am either calculating it wrong the ratings are false or they are in fact producing more power than they use.

I have seen many Neon sign transformers with even higher output ratings as compared to input, up to 4 times and more.

Can anyone investigate how this is possible ? I think I know how they would do it.

Can anyone get hold of a Neon sign transformer Schematic for a sign transformer that shows similar "funny" ratings for us to look at ?

Or am i missing something ? A lot of people seem hungry for OU and yet here it is advertised for sale.



Anyone up for an investigation ?

this does seem odd. For the input i get 230V*.9A = 207Watts and for the output i get 7000V*.032A = 224Watts. So it does seem that it has a greater power output than what is needed. This is odd but if i remember correctly RMS and Transformer theory may play a role in this not being overunity. But I do think high voltages are key to seeing some very unique things. Until someone says other wise this seems to be Overunity according to P=IE.

[Zooty]

I'm pretty sure RMS current is usually higher than the average current due to errors in the signal being taken in to consideration but it would still seem odd because i would not expect errors over 20w. Might have something to do with the output being pulsed at 14khz+ They might be specifying the max current per pulse on the output but it might only be 10% duty cycle. Good find.

[Farmhand]

Yes that is probably true, the pulsed output and the RMS, but it would be stretching it for that to explain the 4 to 1 output to input I've seen from some.

I sure would like to see a schematic, even though I wouldn't know much of what I was looking at I might be able to see something good.

I'll try to find a better one.

It is strange too that they are kinda based on Tesla coils aren't they.



This one is nearly 3x
Neon Sign Transformer products, buy Neon Sign Transformer products from alibaba.com

This one even says output power 300 watts the input is 220v at 0.44A or 96.8 watts, more than 3 times the input power.
neon sign transformer products, buy neon sign transformer products from alibaba.com

Well something doesn't add up, does this mean 1+1=3.

Or does it mean most electrical stuff is retarded and we are fooled into thinking more power is used by us than really is ?

[ewizard]

This comes up every so often. They are not OU though. It has to do with how the rate them. From Armagdn03 (on OU): "The neon sign business is concerned with break down voltage of the gas in question, which relates to PEAK VOLTAGE not RMS VOLTAGE. This means that input is measured in RMS mains voltage and amperage whcih can be used for power calculations, while the output is only concerned with PEAK voltage, which CANNOT be used to make power calculations. This is most peoples misinterpretation of the neon sign business."

[boguslaw]

They are not OU, but could be used to create OU

[Farmhand]

OK then the one that says output power 300 watts and input 220 v at 0.44 A is just a straight up lie and is false advertising.

This begs the question, how can we beleive any power ratings of anything.

Not a very good situation. I would have thought that with RMS the power could be calculated fairly accurately, peak voltage aside RMS means something what good is it if a power calculation cannot be done from it, and if the manufacturer cannot determin output power then that is a very bad situation.

I would ask the question how is the real true output power of these things determined ? Or any other thing for that matter. Seems to me we should have some experts amongst us who could quite easily determin what the output is compared to input.

It also seems to me that if the true output power of a NST cannot be determined, then I don't hold out much hope for us to ever be able to determin the output power of anything that does not produce Pure DC.

That says a whole lot to me.

Cheers

[Farmhand]

Well well, it seems a Neon sign transformer has a center tapped High Tension secondary, naturally. Hence the two outputs one up one down.
Here is a link to a page where a guy dismantles one and removes the center tap and rectifys the output and so forth.

http://www.rtftechnologies.org/emtech/nst.htm

Looks like this to me. would be a lot cheaper, too and possibly more durable.

https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=32A91E5C9DCCE17F&id=32A91E5C9DCCE17F%211255&sc=photos

Not a whole lot of differnce from my perspective.

Cheers

It might work better with a charging inductor too.