At a previous job we manufactured fairly large trailer-mounted generators. During design engineering testing, you would want to power a load with the generator to check performance. The test load we had was a giant resistor bank, in a pallet-sized enclosure about 4 feet tall, with fans for active cooling of the oodles of resistance heat being put off by it. I talked to one of the electrical engineers about how ludicrous this device was, and he said that we used to use something even weirder. A giant tank filled with salt water (can't remember for sure if they were using NaCl or a different electrolyte) with probes just dumping all that current right into the water. Wish I had seen it.
I'm not sure what's ludicrous about this setup though? For testing you want the simplest possible setup - which a giant resistor bank really is. Power is power when you run it through simple resistance - no AC shenanigans will hide effects.
I thought this was mildly interesting; I'd never heard of them but they popped up in a Facebook post about a retired PDP-11 system from a theatre and the term caught my eye! Presumably the "strong smell" was chlorine!?
Still used in 3rd world countries (quite effectively) to make dirt cheap DIY arc welders. Super dangerous but basically free, just need electrodes. Not as high-current as a modern machine, but good enough for fixing light tractors and bicycles.
At a previous job we manufactured fairly large trailer-mounted generators. During design engineering testing, you would want to power a load with the generator to check performance. The test load we had was a giant resistor bank, in a pallet-sized enclosure about 4 feet tall, with fans for active cooling of the oodles of resistance heat being put off by it. I talked to one of the electrical engineers about how ludicrous this device was, and he said that we used to use something even weirder. A giant tank filled with salt water (can't remember for sure if they were using NaCl or a different electrolyte) with probes just dumping all that current right into the water. Wish I had seen it.
I'm not sure what's ludicrous about this setup though? For testing you want the simplest possible setup - which a giant resistor bank really is. Power is power when you run it through simple resistance - no AC shenanigans will hide effects.
For more on resistance dimmers in theater, check out this video from Jonathan Bastow: https://youtu.be/lTHNYWw6yt0?si=ygt0HpSd_aPcm3tq
I thought this was mildly interesting; I'd never heard of them but they popped up in a Facebook post about a retired PDP-11 system from a theatre and the term caught my eye! Presumably the "strong smell" was chlorine!?
Still used in 3rd world countries (quite effectively) to make dirt cheap DIY arc welders. Super dangerous but basically free, just need electrodes. Not as high-current as a modern machine, but good enough for fixing light tractors and bicycles.