Get an amazing deal on a stand and have everything you need except the power supply? Don’t leave it on the shelf in the hope of one day converting it for an alternative bulb (LED conversion can be great, it can also be terrible, don’t rush into it) or wait for the day to come when an appropriate transformer turns up, just buy an autotransformer! A suitable autotransformer won’t exactly be cheap but can prove quite economical in the long run, we’ll get to that later, first lets look at what one is, and what’s normally provided. First a little bit about power, lights, and dimmers.

Most of the time, in a residential application that is, light bulbs provide a constant fixed level of brightness (marked on packages in lumens) but generally thought of by the consumer in terms of watts. A watt is a description of energy that is equal to the voltage multiplied by the amperage. The conventional 60w incandescent light bulb may be powered by 120v at half an amp of current, or 12v at 5a. Years ago if one wanted to get a lower level of illumination from an incandescent bulb one used a dimmer switch that contained a variable resistor that limited the voltage which traveled to the bulb the current remained the same. We can see then that the same bulb which provided 60w of illumination at 120v and half an amp would provide 30w at 60v and half an amp. With these type of dimmers the energy that is restricted by the dimmer (30w) is dissipated by the dimmer as heat, no energy is saved, between the dimmer (30w) and the bulb (30w) one is still using 120v and half an amp.

More modern dimmers operate by means of a simple circuit that rapidly turns power traveling to the bulb on and off. It happens so fast that it’s invisible to the eye and with incandescent bulbs the heat held by the filament makes the fluctuation even less noticeable. The advantage of such a dimmer is that there is some minor reduction in power consumption—the reduced wattage output by the bulb is not dissipated by the dimmer as heat. Unfortunately, a by product of such a dimmer is a reduction in the working life of the bulb which should avoided like the plague in the case of frequently difficult to find and expensive to replace microscope illuminator bulbs. Both of these dimmer types, both the old fashioned and modern have one significant flaw for the microscopist—in a word current—but more on that later.

An autotransformer is and electrical voltage transformer of a special sort, functionally a dimmer of the old-fashioned type described above, yet instead of functioning like a resistor it’s a transformer and functions due to induction. Unlike a standard transformer with a primary winding of a particular number of turns and at least one secondary winding of a differing number of turns, an auto transformer has only one winding. In a normal transformer the supply voltage is connected to the primary winding and is output at the secondary at a different voltage that can be calculated with a set of equations.

If the primary has more turns of wire than the secondary the input voltage produces a lower voltage on the secondary it’s called a step down transformer. If the situation is reversed and the primary has fewer turns than the secondary (or the secondary from the first example is used as the primary) it’s a step up transformer and outputs a higher voltage than was input. This is how the old, heavy, wall adapters are able to output 12v even though the socket on the wall provides 120v or 240v.

An autotransformer isn’t automated or automatic, rather it’s so designated for the fact that it is self-transforming. In place of two separate windings a single continuous winding is used for both the primary and secondary. The use of a single winding means an autotransformer rated for a particular input and output voltage will be much smaller than a standard transformer with a primary and a secondary. With most autotransformers the primary and secondary are not in a fixed permanent relationship, but are variable across a given number of steps.  One might just as easily be continuously variable across a range. Most are able to provide an output from significantly lower than the input voltage to a bit over, though others are constructed specifically to provide much higher output voltages than those input. For the purposes here we’ll want an autotransformer which takes a standard input voltage and can output a range from < 1 up to > the input voltage. The practical application of such a device is that an significant number of different bulbs can be run from a single transformer rather than needing a different unit for any particular microscope.

At most hardware stores a standard lamp dimmer can be had for as little as ten dollars, throw in a box in which to mount it and a hardwood base and the whole deal still only just approaches twenty bucks. A secondhand autotransformer might turn up for $50 but one is better off buying new where one can find a 120v autotransformer rated for 20a (of the cheapest sort mind you) for around a hundred, more than five times the cost of a dimmer switch. An autotransformer as described above even if rated for only 10a might weigh as much as twenty or thirty pounds. The reason an autotransformer is preferable has to do with amps and volts. A dimmer switch will only work at the rated voltage, but that’s still not the worst thing about them, after all many student microscopes from the 1960’s and even the 1980’s used a 15w 120v night-light style bulb, it’s a question of current.

The dimmers at the local hardware will at most be rated for 4a, maybe a few for high voltage halogen track lights go as high as 5 or 6a. That’s more than enough for a single incandescent drawing even 2 to 3a at the most. Now, something like the B&L Dynoptic that takes a GE-1634 only draws a single amp, a touch more if over-run to 25v, so a small resistive dimmer would do if installed after a step-down transformer, but it wouldn’t be very efficient. That same bulb could be easily be run by an autotransformer, place a tape mark or two on the control knob to a avoid accidentally feeding it a drastic over voltage and you’re in business.

Where the autotransformer really stands out however, is when it comes to running much older lamps from much different types of illuminators. The first incarnation of the B&L Research Illuminator dates to the early days of electricity and took a range of bulbs from 120vAC to battery based 24vDC home electrification systems that were in use in rural areas for decades before rural electrification ramped up the late 1930’s and post war 1940’s. The second and re-designed Research Illuminator (the model with the rectangular horseshoe base) took as standard a flat filament incandescent that was rated for 18a at 6v. The original power supply for the 100w bulb was about the size of a breadbox and looked and acted much like an early electric space-heater.

The all-metal units contained a large step-down transformer and a multi position switch that would remove one large resistor from series for each step the switch was moved to increase voltage fed to the lamp. It might seem strange that the unit simply didn’t employ a number of secondary windings and so provide a range of voltages with a single component. The use of the resistors made the unit smaller and cheaper to manufacture. Some workers would strip the switched resistor series and replace it with a rheostat (a large type of continuously variable resistor still manufactured but not now in common use) thereby obtaining a continuously variable voltage. In practice the unit was not so different from the device used to run electrical arc illuminators, but had the added benefit of using lower voltage at the output (and using a bulb rather than a cumbersome carbon rod gap).

Using an autotransformer with a B&L Research Illuminator means I don’t have to spring for a supply that runs into the hundreds of dollars even when it does turn up for sale. It additionally means not having to worry about setting fire to the workbench, antique electrical apparatus isn’t known for its safety. Furthermore, autotransformers are always constructed with a fuse, which means that in place of the standard 20a slow-blow fuse (as a rule fuse amperage is identical to the rated current) I can use a fast-blow fuse rated for the amps drawn by the lamp being employed, and add a further level of protection for my bulbs filament.

Beyond that there’s the convince factor. The autotransformer is able to supply the required power for every illuminator I have, everything from the 120v Optilume, to the 115v lamp in the Spherical Illuminator, or down to the 6v halogen in the BalPlan. Even the high intensity 6v 18a (think about that, 18a, the breakers in your utility room are probably only rated for 15a on a lighting circuit!) bulb in the the Research Illuminator. So should we throw out the power supplies we do have in favor of an autotransformer? Of course not, but we should be mindful of it as a safe an effective option for feeding power to a microscope lamp of a variety of illumination systems.

Next time something with pictures, I promise. -K