Talk:Magnetic amplifier

the diagram is confusing

I have read the Principle of operation paragraph and am confused. The text says that

• "The typical magnetic amplifier consists of two physically separate but similar transformer magnetic cores" while the diagram shows one core. Which is it?
• "The AC windings may be connected either in series or in parallel, the configurations resulting in different types of mag amps." No explanation of the "different types". What types are there?
• "In saturation, the AC winding on the saturated core will go from a high impedance state ("off") into a very low impedance state ("on")" - do you mean that, when saturated, the core goes "off" or the core goes "on"? not clear. Does saturation turn the current off? What is going on?
• "A small DC current from a low impedance source" - like a battery?
• "series-connected control windings" - the diagram shows only one control winding. It would be better also if the diagram LABELED the windings...then I wouldn't need to guess.
• "sets the point in the AC winding waveform " - I would like to see that. What is the "point" of the waveform, the positive peaks or the negative peaks?

• Also, I do not see any amplification of the AC signal, because the control voltage is DC.

Drop the Class H sentence

"The mag amp is a "magnetic field" kind of amplifier and is of Class H type."

I recommend that this sentence simply be dropped. It is just a semanticly circular definition. As for class H; what are the classes? No link is provided. Nothing in the article describes the significance of class H. The article would be improved if the sentence were simply dropped. Anorlunda (talk) 12:28, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Just a question re: the claim that magnetic amplifier is an amplifier of type class-H? Is this so, and if so, how? I would argue, rightly or wrongly, that the role of the mag amp historically has been to provide a controllable output voltage from an alternating voltage source by using a small current to modulate the effective impedance of the mag-amp ie: the exact point at which it no longer will block the supply voltage. How would this be class-H? Comments, anyone? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.68.107.47 (talk) 12:35, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

(New author) I had the pleasure of using and seeing the schematic of a two stage magnetic amplifier that was used to control the magnetic field of a large electromagnet. It had a large DC gain and with a resistor for feedback produced a gain of near 1000. The DC input, I presume was from a spinning coil in the magnetic field, some few millivolts and the output of the amplifier was some volts, used to control the magnet (3 phase AC input)power supply. As I remember the AC source for the magnetic amplifier was a few volts at an audio frequency and there were two sets of reactors (maybe two reactors). The output from the first set was fed as input to the second set to produce the large power gain. The intermediate connection did not to my knowledge involve any nonlinear parts such as transistors or diodes and the output was a voltage source proportional to the input voltage similar to a DC op-amp circuit. Unfortunately I did not copy the page and It is likely lost from the University of New Orleans Physics Department. I am trying to figure out how this worked and possibly recreate a crude replica. -

I would not view this device as a class H amplifier but rather as related to class B with AC rails. However the final output of my (school's) amplifier was a good grade of DC. If you can find anything on this or even advise on experiments contact me-Charles (august04@verizon.net) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.164.33.26 (talk) 02:25, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Merge or expansion?

I have been writing, off and on, a page on the history of magnetic amplifiers, while being unaware of this page until a recent general search. Would there be any benefit in merging the two articles together, or keeping them separate? This one appears to deal more with the technology, while the article I've been working on deals more in the history of the subject. Comments? Erzahler 21:29, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I've merged the "history" article here with some editing. The history would have to be a lot larger before it would stand on its own as a separate article, I think. --Wtshymanski (talk) 16:25, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I haven't had any time to work on the article at all, and historical data is not always easy to find. Erzahler (talk) 02:14, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

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Saturation (magnetic) (of Wikipedia) should perhaps be referred to in the article? QUITTNER 76.64.51.75 (talk) 00:20, 26 July 2015 (UTC) Inductance (of Wikipedia) should perhaps be referred to in the article? QUITTNER 76.64.51.75 (talk) 00:39, 26 July 2015 (UTC)