Hi Mark,

You mention contactors... are you saying that you are using the coil
of the contactor as a load? They don't typically draw very much
current as far as I know (maybe about 1A unless it is a huge
contactor). I like the suggestion Richard made about the power
transformer - although care must be taken that it doesn't saturate as
they normally do not have much current flowing through them without
current in the other winding to balance it out.

Another possibility would be to use a large brushless motor with the
rotor locked or removed entirely. They are good sources of fairly high
inductance which will not saturate at moderate to high current.

Of course, you can also buy a bunch of the largest (physically large)
inductors you can find and assemble them in series and/or parallel to
get the inductance you need.

Finally, you might also consider using capacitors (metal film or oil
filled) if you do not care about whether the voltage leads or lags the
current.

Sean


On Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 11:45 AM, Mark Scoville
<mscoville@unicontrolinc.com> wrote:
> Hi Piclisters,
>
> I'm trying to construct a test load for some UL testing we need to do.
>
> The load needs to draw 11.6A from 24Vac and have a 0.35 power factor. I h=
ave
> constructed some test loads to try, using contactors and such, but I don'=
t
> seem to have an inductive enough load. The contactors I have tried give a
> phase shift of around 58 to 61 degrees... I believe the 0.35PF implies a
> shift of 69.5 degrees.... so I'm not inductive enough.
>
> I can get the load to draw the 11.6A... but the power factor is still too
> resistive. So, I'm looking for any advice to make my load look more
> inductive. Do any of you have any clever tricks or advice that might help=
 me
> out?
>
> Thanks,
>
> -- Mark
>
>
>
>
>
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