Quote:
Originally Posted by jonboy55
Someone mounted a tube on the side of the high voltage cage. I want to find out what that is all about.
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Looks like some sort of add-on "soft-start" ballast resistor/lamp to reduce inrush surges when the power is switched on. When the lamp heats up, there's probably a bimetallic strip inside that acts as a relay to short out the lamp portion.
There were some simpler variants of this concept (involving a regular sand-type power resistor) that were available in the 50's/60's era.