Whether you’re an electrician working at one of the 6,210 hospitals throughout the United States or you own a utility company looking to improve the safety of your community’s streetlights, you need to weigh the benefits of different types of transformers. While you need something that provides the right balance of power and safety for your customers, it also needs to be easy for your team to handle and install. This is where toroidal technology comes into play.
Toroidal isolation transformers have a donut-shaped core made of steel and wrapped with wire. This shape is in contrast with the E-I structure, a common type of transformer core that takes the shape of an uppercase “I” closing off the open side of an uppercase “E.” Even though this is a common type of transformer, it has many disadvantages when compared with toroidal transformers. Let’s take a look at how these transformer types differ from one another.
The Magnetic Circuit
The E-I structure contains many right angles, making it more difficult to align the grain structure of the transformer’s stamped laminations with the magnetic path’s flux field. In short, the shape of an E-I transformer is not an ideal magnetic circuit. The more that the magnetic flux field has to work to align with the 90-degree grain structure, the less efficient operations will be and the more core loss you will experience.
In contrast, a toroidal isolation transformer offers the ideal magnetic circuit. The magnetic flux field doesn’t have as much trouble aligning with the stamped laminations in a toroidal structure, making for a more efficient transformer. Its tightly wound core doesn’t leave room for air gaps or discontinuities, leaving less opportunity for the magnetic flux to leak.
Size and Weight
The compact design of toroidal isolation transformers allow them to be nearly half the size and weight of E-I transformers. The donut shape of the transformer requires less material and the windings are symmetrically spread over the entire core, making the wire length shorter than in other transformers.
Whether you’re looking for custom made toroidal transformers to fit your unique application or a standard one for your medical isolation transformer, their reduced size and weight make them easy to mount. You won’t have to struggle under the weight of common E-I transformers. Instead, you can enjoy the ease of simple installation while still delivering high quality and efficiency to your customers.
There are few applications for which a toroidal transformer wouldn’t be a superior choice. From temporary power restoration devices to Marine-Pucks, toroidal technology provides benefits for you and your customers. Contact Bridgeport Magnetics today to learn more about how your specific needs can take advantage of toroidal technology.