Ferrite Toroid

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kbsparky

Senior Member
Location
Delmarva, USA
I have a job installing the feeder circuits for a new FM transmitter. In the manufacturer's instructions, they ask for a "Ferrite Toroid" to be utilized around all the circuit conductors:

... In addition, pass all the conductors and ground, as a group, through a ferrite toroid. Install a ferrite toroid on the ac feed between the transmitter and the bi-directional surge protector....

I've seen these things on power cords for computers, and other hardware power supplies. I suspect there are larger ones available for such custom installations although I have never encountered them on such a larger scale before.

Have any of you dealt with these things recently?
 

Dennis Alwon

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Chapel Hill, NC
Occupation
Retired Electrical Contractor
I have used them on AFCI breakers but that limits the circuit to none dimming circuits. I would call the manufacturer and find out what they recommend. I got my from the circuit breaker manufacturer but I suspect there are different ones for different purposes. I don't know.
 

ELA

Senior Member
Occupation
Electrical Test Engineer
As Dennis has said the manufacturer, or the FM transmitters engineer, would have to specify the ferrite to be used. Ferrites come in many different material types that are best suited to a particular frequency band.

It is too vague for them to simply say put a ferrite torroid on the cables.

Sounds like it is being installed as a common mode attenuator for preventing the FM transmissions from leaving the building via the power feed in an unintentional manner.
 

grich

Senior Member
Location
MP89.5, Mason City Subdivision
Occupation
Broadcast Engineer
Looks like a paragraph out of the Nautel site prep handbook...
http://www.nautel.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Transmitter-Site-Preparation-Recommendations-Sep-2004.pdf
Nautel's tech staff is pretty good...as long as you can understand Canadian, you'll be OK. :D Better yet, make the station engineer talk to them.

I've seen big toroids at electronics suppliers like Newark and Digikey...outside diameters of some of those doughnuts can be as big as 8 inches or more.

Found out the hard way once that if those toroids are interacting with a lot of RF, they get really HOT.
 
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kbsparky

Senior Member
Location
Delmarva, USA
Thanks for the replies. I had already contacted the station engineer before posting here, but had not received his reply.

Seems that the transmitter comes with its own toroid, so I guess that they just wanted to ensure that it gets installed when the feeder cables are terminated.

We are gearing up to do the install today. Maybe I can take some pix of the thing and post `em here later ...
 

tesi1

Member
Location
florida
ferite

ferite

I have completed several tv and or radio transmitter jobs, each time it was in the spec's to use a ferrite torrid ring or transformer it was provided with the transmitter.
nautel usually requires one as an example. we did not know we hade to use them until we started making the connections before we found the little tag inside of the
transmitter stating there use. they were shipped with the units but packaged up in a different section in the transmitter.
 

hurk27

Senior Member
When dealing with RF energy is is easy to cause the input current to mirror the carrier frequency of the transmitter thus causing havoc on electrical and electronic gear throughout a building as well the RF could be radiated from the power lines, the idea is to block the RF from leaving the building and or causing problems within the building, if this carrier is also modulated with AM it can cause feed back problems in the modulation sections ahead of the modulator so RF chokes have been use for may years to prevent this type of EMI, so it is not uncommon when dealing with HF gear to provide RF blocking on the power supply conductors as well as any other conductors that my connect to the RF gear, as I had pointed out in another thread that good designed surge protection will also include low pass chokes to not only stop HF HV transients but as a side effect they also block RF from coming in on the power supply feed, but generally the station head engineer will design and instruct as to how they want them installed and where, and may also include the company they must be purchased from if not supplied from the manufacture of the transmitter or the designer of the station, your going to need to talk with the head engineer for the station to see what they are going to require as the stations license holder is who will be responsible for designing the chokes and how they get installed.

while going for my FCC 1st class licenses at Florida Tech (which FCC did away with before I got my degree and split it between broadcast and second class which is the test I went for thinking it would have more opportunity in commercial radios) while there we did some field trips to a few radio stations, one was a shortwave station that had an ERP of 100kw, all the coils in the transmitter were water cooled as well as the RF chokes, all the power lines feeding the transmitter section run through these chokes in a room locked off from entry, the chokes stood as high as the ceiling and were huge, the coils were hollow copper tubing with water pumped through them, it was kind of amazing how big everything was.

Depending upon the frequency pass design of the chokes some will require more then one pass through the ferrite core so pay close attention to how the engineer wants them installed as well as what conductors need chokes, I would think you should have got a package of the layout and installation specs on what needs chokes and how they will be installed as this is not something that an average electrician would go through or have the knowledge to deal with without the help of the engineer, these designs are different for each transmitter as each site will present its own unique set of issues that must be designed into the transmitter system.

You stated its an FM transmitter, but that leaves allot open as to what kind of transmitter and at what power levels are we talking about, if its broadcast radio I would have assume you would already been dealing with the stations engineer, if it is some kind of a commercial transmitter or repeater then you might have to deal with the manufacture of the equipment, but follow their instructions to the letter, if this was a bid job, you might have to deal with RFI's/change orders and is one reason when getting into areas of unknowns can come back a bit you.
 
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kbsparky

Senior Member
Location
Delmarva, USA
Did the installation yesterday, and we did manage to find several ferrite donuts in the transmitter package.

One of the setup engineers was on hand, and he told us to wrap those conductors through the toroid an extra turn. We ty-wrapped them twice on the donut, and left it hang with a loop in some free space adjacent to the main terminal blocks.

Thanks for the comments.
 

grich

Senior Member
Location
MP89.5, Mason City Subdivision
Occupation
Broadcast Engineer
...while going for my FCC 1st class licenses at Florida Tech (which FCC did away with before I got my degree and split it between broadcast and second class which is the test I went for thinking it would have more opportunity in commercial radios)...

Let's
200px-US_derail_detail.JPG
this thread...

Hurk, you must be an old guy! :D:D I tested out of a college course in 1983 by passing my FCC exam...the 1st and 2nd class licenses had just been consolidated into the General Class license, which appeared to be just the old Second Class exam. Best of all, it had no value for broadcast technicians. After the First was abolished, all you needed to take care of a 1 megawatt TV transmitter was a card you got by sending in a form...and you don't even need that anymore (and haven't for many years).
 

hurk27

Senior Member
Let's
View attachment 8726
this thread...

Hurk, you must be an old guy! :D:D I tested out of a college course in 1983 by passing my FCC exam...the 1st and 2nd class licenses had just been consolidated into the General Class license, which appeared to be just the old Second Class exam. Best of all, it had no value for broadcast technicians. After the First was abolished, all you needed to take care of a 1 megawatt TV transmitter was a card you got by sending in a form...and you don't even need that anymore (and haven't for many years).

Really, did not know that, never really used my 2nd class and after about 10 years of keeping it up I just let it go, when I went into the communication course we had both a 1st class and second class, the first class allowed broadcast and everything that the second class covered but FCC abolished the first class and made broadcast a whole separate ticket, this was in 1979 or 1980 I think, I finely got my degree in 1982 and set for the exam right before I got out of school, so your saying the next year they again changed it, wow, it could have been that at that time allot was up in the air about what was really going on when they sat me for the second class?

I had heard they were pushing for an engineering degree in communications to do broadcast because of some stations just putting people in control of their transmitters who didn't have a clue, but that may have been just a rumor, but your saying you didn't have to even sit for an exam for broadcast??? wow, even with a engineering degree in communications you would think they would want to know if you really learned anything by having you sit for an exam? I would have gone for the engineering degree but things at home weren't going so well and the wife left so allot of things went down hill for me around that time, but all I needed was two more years and a bunch more of credits and moving to Indiana didn't help things as Florida tech wasn't a state school at that time and some of my already earned credits wouldn't transfer so going back in up here was a no go.

And yes I can be considered and old fart but don't tell anyone, so what I remember might not always reflect what actually took place LOL
 

sparkyrick

Senior Member
Location
Appleton, Wi
Did the installation yesterday, and we did manage to find several ferrite donuts in the transmitter package.

One of the setup engineers was on hand, and he told us to wrap those conductors through the toroid an extra turn. We ty-wrapped them twice on the donut, and left it hang with a loop in some free space adjacent to the main terminal blocks.

Thanks for the comments.
needpics.gif


BTW, what size conductors did you have to wrap around the chokes (ferrite donuts) ?
 
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