Power rating of a ferrite cored transformer or balun

Commercial products often have power ratings that bear checking.

There are common some key properties that are relevant:

  • where loss is high, core loss tends to dominate;
  • the specific heat of ferrite is typically quite high;
  • the capacity to dissipate heat is related to many factors.

Where loss is high, core loss tends to dominate

Ferrite materials have loss at HF and above that warrants consideration.

Even though the effective RF resistance of conductors is much higher than their DC resistance, the wire lengths are short and conductor loss is usually not very high.

Core loss will commonly be much larger that conductor loss and so dominate.

The specific heat of ferrite is typically quite high

The specific heat of ferrite is typically towards 800K/kgK, almost as high as aluminium so ferrite absorbs a lot of heat energy to raise its temperature.

When heated by a constant source of power, temperature will rise exponentially as a result of the combination of mass, specific heat, and loss of heat from the core as temperature increases. We can speak of a thermal time constant being the time to reach 63% of the final temperature change, and for large ferrite toroids (eg FT240) that may be over 2000s.

The capacity to dissipate heat is related to many factors

Factors include the temperature difference between the core and ambient and if you like, the thermal resistance between core and ambient. Ambient temperature may be high if the device is installed in a roof space. Incident heat from the sun increases the challenge.

Maximum core temperature depends on maximum operating temperature of the enclosure (PVC), wire insulation maximum temperature, fasteners (eg nylon screws or P clips), and Curie temperature all weigh in.

Thermal resistance is higher where the core is contained in a closed enclosure.

Example – EFHW transformer – 2t on FT240-43

Lets say a EFHW transformer using a FT240-43 is housed in a small sealed PVC box mounted outside in fee air. The transformer uses a 2t primary winding as per a plethora of articles on the ‘net.

Above is a core loss profile for the transformer where the load is such that the impedance looking into the primary is 50+j0Ω. At 3.5MHz, core loss is 34%.

Lets say that the core can dissipate 10W continuously without damage or compromise. In that case, with core loss of 34%, the transformer could be rated for 10/0.35=28.6W continuous or average RF power input. One would confirm this continuous rating with a bench test measuring temperature until it stabilised. Thermographs are a good means of documenting the heat rise.

In applications where the transmitter was active only half the time, an IACS (Intermittent Amateur and Commercial Service) rating would be appropriate, we would rate it as 28.6/0.5=57.2W IACS.

Note that as we ‘increase' the power rating, consideration must be given to voltage breakdown which is an instantaneous mechanism, there is no averaging like heat effects.

Now some modes have average power (ie heating effect) less than the PEP, so we could factor that in. Average power of SSB telephony develops a Pav/PEP factor for compressed SSB telephone of 10%, so we can calculate a SSB telephony (with compression) PEP IACS rating as 57.2/0.1=572W.

So this is a pretty ordinary ordinary transformer which we have been able to rate at 570W SSB IACS exploiting the low average power of such a waveform.

Example -EFHW transformer – 4t on FT240-43

Above is a core loss profile for the transformer where the load is such that the impedance looking into the primary is 50+j0Ω. At 3.5MHz, core loss is 8.5%.

Lets say that the core can dissipate 10W continuously without damage or compromise. In that case, with core loss of 8.5%, the transformer could be rated for 10/0.085=118W continuous or average RF power input. Again, one would confirm this continuous rating with a bench test measuring temperature until it stabilised. Thermographs are a good means of documenting the heat rise.

In applications where the transmitter was active only half the time, an IACS (Intermittent Amateur and Commercial Service) rating would be appropriate, we would rate it as 118/0.5=236W IACS.

Lets calculate the SSB compressed telephony rating. we can calculate a SSB telephony (with compression) PEP IACS rating as 236/0.1=2360W.

Even more important at this power level is assessment of the voltage withstand.

So, when you see claims of power rating, read the details carefully to understand whether they are applicable to your scenairo. The last scenario about might be find for 1500W SSB compressed telephony, but not suitable for 500W of FT8.

An exercise for the reader: calculate the power rating for A1 Morse code (assume Pav/PEP=0.44).