The Art of Switching

© Jan Hosan

A tap chang­er con­sists of sev­er­al hun­dred parts. To ensure it switch­es reli­ably through­out its entire ser­vice life, every seem­ing­ly minor detail mat­ters.

Hid­den deep with­in a trans­former, every sin­gle com­po­nent of a tap chang­er plays a cru­cial role in ensur­ing the sta­bil­i­ty of the pow­er sup­ply. To inter­vene in the flow of cur­rent with­out inter­rupt­ing the sup­ply, each part must pre­cise­ly with­stand extreme elec­tri­cal and mechan­i­cal stress­es. Invent­ed and man­u­fac­tured by Rein­hausen, they have been con­tin­u­ous­ly opti­mized and adapt­ed to new require­ments over the past cen­tu­ry. With every switch­ing oper­a­tion, the com­po­nents mesh per­fect­ly. It’s time to shed light on the dark­ness inside the trans­former and view this sophis­ti­cat­ed tech­nol­o­gy from a new per­spec­tive.

INSULATES AND SUPPORTS HEAVY LOADS

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The Oil Compartment

is made of glass-fiber-rein­forced plas­tic and com­bines elec­tri­cal insu­la­tion with high mechan­i­cal sta­bil­i­ty. It sup­ports the weight of the entire tap chang­er and simul­ta­ne­ous­ly pro­tects against volt­age flashovers. Its spe­cial wind­ing struc­ture ensures strength and dura­bil­i­ty.

MOVES WITH GREAT PRECISION

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The Maltese Wheel

con­trols the pre­cise switch­ing move­ment of the selec­tor. It con­verts the rota­tion­al move­ment of the dri­ve into a step-by-step move­ment so that the con­tacts are posi­tioned exact­ly despite mechan­i­cal tol­er­ances. The wheel is com­plete­ly wear resis­tant, ensur­ing reli­able oper­a­tion for the entire life of the tap chang­er and approx­i­mate­ly 1.2 mil­lion switch­ing oper­a­tions.

COMPACTLY DESIGNED, SECURELY SHIELDED

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The Oil-Compartment Contact

estab­lish­es the cur­rent-car­ry­ing con­nec­tion between the load switch and the selec­tor. Made of cop­per and par­tial­ly sil­ver-plat­ed, it ensures high con­duc­tiv­i­ty. Round­ed shapes and shield­ing pre­vent elec­tri­cal arc­ing and enable a com­pact design.

SWITCHES IN A VACUUM

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The Vacuum Cell

is the heart of the vac­u­um tap chang­er. It switch­es the cur­rent flow under load by open­ing and clos­ing con­tacts in a vac­u­um in frac­tions of a sec­ond. The result­ing arc is quick­ly extin­guished with­out con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing the sur­round­ing envi­ron­ment. This increas­es the tap changer’s ser­vice life and ensures vir­tu­al­ly main­te­nance-free oper­a­tion.

No Small Matter:

SWITCHES RELIABLY FOR DECADES

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