Whenever I have seen collectors talk about how autotransformer ballasts work, I frequently see them saying that the primary and secondary windings are TWO SEPARATE coils when in principle, I have understood that autotransformers in general tend to integrate the primary and secondary windings on just ONE coil instead.

Plus, I have also seen that this appears to have led to some people thinking that autotransformer ballasts have NO choke. This does not make sense to me because if only a step up transformer or step down transformer by itself is used to power a discharge lamp, only the VOLTAGE is changed. From my understanding, I have seen that autotransformer ballasts typically consist of an autotransformer coil and a choke coil that is responsible for limiting the current.

Here is an article that explains how an autotransformer works:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autotransformer


https://www.ato.com/autotransformer-working-principle-and-advantages?srsltid=AfmBOoq6mF2MwMUcXV39dpj1Vnb7rgGR-4-Penwyrg_dht98Q7utnvbc

An autotransformer, the way I understand it, is just a voltage divider using inductors and not resistors. Are there any autotransformer ballasts that do the limiting in the autotransformer itself and have no choke(methinks CWA ballasts do that but I bet I am wildly off the mark)? And is the choke on the same core as the autotranny?