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#1
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Tranny options from cheap to expensive to dicey
Patrick Turner wrote:
Happy winding You can see in contemporaneous threads precisely why I read a few books on winding transformers, then decided to do the job right. Doing it right means one of two things: 1. Finding out who is the best commercial winder in the world -- bound to be a supplier to the broadcast trades, with supply to the guitar trades coming a very close second -- and adapting your circuits to suit his off-the-shelf transformers. The best commercial winder in the world if you aren't counting pennies is widely agreed to be Lundahl. If you're counting pennies, you can't beat the guitar amp tranny winder Hammond. 2. Finding out who is the best designer in the world and let him design his heart out to achieve he precise effect you want. This is, again by the widest possible acclaim, Menno van der Veen. I have no idea whether Menno will design one-offs for the punter walking in off the street; the work he did for me had clear commercial possiblities and the transformers he designed for me later went into production. However, Sowter will adapt one of the many sound transformers in their list to your custom purposes and they are not very expensive. Or Patrick Turner or Lucas Cant will design and wind a transformer for you from scratch for pretty much starvation wages (it will still be pricey compared to Lundahl), which might be very attractive if you live in Australia and don't have to consider carriage. Unless you already have a tranny you can strip down for parts, or can buy a kit of parts (expensive in RS, and you have to take what is offered, just about zero choice), it will probably cost more to DIY a pair of trannies or a singleton than to get one custom designed and built by people who can take the parts off the shelf. 3. There is a possibly less expensive but much dicier alternative. Buy a custom or standard design from a recognized designer, or make your own design, and take it to the local armature rewinders. There's one in any medium-sized town, or the next town along; try the yellow pages. They have all the necessary parts on the shelf, or at most a week away from regular suppliers who won't even take your call. Or local commercial transformer winders, perhaps to the marine trade, may be set up to take an order for a pair of trannies. A chap called Russ who came to RAT for years had his own design of trannies wound by winders he picked out of the phone book, with great satisfaction according to his reports, and at a price not too much over what Sowter charges IIRC. It is worth repeating that you must have a complete design and instructions ready to go or you will be hit with hourly charges that will pop your eyes. This method saves expensive carriage but if you get it wrong, all your money is wasted and you will wish you had gone to known-good specialists with their own established tube- knowledge. Of course, you might decide that you're going to wind your own regardless, in the belief that real DIYers do *everything* themselves, in which case we say, in my local vernacular, Fair doos to yous. Andre Jute Visit Jute on Amps at http://members.lycos.co.uk/fiultra/ "wonderfully well written and reasoned information for the tube audio constructor" John Broskie TubeCAD & GlassWare "an unbelievably comprehensive web site containing vital gems of wisdom" Stuart Perry Hi-Fi News & Record Review |
#2
Posted to rec.audio.tubes
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Tranny options from cheap to expensive to dicey
On Oct 17, 4:54 am, Bret Ludwig wrote:
Motor rewinders are generally both unwilling and ill equipped to wind transformers. In a pinch they may wind up a simple one primary, one secondary power transformer or a choke but that's as far as they want to go. They don't understand broadband low frequency magnetics AT ALL and have no test equipment (beyond simple meters, hypot and growlers) or procedures to test them. Get your transformers from a shop that winds audio transformers extensively and caters to that business. hey-Hey!!!, Or take apart one that looks good and figure out how it works. While it isn't likely to that you can go from RDH4 to ___? it is quite possible to analyze ___? with the tools in RDH4 and determine *WHY* it was built a certain way. From there lots of possibilities branch off. Lamination options for one, wire gage, and impedance mods for another...or re-arranging the taps in the plate winding for a particular location. cheers, Douglas |
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