Peter Wieck wrote:
On May 30, 10:11 pm, Chris Hornbeck
wrote:
You've dismissed this before, but maybe it'll be more
interesting at the current state of the project. Perhaps
a way to observe results (diaphragm homogeneity) using a
strobe light can be found. This is workable for sufficiently
"open" or porous stators, but not for every design.
Perhaps something as simple as good-quality polarized goggles and near
mono-chromatic light? Back in the day when I worked as a machinist,
we had such goggles and stick-mounted lights to check flatness. A
piece of thick machined glass was put on a workpiece and through the
goggles any distortions became quite clear under the light. As I
remember, for crude work the lamp was a simple fluorescent blacklight
tube, but for the very fine work, a helium-gas lamp was used, and
flatness measured in angstroms.
But with polarized goggles and depending on the nature of the coating,
one might well be able to observe oddities in the diaphram, tension
points and strange wave fronts. And any contact would show up
strongly. The signal applied might have to be some function of 50hz
(you are 50hz in Oz?) to interact with the light source more strongly.
But that seems to be a great idea. Patrick might not ski, but it is
possible that he already owns such goggles for his bicycle tours if
only to keep the bugs out of his eyes...
Patrick, from your days as a contractor, do you know any roofers or
roof consultants that own an AGEMA Infra-Red camera system? That
device could detect even very slight changes in temperature across the
diaphram diaphram. http://www.americaninfrared.com/ProductDetail.asp?ID=1
It is mostly roofing consultants that keep such, but also
electricians, machine shops, hospitals and similar. AGEMA units are
far-and-away the best out there in terms of sensitivity and
resolution, but by no means the only ones.
Just a couple of wild thoughts.
Peter Wieck
Wyncote, PA
Wild thoughts they are indeed, but better than no thoughts.
My customer thought he might have to wear welding goggles while he
listened to avoid being blinded by the arcs...
The panel I have built is far from happy, and its makes odd noises,
revealing that it must be touching, bowed, or stuck a bit
and it varies around, and such mary-mary-quite-cont-rary
behaviour is unbecoming of a stator and a membrane.
I am visiting Sydney in a week or two, and will
take a few lessons with the guy who has been building panels and
repairing ESLs for 20 years.
I have designed some transformers for him to try.
He invested in buying a German winding machine from some guy leaving the
trade,
and says he can put 7,000 turns of 0.25mm wire
on a winding in 20 minutes, not 4 hours.
When transformer winders tell you they take a day to wind an OPT, or
step up tranny,
this could be BS. It depends on the lathe they have.
Mine is a home made terrorist that has no automatic traversing guide,
and getting even layers
by hand swallows up the hours, but with a really good machine lathe I
could wind
a dozen bobbins for trannies in a day.
Most of the time for a transformer regardless of the lathe is for the
precutting of insulation, fitting insulation,
painting on epoxy varnish as you go, bringing out taps, changeing wire
between primary and secondary interleaved layers, final assembly and
terminations, placing in the Es and Is,
preparing yokes, and bolting it all up tight and square with packings.
All that takes time, and a decent OPT takes me 2 days work at least,
with about
1/2 that being winding by hand guiding slow going turns.
I could save a lot of time with a better lathe, but the low frequency of
winding trannies doesn't
justify the cost.
Patrick Turner.