Beaned by a xfmr

GroupDIY Audio Forum

Help Support GroupDIY Audio Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
What I want to know is: when the transformer hit you in the head, did you realize that the Earth was being accelerated toward it, as well as it toward the Earth?

And did this lead to any insights into loop quantum gravity, while time stood still?
 
Yes, of course Brad. How do you think I got this way? It had to be an accident of some type.
Remember, when I was a kid, we used to have to sleep in bunk beds. I had the top. :grin:

Anyway, this can means bidness. A couple of passes, and still more steel.

http://vacuumbrain.com/The_Lab/TA/Western_Electric/WeCo_Repeater/111c_cut3.jpg

Hmmm, some potting compond of some kind?
No! Thats the frickin coil!!! (as I would learn later)

http://vacuumbrain.com/The_Lab/TA/Western_Electric/WeCo_Repeater/111c_cut5.jpg

Both sides are cut, now the bottom. Had to walk the mill over the hump.
More coil, unfortunately.

http://vacuumbrain.com/The_Lab/TA/Western_Electric/WeCo_Repeater/111c_bottom1.jpg

OK, thru the bottom:

http://vacuumbrain.com/The_Lab/TA/Western_Electric/WeCo_Repeater/111c_bottom2.jpg

Hmmm, Tasters Choice or is it Foldgers Crystals?
I always like Tasters better. Got bought out by Nestle, oh well.

http://vacuumbrain.com/The_Lab/TA/Western_Electric/WeCo_Repeater/111c_bottom3.jpg

BTW, always wear some type of suitable eye protection when working with power tools, kiddies:

http://vacuumbrain.com/The_Lab/TA/Western_Electric/WeCo_Repeater/cj_mill1.jpg

OK, now that the can has been violated like your little sister, and it still won't budge, it's time to get out the poorman's pry bar. The screwdriver that you were going to give Dad for Christmas:

http://vacuumbrain.com/The_Lab/TA/Western_Electric/WeCo_Repeater/111c_pry1.jpg

What the....

http://vacuumbrain.com/The_Lab/TA/Western_Electric/WeCo_Repeater/111c_open1.jpg

http://vacuumbrain.com/The_Lab/TA/Western_Electric/WeCo_Repeater/111c_open2.jpg

Looks like a sedimentry deposit from Jupitar, or something.
I hope it's not "or something"!



http://vacuumbrain.com/The_Lab/TA/Western_Electric/WeCo_Repeater/111c_the_glob.jpg

Next to NYD's pic:

http://vacuumbrain.com/The_Lab/TA/Western_Electric/WeCo_Repeater/111c_glob1.jpg

Getting smarter. Why hold the heat gun all night. This one looks like it's gonna take a while anyway. Why not mount the gun in a vise? That way I can surf the Brewery and watch people beat each other up while the compound is melting!

http://vacuumbrain.com/The_Lab/TA/Western_Electric/WeCo_Repeater/111c_heat1.jpg

Never seen this type of compound before. Rock solid and brittle til you heat it, then it melts like soft butter.

http://vacuumbrain.com/The_Lab/TA/Western_Electric/WeCo_Repeater/111c_glob2.jpg

Yummy, my favorite type of doughnut, chocolate raised!
Fresh out of the oven:

http://vacuumbrain.com/The_Lab/TA/Western_Electric/WeCo_Repeater/111c_glob3.jpg

Getting down to the mummy wrapper:

http://vacuumbrain.com/The_Lab/TA/Western_Electric/WeCo_Repeater/111c_glob5.jpg

Anyway, thats as far as I got tonight.
Never start taking apart a coil unless you have a fresh start. If you rush it, you will lose something.
So I will finish this up tomorrow.

Here are a few lead plate shots I forgot:

http://vacuumbrain.com/The_Lab/TA/Western_Electric/WeCo_Repeater/111c_leads1.jpg
http://vacuumbrain.com/The_Lab/TA/Western_Electric/WeCo_Repeater/111c_leads2.jpg

Peace Out!

cj
 
Still unwinding this thing, a little more interesting than anticipated.
Different gauge wire to match up dcr, reverse winding, interweaving, toxic lead/mercury shielding, insulation and strain reliefs done with bed sheets and shoe laces...

If you take apart a transformer, always leave some of the breakout wire on the terminal plate, and some on the coil, in case you need to match them later when the tape tags fall off:

http://vacuumbrain.com/The_Lab/TA/Western_Electric/WeCo_Repeater/coil3.jpg

Outer layer with cloth wrapper removed...you can see where I knicked the coil opposite the leads. They really stuffed this coil in the can with very little clearance. Low voltage and room saving for less potting juice I suppose, since they made them by the zillions...

http://vacuumbrain.com/The_Lab/TA/Western_Electric/WeCo_Repeater/coil7.jpg

Torroids are a pain to unwind, Can't put them on a machine and hit reverse. Hand un-wound. A vice helps...

http://vacuumbrain.com/The_Lab/TA/Western_Electric/WeCo_Repeater/coila.jpg

First glimpse at the first e-shield. I believe this is the same toxic stuff that Ollie told me about, so if I'm not here next week...

http://vacuumbrain.com/The_Lab/TA/Western_Electric/WeCo_Repeater/coild.jpg

Lots of twine holding the leads down...

http://vacuumbrain.com/The_Lab/TA/Western_Electric/WeCo_Repeater/coile.jpg

more e shield:

http://vacuumbrain.com/The_Lab/TA/Western_Electric/WeCo_Repeater/coilf.jpg

http://vacuumbrain.com/The_Lab/TA/Western_Electric/WeCo_Repeater/coilh.jpg

e-shield splice heading into another e-shield ...

http://vacuumbrain.com/The_Lab/TA/Western_Electric/WeCo_Repeater/coilm.jpg

bed sheets under the first shield.

http://vacuumbrain.com/The_Lab/TA/Western_Electric/WeCo_Repeater/coiln.jpg

sheet removed, down to the next layer which contains two windings at once, both kind of random looking, don't know how they wound this, hope it was not by hand.
This is as far as I got. Finish it up AM.

http://vacuumbrain.com/The_Lab/TA/Western_Electric/WeCo_Repeater/coilq.jpg

cj
 
Look at this monster core I pulled out of the 111C!
Over a pound of barn roof cold rolled steel.
Insertion loss is only 0.5 db. This line transformer is ten times bigger than most output transformers.


111c_core2.jpg


The first layer is cloth:

http://vacuumbrain.com/The_Lab/TA/Western_Electric/WeCo_Repeater/111c_core8.jpg

Then the first winding. It is bare copper wire covered in cloth (served), spaced for minimum leakage, about 350 turns...

111c_wind8.jpg


Next is a shield. Why is it interupted with the cloth?
5 pts to the first correct answer.

http://vacuumbrain.com/The_Lab/TA/Western_Electric/WeCo_Repeater/111c_wind27.jpg

These folks were seroius about their shielding. Look how tight they keep it around those leads. That huge Ni core attracts stray Webers like a magnet:

111c_wind28.jpg


Three laps of buss wire soldered to the foil in two places. Lots of work went into this thing. Why is the buss wire not a shorted turn?
10 pts.

http://vacuumbrain.com/The_Lab/TA/Western_Electric/WeCo_Repeater/111c_wind33.jpg

http://vacuumbrain.com/The_Lab/TA/Western_Electric/WeCo_Repeater/111c_wind34.jpg

The shield is covered with a layer of cloth...

http://vacuumbrain.com/The_Lab/TA/Western_Electric/WeCo_Repeater/111c_wind39.jpg

Then the twisted pair winding. Spaced like the first winding. 10 twists per foot. This is the line winding. About 700 turns. You can see that it is actually two wires if you look close. Served enamel. About 73 ohms/1000 ft.

http://vacuumbrain.com/The_Lab/TA/Western_Electric/WeCo_Repeater/111c_wind46.jpg

Another look at the line winding..

http://vacuumbrain.com/The_Lab/TA/Western_Electric/WeCo_Repeater/111c_wind48.jpg

And then another e-shield, and a winding like you saw earlier spliced into the inner winding to form the drop.

The core is 1 1/8 slit Ni alloy, 0.0145 thick, 2 inch ID, 3 inch OD, taped at bothe ends.

Total turns ratio: 1408 Line, 1420 on the Drop. Extra turns probably to make up for insertion loss and a mile of wire back to the transmitter.

cj
 
5 pts to NYD.

Those shields felt like they had lead foil or some type of coating added.

Here is another document I found on the 111c:

http://vacuumbrain.com/The_Lab/TA/Western_Electric/weco_111c_data.JPG

I have another doc that has a battery wired across the transformer somehow. I noticed that there were some tricks going on with splices and winding geometry.

One half of the torroid contains one winding, etc.
 
Oh Oh Oh Mr Carter, Mr Carter.........

The buss wires do not form a shorted turn because they are parallel to the lines of force and there fore do not cross any. A proper turn needs to be transverse to the lines of magnetic force.

Peace - Out
Irv
 
I'll have to post the response plot of those ADC transformers that Brad showed earlier in the thread.  Those things have a nice 'piedmont' style hill response, with virtually no flat region whatsoever.  It seems it would be a trick to wind something with the bandwidth and losses my sample exhibited.
 
CJ,

I have actually found these gems in telephone utlilty lockers in old commercial buildings.
Can't say I have ever been clunked by one though.

How did they come up those winding technologies with all the sheilds and various windings back then.

We don't see this kind of contruction anymore , aye ? Too much labor cost ? or Smarter winding tricks and materials used today ?

Is the 111C metal can of any special material -Mu type ?

Audio benefits of potting ?

What were the toxic materials you mentioned (ollie) ? what to avoid in contact with skin,  breathing or whatnot ?

sounds like a great transformer for anything requiring a 1:1 , 2:1, 1:2 output.
 
The can was heavy steel, built for mass production and longevity, no special alloy.

The core is real easy, so you save time and $$, so you can put that into the torroid winding labor.

They used mercury in some off the shielding foils, so you do not want it on your hamburger.

Ol Doc Hoyer had a guy give him a whole box of those, brand new for free, they were dirt cheap back then zillions scattered across the landscape and at your favorite sports stadium in order to feed the audio to the radio transmitter, very low loss .
 
maxwall said:
We don't see this kind of contruction anymore , aye ? Too much labor cost ? or Smarter winding tricks and materials used today ?

#1 thing against this sort of construction these days is materials cost due to sheer size, and....sheer size.  No one wants a honkin' giant transformer like that now; it won't fit in anything.  The kids all want everything to be 1RU!  I refer to the popularity (and price) of UTC A series iron over LS series on the used market, and rest my case. 
 
A few years back, at the radio station I worked, we had a remote UHF receiver for remote broadcasts up on a TV tower at 800 feet. It was right under several large side-mount TV arrays and always had sync buzz coming down the phone line to the studio. I took one of these WE tranformers with me up the elevator to 800 feet and installed it between the receiver and the phone line.

Silence!

Yay!

They really are something.
 
emrr said:
I'll have to post the response plot of those ADC transformers that Brad showed earlier in the thread.  Those things have a nice 'piedmont' style hill response, with virtually no flat region whatsoever.   It seems it would be a trick to wind something with the bandwidth and losses my sample exhibited.

I happen to have my test setup running and I tripped over these again, so I made some graphs.  I think that yours might be broken.

Here is THD+N vs frequency with a +24dbu input
ADC-THD.png


Here is the frequency response (yellow) and phase (blue) also at +24dbu input.
ADCfreq-phase.png

 
C,

That is totally freakin' weird.
And I would search the circumstance for a sign.

It is well known that you have a thing for transformers. And that may be an understatement.
Of all the things that could fall from the sky and hit you on the head. A transformer.

That's too strange for words dude, I'm sorry, it just is.
I'm glad you are well enough to tell about it. That could have killed you.

:Ron


 
Back
Top