100-X update.

I will put the input tranny shootout post back up, but til then I just wanted to inform you that the UA reissue, as suspected, is not wound correctly.
They have simply layed down the primary, and the wound the whole secondary on top of it.
Bad.
No interleaving at all.
Cheap way to wind a classic.

That is why the curve did not match up with the vintage units.
Will post more later, I just didn't want anybody to rush out and buy a UA LA2a!

cj
:guinness:

Steve, I hope this dosen't screw you up at all.

Is the core any good? Wow thats a cheap way to wind something!

nah....

it doesnt mess anything up.. I have a couple with those trannys and they arent earth shattering different :\

but your right... it seems pretty dumb not to take them to the next level. (probably saved UA an extra $20 per piece)

...

Thanks John!

Nice to have a former UA engineer here at the Lab, ain't that right, people!

In defense of UA, the HA 100-X that I took apart was Exactly like the original Except for the winding structure.

They got the cans right, they even used the same potting compound, they made sure that a little potting compound got inside each can and even a little on the transformer itself. They even sourced the original termination lugs.
UTC was very inconsistant in their processing department. Every UTC that I pull apart has a different amount of compound inside. Some only have a drip or two, like they were runningh low or something. But, having worked in a transformer factory for ten years, I can tell you that the person doing the processing is at the absolute bottom of the totem pole. Thats where all the new guys started, at minimum wage. We liked to get handicapped people in there, (drug addicts, freaks, skallywags, marks, ho's, munk-ass pimps, pimp ass munks, the absolute bottom end of the food chain for that job,
Why?

Because we got tired of constantly training people for that dirty smelly low paying job.
So if we got a mutant to work processing, we could keep him there for a year if we were lucky!

Anyway, whoever did the transformer for UA they did an excellent job of processing the transformer.
They even used the exact same interlayer insulation as the original.
They got everything perfect except the coil!
Maybe the maker didn't even bother to unwind the bobbin. Maybe they just copied the can, the core, the lams, but didn't take the time, (it is a very tedious process) to document the coil structure. That is my guess.

The conversation John memtioned was probably just a cover up for their shortcutting process.
The T4 stuff was certainly a bunch of useless crap , the one with the scope patterns on the UA site.

Now I get to document a Real Ha-100 X!

cj

Now I get to document a Real Ha-100 X!

Click to expand...

ah...yes....my brain needs food...
in the meantime could you please post the frequency response diagram again?

steff

OK, I got to the bottom of this HA 100 X thingy.

Suprisingly enough, UA didn't screw up as bad as I thought. But.....

I took apart the older black and the older dark gray vintage coils and this is what i found:

The black x-former was wound just like the UA model, that is, all the pri turns and then all the sec turns. But, the sec on the UTC is wound in two sections. This is probably to cut down on capacitance. Also, the sec is wound from bottom to top, then bottom to top again in each section. In other words, the sec wire does not go bacvk and forth. Each time the layer is finished, the wire crosses over the layer and starts from the same place. The UA unit is wound back and forth, all one layer. Details! As Kev says a lot. It's all about the details!

Interesting enough, the dark gray model is wound the same way, but the wire direction is opposite that of the black model. I will draw up some pdf's for illustration purposes.

The black x-former uses .002 wire in the sec, the dark gray model uses .0025 wire in the sec. Just enough of a tweak to make a difference. .0025 wire is a lot easier to work with than .002. The smaller wire means tighter layers, better coupling, etc.

Also, there are a different number of layers in the sec. sections. One section has about 20 and the other 24. Maybe a tweak, maybe just the way it turned out.

Here is the freq chart again:

As Tom Leykis would say: "Un-friggin-believeable!"

:guinness:

Chris, do you think if you document this that we could roll our own 100-X tranny? Or is it more complicated than that?

a 1:10 would be tough because the wire is so small on the secondary, and there are a lot of turns!
But, on the other hand, there is no interleaving, there are absolutely no e-shields, and only one tap on the pri, which could be left out to even further simplify things.
You can bet your surfboard that I am going to wind some 100 X's!

Again, pick up a non popular UTC on evilbay for twenty bucks and you have your vintage lams, you have you cans, you have the terminal striip,, just add wire and your done!\
cj

btw, the lams on the older black model look like non-grain nickel, i do not know if they make that anymore, i will ask mag metals.
The dark gray looks like grain oriented, which means less loss at the joints.
:sam:

...

See what this does to me!
My new motto in life:
One turn at a time!
It takes about 3 hours to unwind each coil.
Two coils per 100-X.

:guinness:

so um......any chance of buying one of your hand wound HA 100X and A24 soon Chris? :grin: :thumb:

Would love to give a go winding myself(NOT!), frankly I think the tediousness of winding transformer is absolute insane (counting loops while going loopy).......glad to know someone like you with such a PASSION for disecting and even rewinding the transformers. It takes a person like yourself to be able to get the job done well, because you gotta be insane enough to that( and I mean that in a good way).

You certain are a FREAK~ :shock: :thumb:

now back to the sweat shop and wind me some ........

Well we use counters, Learner!
Speaking of counters, there was this disco boy winder working at the tranny factory back in the late seventies who use to make sure there wasn't a speck of dandruff in his hair, his clothes were pressed everyday, he hated all the herbalists at work because he was so straight laced, in short, most of the crowd hated the guy!
So I use to sneak up behind him and reset his counter to zero!
This totally f's up the winder, he either has to start over, or estimate the turns.
Lucky for me I was pretty fast back then!

Oh, just a side note, I don't know if any of you saved the spreadsheet withh all the turns for the 100-x written down.
If you did, delete it! The numbers are all wrong!
Most are off by a factor of ten.
I have the real numbers by hand unwinding. Somehow, my math got screwed up.
Darn! That means all that copywrighted intelectual property on the HA 100-x that belongs to you know who is wrong!
I feel so bad!
Not!

Will post the real turns soon.

cj

How applicable is winding guitar pickups to winding mic pre and microphone transformers? Guitar pickups are very difficult to get right for good tone, but audio transformers look to have a whole extra few layers of complexity. But with guitar pickups apparently there's a certain amount of randomness you need for good tone as well as varying amount of tention on the wire as it's being wound that I would think in an audio transformer would be unwanted. Am I right?
Kelley

Actually, you are right. The early stuff was all hand wound. Even stuff that looks machine wound is sometimes handwound by really good winders.
The wire will find it's home if you keep a slight angle on it as it spoools onto the form.
Do you know why they always use yellow mylar tape?
So they can see the layer accumulating onto the coil. When they really spin the wire on fast, the coil looks like one big blurr. You can't even see the wire as it is being wound on. But you can see the yellow mylar disappearing as you fill the layer.
Little bits of useless information because inquiring minds want to know!



Yes, the same black magic that is found in transformer construction can be found in guitar pickups. Being a git player myself, I have read a lot of interesing stuff on pickups. The paf humbuckers were random wound, at least the early ones. This affects how much wire can be put on, the build in inches of the layers, etc.
Haven't heard about variable tension, but I like weird ideas like that!
cj

[quote author="cjenrick"]Well we use counters, Learner![/quote]

oh yes indeed...... I believe I have seen that device a while back posted on RO, it looked sort of like a stone age sewing machine? :green:

Speaking of counters, there was this disco boy winder working at the tranny factory back in the late seventies who use to make sure there wasn't a speck of dandruff in his hair, his clothes were pressed everyday, he hated all the herbalists at work because he was so straight laced, in short, most of the crowd hated the guy!


So I use to sneak up behind him and........./SNIP

Click to expand...

ha - ha, i thought you were going to say you gave him THE atomic wegy? :green:
or may the tradition was not born yet back in those days? :grin:


:guinness:


We want transfomers...........We want transfomers...........We want transfomers...........We want transfomers...........

Interesting-the two coils i took apart on the dark gray model had different amounts of layers on each coil. Coil A had 22 layers in one secondary section, and 25 on the other.
Coil B had 26 layers on each section.
So my hypothesis on the different amount of layers being some sort of sec. de-balancing tweak should be tossed out the window.
So why the difference?
I know the answer form my experience in the transfomer shop.
The wire broke!
If the wire breaks towards the biginning or middle of the coil, you toss it and start over. If your just about to finish the coil...then screw it! It's going inside four cans, forever to be entombed,so who's gonna see it! Me! Whoever you are, you poor dead lady winder, I know what you did back in 58! Shame on you!
Either that, or the coil was hand wound and turns put on each layer were inconsistent, and thats just the amount of layers they needed to get the counter to read the right amount of turns. I have seen both cases.
They probably put on the two sec sections at the same time, with dual cams feeding the wire on. She got close to finishing the coil, (the sec goes on last) and one of the wires broke! That .002 stuff breaks real easy! What do you do? Tell the boss? I don't think so! He wants to see production numbers, so you just tape the loose end on, and continue to wind the three last layers, hoping that the qc guy won't catch the difference in dcr or inductance. This stuff goes on all the time, folks!
I was even told by Rein Narma that they had a heck of a time finding matched transformers for the Fairchild 670. In order to due the A+B and A-B matrix thing, you want to have matched transformers.
cj

[quote author="cjenrick"]Whoever you are, you poor dead lady winder, I know what you did back in 58! Shame on you!
[/quote]


HAHA! BUUUSTED!

dave

[quote author="cjenrick"]so who's gonna see it! Me! Whoever you are, you poor dead lady winder, I know what you did back in 58! Shame on you![/quote]

That poor lady is probably rolling over in her grave right about now... :shock:

Chris, what would be some "unpopular" UTCs to look for on the 'Bay to use as candidates for the rewind, then?

Can any of you guys recommend a good coil winder.
I'm looking at a Bachi 115 and a Geo Stevens manual winder.
Would either one of these work good for layer winding
like in the HX 100 type transformers???

CJ??