Egnater Tweaker 88 pwr transformer teardown

[CJ]

nice circuits, many bells and whistles, reasonable price point,

dependable?  ???

Peavey knew where to go cheap and still be dependable, unfortunately,  Egnater decided to go cheap on the iron, a decision which has resulted in shattered customer relationships and a bad rep on a product that could have been pretty good,

90 percent of most amp problems are in the power section, so you do not want to go cheap on the transformers,

Egnater has a rep for bad power transformers and questionable policies on how to make the customer whole, ie; making the customer pay for their mistakes,

replaced a power transformer on a 100 watt model, 300 bucks new, Egnater dropped the price to 200 plus shipping,

this Tweaker 88 was sold to someone who does not have a receipt, so they are completely out of luck,

there are a few aftermarket choices up in the 200 + range, ouch!

so we will take a crack at rebuilding this guy, which will allow us to see if there really is a problem with the quality,

 

[CJ]

there is a dual primary with a fuse lead option, a 75 volt and 16 volt wind in addition to the centertapped B+ and 6.3 heater supply,

we can get rid of three of the wires in the primary which will provide more clearance on the pri breakout,

since we parallel winds for 120, we can use a single wind with the same turns as one of the primaries and use a bit thicker wire,

 

[CJ]

delamination was very easy, light varnish, low melting point, so we did not bend up the outer lams trying to get some space between the coil and core

 

[CJ]

mapping out the sec leads,

 

[CJ]

scary

 

[CJ]

primary leads, could use some better tape/insl

 

[CJ]

ready to unwind the first layer,

 

[CJ]

plastic spot welder, primary leads,

 

[CJ]

primary thermal fuse, we can ditch this by winding even layers and using Nomex insulation and wire leads like we are using this for the Mars Rover.

 

[CJ]

crossovers with wire this thick, wtf, over? well, those poor people have whip crackers staring them down,

 

[CJ]

lord mercy check the insulation on the CT layover, 

 

[CJ]

nothing but thin tape between the 6.3 monster wire and the 75 volt wind so we get a mashdown, no tape on the crossover either,

 

[CJ]

473 volt secondary random wind with funky wire, no insulation between layers,

 

[CJ]

and this sits on the power line, gonna lose my lunch, be rite bak,

 

[CJ]

kind of a rough place to lay wire,

 

[CJ]

first layer going on a little rough,

 

[CJ]

here is the print which will change after we rewind (get rid of one primary and use thinner wire for the HT secondary)

 

[andyfromdenver]

Transformer X-Files with agent CJ  8)

Thank you for the teardown!

 

[CJ]

keepin it country with rows laid down like an Iowa corn field, 20 Nomex between layers of #21

 

[CJ]

XMAS jus round the corner so we use green and red, lay down the sec on a fresh layer of snow in the form of 2 mil Nomex

voltages indicate a doubler being used, probably did not want risky vendors handling 760 CT AC.