Paralelling trannies

[tade]

I have a small trannie i want to use for an esl. With my amp maxed i get 130 volts at 1000 hz out of it.
If i combine four, six, or eight of these will i get correspondingly higher voltages?
I guess i will paralell the inputs, and put the outs in series.
This would make it seem i have a larger trannie than i do? One worry might be the dc resistance might drop too low on the input side. i will watch out for that.
Any ideas?
Thanks

 

[Kravchenko_Audio]

I think you mean Connecting them in Series

You can get more voltage drive but there will be a considerable loss in the highs and the low end as the inductances add up. Come to think of it series capacitances decline. Try it and see what you get. Just becarefull how many stages you try. You could end up arcing over a trannie!

Mark

 

[I_Forgot]

You can connect the hi-z sides in series and the low-z sides in parallel to get maximum output voltage (watch the phasing). If the cores are very small, they will tend to saturate and distort, but it is worth trying, especially if you don't have any other trannies around.

You may have some problems with amplifier stability. This can be fixed by putting a 1 Ohm (or so) rezzie in series with the lo-z side of the trannie(s).

I_F

 

[Paul W]

I've done that and it does work. The largest problem I had was arcing inside the transformers at high power (voltage) so don't overdo it.

 

[tade]

I bought six of those transformers.
They have eight ohm outputs and 1 kohm center tapped inputs.
I spent an hour and a half trying to get more voltage out than i put in and freakin couldnt. i am so frustrated.

I would start connecting them together, and get increasing voltages, then with the next one, the voltage would drop by some uneven number of to zero or something wacky.
For some reason i cannot just connect the outputs of one into the inputes of another. maybe physics is wrong for me.
Also, in high or low z, what is z?

 

[Kravchenko_Audio]

Physics is wrong for everyone!

You may want to figure out the pinout on the trannies first. It sounds like you are connecting them front to back and front to back.

If you have an ohm meter the easiest way to check things out is that the primary usually has the lowest resistance. The secondary has the highest resistance. When you connect your amp you connect to the lower resistance side or the primary. The speaker gets connected to the higher resistance side or secondary.

If you want to do a double stepup you connect the next trannie with the primary of the 2nd trannie connected in series with the secondary of the first trannie.

Mark

 

[I_Forgot]

Also, in high or low z, what is z?

I am out of touch with the more recent abbreviations. For us "old school" types, z is an abbreviation for impedance and xfmr is an abbreviation for transformer. A trannie is something found behind the engine in a car (or is it a man who wears women's clothes?- I get so confused).

New abbreviations(?):

impedance - impizzle
resistance - rezizzle
capacitance - capizzle
reactance - razzle dazzle
admittance - admizzle
susecptance - susizzle

transformer - trannie
resistor - rezzie
capacitor - capnit

any others?

I_F

 

[AudioFreak]

Re: New abbreviations

ROFL ... I just about fell out of my chair when I read that

 

[tade]

i never quite could stomach using x for cross or trans of christ etc.
x-ing
xfmr
x-mas

my project thusfar is a complete failure.
Laugh if you feel the urge.
Using these small xfrms as a voltage swing, and the high voltage supply ganked from a one time use camera flash, i got sound out of my speaker, which is awesome! A proof of concept. After about five seconds with my amp maxed out, barely audible, the transformer melted. fun.
i got my hands on some vacuum tubes. i think one of em is a tube with two triodes in it. are tubes as easy to do as heat up the emitter, and apply a voltage to the gate?
can i use the tube to modulate the output of the flash circuit, +-200v?

If this question seems too base dont waste time answering!
Thanks

 

[Kravchenko_Audio]

LOL

Stupid is as Stupid DUzz

Mark

I have to agree with all these short forms. I promise to use the proper wording from now on.

 

[I_Forgot]

my project thusfar is a complete failure.
Laugh if you feel the urge.

Never! Failed experiments are where you learn the most. The only difference between an amateur and a pro is the pro doesn't let anyone know about their failures. Do you think Edison came up with a working lightbulb on his first attempt?

As a side note, it is a common misconception that an inventor invents something himself out of thin air. The vast majority of inventions are based on previous work by other people, and usually there is a team of people working on the new invention. Edison did not invent the light bulb. He came up with the idea (though others probably had the idea before him) and hired a bunch of guys to test materials suitable for the filament. They tested thousands of materials before they came up with one that was suitable for commercial use. Dean Kamen didn't design the Segway, even though his name is on the patents. He hired a bunch of engineers to design the various subsystems and put the whole thing together. There were two wheeled self balancing robots long before there was a Segway.

Using these small xfrms as a voltage swing, and the high voltage supply ganked from a one time use camera flash, i got sound out of my speaker, which is awesome! A proof of concept. After about five seconds with my amp maxed out, barely audible, the transformer melted. fun.

You needed to turn the amp up high because the voltage provided by the camera flash is very low compared to what you need to bias an ESL. Those supplies are good for about 200-300V. You need 2000-5000V for an ESL. What sort of stator spacing did you use? 3-4 mm is about all you need. If you go larger than that you'll have a hard time getting decent volume out of your speaker no matter what bias level and transformer/amp you use.

i got my hands on some vacuum tubes. i think one of em is a tube with two triodes in it. are tubes as easy to do as heat up the emitter, and apply a voltage to the gate?
can i use the tube to modulate the output of the flash circuit, +-200v?

There's a little more to it than that! Even if it were that simple, a couple hundred volts AC drive isn't enough to get useful volume from an ESL (except a headphone). You need 2000 VAC or more to drive an ESL to decent volume.

I suggest you get an old copy of the ARRL Radio Amateur's Handbook and look up vacuum tube circuits. That will give you a good intro. Also, on alt.binaries.e-book.technical there have recently been some posts of US Navy electronics training manuals. At least one of them has stuff on vacuum tubes. Directly driving ESLs from tubes is very difficult. In fact, directly driving ESLs from anything is difficult.

I_F

 

[tade]

great post, i will do some reading!

 

[tade]

well, seems i am using substantially too little voltage. i dont suppose anyone has a pair of transformers which would fit the bill? My diaphram spacing is about three mm.
I would like to Purchase a pair from someone which will make fine loudspeakers. They might be ones which distort the sound to a point which you find offensive but which will certainly sound lovely to me.
Thanks