[Amps] Transformer material weight

[Manfred Mornhinweg]

Hi John,

 >  Do you have any tricks on how to achieve neat side by side turns?

Unfortunately I have no good trick for that. Just patience, and working 
carefully. If it counts as a trick, a thin insulation layer between 
winding layers can help getting nice smooth windings.

But I do have a trick to keep the wire from bulging, so the windings 
take a shape closer to a circle than a square. This can be a real 
problem with thick wire. The trick: While winding, use your thumb (with 
a wool glove to protect it) to give the wire a slight bent in the 
OPPOSITE direction as it has to bend around teh corners of the bobbin. 
That will keep the straight sections straighter, closer to the bobbin.

Another trick, even if it's obvious, to get the maximum amount of wire 
on a bobbin: On the bobbin sides that will end up inside the core 
windows, always lay the wire straight, parallel to the bobbin walls or 
ends. And wind alternate layers with one turn more or less, so that you 
can lay each turn in the grove formed by two turns of the layer below 
it. This works without insulation sheets, and it also works with thin, 
soft insulation sheets. Of course you will have to cross the wire over 
underlying turns at some place, and at that place it will build up 
higher. Simply choose to make these crossovers on those sides of the 
bobbin that will end up outside the core. There you have enough space 
for that added bulk.

And when you wind an uncritical transformer using thousands of turns, I 
suggest you don't bother doing an orderly winding. Just do a wild 
winding, guiding the wire from a distance, so that it self-aligns 
reasonably well. The end result will be 10% less good, but winding a 
transformer that way might take 20 minutes, instead of taking a week!

But if you love to do quality work, and you have enough time and 
patience, then wind ALL transformers with the turns side by side! In 
olden times, when people still had time to live, and took pride in their 
work, all transformers used orderly windings.

Manfred.

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