| Electronics > Beginners |
| Homemade Transformer |
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| mishimaBeef:
Hi, I was thinking of making my own power supply and I was wondering how low level I can go with it in terms of designing individual components and then putting them together to form the circuit. So, I'm looking at like a 120V to 15V transformer then through a rectifier to get 15V DC? I'm sure it's more involved than that but ideally that is all you need right? Perhaps some practical knowledge is being missed and if anyone can point that out great. Now to the point, is it feasible to design and build my own transformer using like some iron and wiring the primary and secondary myself? Thanks, New Practitioner Electrical Engineering Undergrad Student |
| Armin_Balija:
If you're looking to build your own power supply there are some great threads floating around on EEVBlog, just have a look around with the search bar. Make sure you BUY a transformer, building one is extremely complicated in reality. You really have to know what you're doing. Anyway, You'll need a center-tap transformer, make sure you get one with good headroom. For example, if your load is consuming 20 W of power, make sure you get a transformer with something like 45VA. Secondly, use a bridge rectifier to give you a positive and negative output that you can use. Make sure your center-tap is ground. Use some capacitors to smooth out the lines as much as possible before connecting them to a voltage regulator with some capacitors on the input, ground, and output for a regulated output. For 15 V I think you can use a LM317 to get the voltage you need. Beware as it starts at 1.25V and not 0. |
| vk6zgo:
Re: building your own transformer. It certainly can be done,& has been done,way back in the early days,but I feel you should buy a ready-made transformer. A bought one must meet Electrical standards or they can't sell it,but you have only your own opinion that your homemade one is compliant,so if you make a mistake in the primary side & blow up anything in your house wiring,your Insurance Company may wash their hands of it,& you may be in trouble with the Electrical licencing authority,&,as an Electrical Engineer,you don't want that! Quite a few people rewind secondaries,but very few mess with the primary side. The voltages you are talking about are fairly standard,so you can buy a transformer off the shelf. If you want to run electronic equipment from your supply,there is a lot more to it than just a transformer & rectifier. I suggest you Google under "power supply.",or have a look at some books. VK6ZGO |
| mishimaBeef:
Thanks for the replies so far! Just to further discuss the point about transformer design: So yeah, I was thinking it won't be a piece of cake but thought it would be an interesting design challenge and give insight into transformers and transformer design. Why is it that it's so hard and you can blow stuff up? Won't fusing the primary side protect your household wiring? Does anyone know of any good resources for this stuff? Also, I was thinking to maybe start with a 15V primary and ensure that my design works for stepping this down before I attempt mains 120V primary. Would this be viable or are there some phenomenom that exist at 120V that don't at 15V? Any insight into this stuff would be further appreciated. Thanks! Will also check out the links and info you guys discussed on homemade power supplies. |
| saturation:
Making a transformer is fairly easy and straightforward, I had to make one in a college lab exercise, but making it safe and efficient is at least, laborious. These days the cost of copper wire in a retail store may far outstrip the cost of DIY. It works! But is it safe? http://nathan-lee.com/blog/2009/10/15/welding-africa-style/ |
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