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Isolation transformer

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Thanks for the comments about my isolation transformer. For those of you who have no idea what they are, and what they are normally used for, here goes:
They were mostly used by electronics techs, for safety reasons. In the days when tube equipment was still common, many of the cheaper equipment did not have transformer power supply's. Now this could cause you to connect directly to hot if you touched the chassis. none-the-less, the isolation transformer reduced the risk of fatal shock because of their contruction, basically, being two 120vac (Or in some cases 220vac) windings isolated from each other.

In my my case, this is where it gets good. I have a extra-special isolation transformer with two isolated primary's and two isolated secondarys. What this means is that I can connect the transformer so that I am using one of the windings as a primary, and the other three windings as secondary's. So what, you ask? Well, I've done exactly that, and I have eliminated a major problem with ground loop hum in my system. I have always had problems with tracking down and elimating hum problems with tube equipment, and now, my system is almost completely quiet, even at maximum volume with no input.

For those of you interested in trying this, I recommend that you look on the web, or at local electronics stores. Don't bother with trying to get one like mine, I doubt you will find one. (for those interested, mine is a Daytron model DS-3.00) I recommend finding out the peak current that devices like your preamp or amplifier use, then getting a transformer rated at least 20% to 30% higher. Make sure that the transformer is also rated for continuous duty. Use a seperate one for each device. good luck, and let me know if you try it.

Please don't try this yourself if you don't know what your doing, btw. Get someone to help you that does.

Tesla


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Topic - Isolation transformer - tesla 16:18:46 09/12/00 ( 0)