Re: Transformer dissasembly

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Malcolm Watts" <m.j.watts-at-massey.ac.nz> 

On 21 Mar 2004, at 17:13, Tesla list wrote:

 > Original poster: "Hydrogen18" <hydrogen18-at-hydrogen18-dot-com>
 >
 > I have a transformer I want to dissasemble. I know that cutting and
 > spreading the widings like I did in my welder project(
 > <http://www.hydrogen18-dot-com/projectlogs/homemade_arcwelder/default.asp>
 > http://www.hydrogen18-dot-com/projectlogs/homemade_arcwelder/default.asp )
 > will work, but I dont want to destroy the windings on this transformer
 > seeing as how they are good. It is constructed in the typical E-I
 > method in stacks of 3. Any suggestions or tips on how to get this
 > thing apart?

I dissect transformers all the time to reuse the cores. The basic
recipe I use is to heat the thing to about 100C if it is waxed or
about 150C if it is varnished. While it is hot, remove the outer I's
and use a hammer/mallet on a blunt instrument the width of the
laminations (in your case, three) you want to remove each time to
punch the first few out. They usually give witha bit of effort but
sometimes you have to run a sharp blade around the E to loosen it as
much as possible before hammering the pole-piece.
      Once the first couple are gone, you may have to use a sharp-
bladed instrument to run around the E's to prise them apart but no
further hammering is required. Painstaking stuff but worth the
effort. I'm going through a winding exercise at the moment and have
done about 10 in the past few weeks with another four to go. Not
large ones though - the largest has a 330VA stack. Still, the
principles should hold.

Malcolm



 >
 > Pic!
 >
 > <http://www.hydrogen18-dot-com/stuff/IMG_5394.JPG>http://www.hydrogen18.co
 > m/stuff/IMG_5394.JPG
 >
 >
 > ---Eric
 >
 >
 >
 >