Sorry about the long delay, windows was crashing everyday, so i re-formated and reloaded.
“Quick thing though, before we get started. I'm really not trying to sound rude at all when saying this, but what are your "credentials" in a sense? Meaning like dcpreamp/norazmi have built many switching supplies before and have more experience in getting them to work, or are you and engineer, etc? Again not trying to be rude, I just don't want to blindly take everything that is given to me in case this is just a teenager advice who doesn't quite know everything. But you do sound like you know at least a LITTLE hahah”
Fair question, but lets do it this way. Read what i have to say with the eyes of a skeptic and you tell me if i am some jerk off kid.
BTW i like dcpreamp to, if i needed electronic advice for the smps i would welcome his help. That Canadian guy was helpful to.
“-Brief description? No pictures? I had I think 5 pictures with descriptions of everything i did to my latest version of the transformer a couple pages back or so.”
I think you misunderstood me, you only provided information on the transformer you are currently using. Thats how i know it will never work. The other transformer you made, all you said was you wound it in a more conventional manner. That one will probably work much better, but if you used the same amount of strands of wire it will have problems with heavy loads.
“-Why would homemade litz wire not work? Plenty of people have done it before with no problems”
No, actually they have not. I know you have been told it works, but it does not. After reading thousands of posts, i can tell you that many people claim there smps works because they get something out of it. But if pushed to measure performance they are lacking.
“-Are you saying the frequency is too high for the transformer or for the litz wire? I'm assuming you mean the litz wire cause I've heard that for it to be very efficient at a certain frequency, wire gauge and number of strands are important. I was just using wire I had on hand at the moment since I really didn't need a 20lb roll of a high gauge wire for $50 when i'm only winding a single transformer...kinda wasteful of money to not see if the stuff I had already worked.”
I will explain more later, but the frequency was to high for the way this should have been designed and i will give you links for cheap wire.
“-Number of turns are wrong how? Primary side is wrong? Secondary? Can't get too much variation on turns with the primary....mind telling me why it's wrong and how I can go about correcting it properly?”
I will go in to this in depth later, but considering your choice of primary turns was based on how many times the rooster crowed at midnight. And the secondary was determined experimentally i think there is some room for improvement in your method.
“-Hmmm yes I probably should add an inductor to the output.”
I would say after you have the transformer fixed and running and get some data then add some inductors and see if you can measure the improvement.
“-Eh I'm not too worried about the life of the capacitors for this project. It's turning out to be more of a learning experience project rather than a long term abusive use project, so it just needs to last long enough for me to get it working and then I'll make a quality one that can be constantly used for a long time.”
That is a valid reason for not adding high freq/high current caps. As long as you are not lying to yourself or making lame excuses like i it will be ok, you are staying in the real world and moving ahead.
“-Transformer halves are held together with electrical tape wrapped around the sides very tightly....I know i'm gonna get some hate comments on this one, but I couldn't find the clip pins for the transformer! I figured since the two halves magnetically clamp themselves together, electrical tape would provide a decent force to keep them where they are at. It's worked well so far!”
I do not see a problem with electrical tape since this smps has just been made to learn and gather data on. Going from memory you need about 5 lbs of clamping pressure on the 2 halves and your elastic electrical tape is probably working fine. I have also read that tie wraps can be used but i find it hard to believe that they hold up to long term temperature affects.
“-errr...don't have a caliper :/ however I might be able to find the dimensions online??”
$7 free shipping.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Trademark-T...463?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item43afd58767
I already looked online Amidon has no specs.
“-I'm not gonna stop working on it! I'm a bit of a perfectionist so if something isn't going right i'm sure gonna fix it! May take a while, but it'll get done”
I can see you take pride in your work.
I will post this first part so you do not think i forgot about you and start typing up the rest.