Sorting lab stuff is nearing completion, at least the first pass. Second pass will be required to sort and identify all the semi conductors discrete or IC.
Today I am looking at my pile of salvaged transformers. Well most of it anyway.. I am sure I have a few more burried into my 4 big boxes full of scrap boards.... but I don't feel like emptying them all to find the few transformers that are hiding in there.
So what should / could I do with these ? Idea as always is to try to be reasonable, pragmatic, and throw everything to save space and reduce clutter.
But I thought hey, miaybe they could be useful in some way that I have not thought about.... who knows. So speak up if you have clever ideas...
I gave up on the idea of salvaging the wires from them, too much trouble... will just go buy a kit of enameled wires of various gauges and call it done.
Also gave up on reusing them to repair stuff.... I am trying to put the a stop to fixing people's stuff, and the transformer is not exactly what dies most often in stuff... and even if, then the chances of finding a suitable one ion my pile, is slim, and would require work to identify it first .. going through all of them, figuring out pinout, figuring out wire gauge/current capabilities, voltages etc... wha ta pain. No thanks.
Could use them in new designs for my own use ? It's not like I was designing stuff day in day out.... maybe at best I would need a transformer per year, who am I kidding, that's optimistic... then I can just order one with the specs I need, no time wasted. small / average size transformers are not that expensive.
So my plan so far.. so far, in an effort to compromise and not throw all of it away is :
GET RID OF :
- Those that came from a switch mde power supply (the ones in yellow) : too specific to be reused.
- Those with two many wires : too much work testing them to figure out their specs, and too low a chance I would need their specific combination of windings.
- The two flyback transformers I salvaged from my old CRT monitors I took apart the other day.... I was thinking of playing with them to make big sparks... but there are two many pins on them, I would screw things up. If I want to make sparks I can just buy a cheap kit designed to do just that... I am sure it exists somewhere in China land for 10 bucks delivered.
KEEP :
- The ones with no specs on them but only one secondary, because pinout is obvious, just need to figure out which is primary which is secondary, which is easy. Then just measure output voltage unloaded, then load it a bit to see, ballpark, how much current I can reasonably get out of them.
- Keep those that have more than just two output wires BUT have the specs and pinout written on it, so I don't have to work figuring it out.
@Dwagon ; don't reply, you will tell me to keep 100% of it and I don't want to !