Lots of Spyder Questions

[Hailstorm350]

Hey, I'm planning on building the Spyder, and I have a few questions:

1. what size fuse should I use for the 120VAC in section?  I will be building the power supply with the flat-pack transformer. FP20-300  and will have 8 outputs.

2.  does anybody have a BOM with mouser part numbers?

3.  The reg caps are polar alum. electrolytic right I can't tell by R.G.'s drawing.  ( sorry fairly new at this )

4.  Does anybody know where I can get enamel-wire for re-winding the secondaries?  (R.G. reccomends using #36)

5.  Is there a 9vdc 2.1 mm post jack on mouser? I can't seem to find a suitable one.

6.  How am I going to connect the enamel wire to the circuit board? do I solder a wire to it, then to the board.  Or should I just take the wire and drag it directly to the board after winding and solder it into a pad?  I am confused as to how I am going to do this.

7.  Does anyone have a layout or something laying around for the thing, It would help me greatly because It would give me some sort of idea of how
I am going to lay it out inside an enclosure (which brings me to my next question:

8. What type of enclosure would be best?  Die-cast, Aluminum, steel, what would be best suited for this type of project?  (I realize that I am probably going to order the parts, assemble it, then find a suitable enclosure for it. so you don't really have to even answer this question.)

9.  Lastly,  what should I put the components onto?  PCB or perfboard?  I tend to believe that PCB would be better suited for such a job, but please unconfirm this because perfboard would be a lot less expensive ( I don't have any supplies for PCB etching yet although I can buy some at ratshack if need be, If anyone has better etchants or places to buy etchants and clad board then please let me know.)

Sorry, I know it's a lot of questions to be asking, but I really am determined to do a quality job on this for my friend.  Thanks so much for bearing with me through my tedious questions.

Thanks,
Ken

[R.G.]

First and foremost, don't even try this if you can't keep the primaries from harm. I suggest wrapping several layers of masking tape over the primary coils through out all the futzing about with the secondaries. Safety is hugely important in this.

Before you get into this too far, since I did my article, Weber has come out with a suitable transformer. It's the WPDLXFMR-1, and it has eight 11 volt, 300ma windings and one 9 volt, 2 amp winding. It does all that the Spyder transformer does, in a professionally wound unit. $30.00, and probably worth it if you don't just lust to make transformers. Mouser also sells 12V/60ma separate transformers for about $2.50 each as I point out in my article; these have wire leads and are handy, as well as cheap.

1. what size fuse should I use for the 120VAC in section? I will be building the power supply with the flat-pack transformer. FP20-300 and will have 8 outputs.

1/2A slow blow should be fine.

3. The reg caps are polar alum. electrolytic right I can't tell by R.G.'s drawing. ( sorry fairly new at this )

Anything over 0.1uF is electro. If you're fairly new at this, please go reread the availability of commercial transformers. AC power wiring is deadly if not done correctly.

6. How am I going to connect the enamel wire to the circuit board? do I solder a wire to it, then to the board. Or should I just take the wire and drag it directly to the board after winding and solder it into a pad? I am confused as to how I am going to do this.

I recommend that you leave the magnet wire hanging out loose and run it over to a pad or terminal on the board. You could solder it to a stranded lead and tape that to the coil like normal transformers do, but it's a real pain and there's not much room on those small bobbins.

7. Does anyone have a layout or something laying around for the thing, It would help me greatly because It would give me some sort of idea of how I am going to lay it out inside an enclosure (which brings me to my next question:

The real problem with this thing is getting the secondaries over to the rectifier/filter/regulators, of which there are a lot. I really like the many-tiny-transformers version, which makes this simple.

8. What type of enclosure would be best? Die-cast, Aluminum, steel, what would be best suited for this type of project? (I realize that I am probably going to order the parts, assemble it, then find a suitable enclosure for it. so you don't really have to even answer this question.)

Whichever you like but make it solid metal, and ground the metal to the third wire safety ground.

9. Lastly, what should I put the components onto? PCB or perfboard? I tend to believe that PCB would be better suited for such a job, but please unconfirm this because perfboard would be a lot less expensive

Perfboard is probably just as good, but it will take you a LOT of time to wire it up.

[Hailstorm350]

Thanks R.G. that helps a lot.
I think that the Weber transformer sounds better.  Would I just use the same reg section with the 79L09 Regulators and electrolytic caps for the 11v outs?  What about the 9V 2A secondary  Is that usable, I would think that I would only need a bridge rectifier to make it useable.  Or would the Rectifier have internal Voltage Drops?  2A would be able to power several pedals daisy chain or something... a good idea.  I might just screw the whole one-transformer idea and just go for the separate transformers.  Actually that sounds better, but the Weber transformer would be nice to use because of the fact it doesn't need rewinding or anything... just a thought
hmmm... :?
I'll ponder on this for a while and look at the weber transformer, thanks R.G.

Ken

[aaronkessman]

i used veroboard/strip board and it was the easiest thing ever to do. I had all the transformer leads wired to one side of the board and 8 parallel power regulation circuit on the board.