Score...again.!

[duck_arse]

glops - what's in those Mallory drawers, axials? now I'm drooling.

[glops]

My Hero right there, holy crap man, talk about the jitters, I can't concentrate, must focus...

Man, going to these sales gets my blood pumping. I think I have enough for now, though!

Ok, where do you guys store all that, ah, stuff.
Next, let's see a post in pictures of it converted into a stompbox.
BTW, cool stuff, I wish I had it all. Never never get rid of anything even if she says you have to.

I've collected over the years and have managed to fit it in "my" space in the garage. The timing couldn't have been better as my wife and I just got a sizable storage space down the road as our plan was to use that to store stuff to sell at vintage flea markets as the rest of the garage is taken up with her stuff (she's been a vintage collector for years) and we keep buying stuff. She actually encourage me to go back the 2nd day to grab the Grundig radios. It's gettin kinda full in storage but I go there often and its really nice to grab a broken radio from there if I feel like I need a germanium transistor or two. Or I will grab some caps! Some of the 50's radios in the big chassis are unserviceable. I think I grabbed around 10, one actually works and few others look like they could be worked out but the other ones I kinda want to build amps in. I have only built one tube amp before but itching to do more. And for the test equipment, I am trying to sell some of it but keep a few things for myself. I doubt much of it will sale so some of those enclosures might make good candidates for some guitar effects.

glops - what's in those Mallory drawers, axials? now I'm drooling.

I almost did not grab those mallory drawers, they are so heavy and did not think they were going to be cheap. But once I got a feel on how things were costing for the other folks I grabbed them, basically name your price.

There's 3 drawers total, it's a mix of film axials and metal film caps. Probably 3/4 metal film. A few of the bins are PIO caps. Really too much for me so at some point I will need to sale some of it or put up for trade. One thing I don't care for is ordering parts for builds and lately I have been making my own boards so I can use footprints for a lot of these parts I am collecting. There's probably 2000 56N caps so I will likely be using those in place of any 47Ns for the rest of my building life. Here's some Zonk Machines, most of these caps are from the Mallory drawers:

[duck_arse]

what type do you mean by metal film? I find I never have the axial value I want, or I have it but it's the size of a water heater. those 630V 104's are too big for me, I have some 47nF I can't use that size.

[glops]

what type do you mean by metal film? I find I never have the axial value I want, or I have it but it's the size of a water heater. those 630V 104's are too big for me, I have some 47nF I can't use that size.

Metalized film caps, the ones that look like pieces of gum. In my pic of the Zonk machine boards I don't have any of those populated on the board. Just meant in the big Mallory organizers, most of the caps are the metal film caps and not axials. The axial caps I am using on these Zonk boards are definitely huge and unnecessary but fun for me to use and I might as well as I have gotten them next to nothing. And I really love getting components from estate sales that I can make use of instead of buying new from online retailers. Around 5 or six years ago I scored a lot off of Craigslist that was several boxes of parts but also these two huge industrial organizers full of organized resistors and caps that I drawn from very often whenever I need a value. A lot of the parts are too big for pedal projects but there's tons of parts that have been handy. There's also a few drawers of oddball ICs and transistors. There's a dual jfet in there that's spec'd for the Pompeii project by Dead End FX that's waiting to get used once I get around to it. It's getting to the point where I need to start selling some of this stuff!

[duck_arse]

in a page of photos, any chance of a pic of those caps?

[momo]

This?

[PRR]

>  pic of those caps?

Not just "gum". Adams Chiclets.

[glops]

in a page of photos, any chance of a pic of those caps?

Pretty much like Mono's pic but PRR hit the nail on the end. Most of the film caps in the Mallory drawers are of the orange chicklet flavor. Tons of 68NF and 150NFs (super happy for these as 150NF is a value I've almost never had on hand when needed) in orange and then I also discovered a drawer of 56NF which appear to be a more raspberry flavor.

[duck_arse]

greencaps! the second worst chewing gum I've ever had.

[momo]

greencaps! the second worst chewing gum I've ever had.

The old ones are not very chewy, more like crunchy with a varsol aftertaste. Only tried once, not for me.

[duck_arse]

varsol. another something new for me. with orange cordial?

[amptramp]

Be sure to clip the leads first or they will get stuck in your throat.

[momo]

Again...
Yay, I think I found my isolation transformer...
See the transfo in this pdf.

https://museum.ranzco.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/BauschLombBinocularMicroscope.pdf

[Phend]

Fuzzy wires, a step in the right direction.

[momo]

So the thing is shorted!...all the leads short with each other.
one primary to the 3 voltage taps is 3 ohms, the same primary to the secondary which is not a voltage tap:30 ohms.
See the GE model number, can't find info on that.
Oh well, just bought a 30 dollar box and switch.
I was checking out mercury lamp transfo schematic, even if it worked , I don't think its isolating .

[PRR]

So the thing is shorted!...... 3 ohms, ...30 ohms.

First, the pre-1963 outlet is not promising for age or modern code compliance. You will not that none of your electric plugs fit that outlet without hackery.

Second, it says on the face of it Secondary 250V. So it is not just an isolation box; may not isolate at all.

30 Ohms DC is VERY typical across 100W 120V transformer windings. (The inductance looks like >1,000 Ohms at 60Hz AC, but your ohm meter reads DC Ohms.)

It may be an autotransformer. But the 110/115/120 switch and unpolarised outlet seem dubious.

I'd poke it with a 6VAC 1A filament transformer and look for 1/20th of nominal voltages.

[momo]

Thanks Paul, I was hoping you would chime in.
Yes that ac cord to primary has to go.
I was going to use a current one and ground the box.
You see a small bare wire going from one transfo to the other, no continuity on any wire.
As for the 250v out, I was hoping I could bring that down, or feed an appropriate Variac.
OK will try the 6volt, thanks much..

[Rob Strand]

Thanks Paul, I was hoping you would chime in.
Yes that ac cord to primary has to go.
I was going to use a current one and ground the box.
You see a small bare wire going from one transfo to the other, no continuity on any wire.
As for the 250v out, I was hoping I could bring that down, or feed an appropriate Variac.
OK will try the 6volt, thanks much..

You shouldn't assume 115 to 240V or 240V to 115V transformers are isolating.   It's a very dangerous assumption!
For general voltage conversion it is more efficient to use autotransformers, which are *not* isolating.   The autotransformer connection allows the transformer to be smaller and hence lighter and cheaper.

The fact the primary and secondary are connected is the key factor you have an auto transformer (unless you are good at eyeballing transformer VA from the size and weight.)    It should be clear from the wiring that the neutral wires from the inlet to the outlet.

It's probably easier to trace out the wiring to confirm,



You should be able to measure two windings with the nearly same resistance from the center tap (ie. the 115V input connect that goes to both windings).   From outside the box: If you measure the resistance across the main inlet and mains outlet, the resistance for the 230V main outlet should be about double the resistance across the 115V mains inlet.    You can get autotransformers where the resistance across the 230V winding isn't quite double, this is when the winding is overwound (or the transformer uses a thicker wire for the 230V part of the winding); I won't go into the details.

[momo]

Thank you Rob.
It's funny, your avatar body language sais it all....lol!

OK just to be clear to everyone,
I will not be doing any work with all this until I have figured it out.
I thank everyone concerned with my well being.!
This is why I post here, to help sort it out.
thanks much

[Rob Strand]

It's funny, your avatar body language sais it all....lol!

LOL.  Yes this stuff can the confusing - especially if you haven't see these things before.

Here's the idea to identify the windings:

- First confirm my numbers match the numbers on the original tags on the transformer wires.
   If something is wrong stop and tell me and I'll update the pic.

Check:
- Set the multimeter to ohms
- connect the multimeter -ve terminal to winding terminal (1)
- connect the multimeter +ve terminal to each of the other
  windings in numerical order and measure the resistance.
- confirm the resistances increase with increasing terminal number.
   Resistances on terminal 2, 3, 4 will be increasing but almost equal
   Resistance on terminal 5 should be about twice the resistance on terminal 3.





I am not sure of the claimed 250V output is actually 250V or it is simple twice the voltage on 115V terminal (3).