Practical transformer winding   

In the good old times it was a

matter of fact that every
electronic hobbyist or
technician would wind himself
any power transformers he
needed, and rewind any that
burned out. Unfortunately,
nowadays transformer winding
is fast becoming a lost art, and I
have seen many people despair
about where to find some very
specific transformer, or pull
their hair out about the cost of
having one professionally
wound to specifications.

Since I started in electronics, as

a 12 year old boy, I have always
wound my own transformers. I
started using the basic, but
useful instructions provided in
The Radio Amateur's
Handbook of the time, and
later I came to better
understand how transformers work, which enabled me to optimize a given transformer for
the intended application. 

Following a request by many readers of my web site, I've added this page, which is
complementary to the previously published Transformers and coils. You should first read
(and understand!) that page, before trying to design any transformer. Then come to this
more practically-oriented page, to learn some tricks and hints about the design process, and
about hands-on winding.

This page addresses mainly single-phase power transformers in the power range from
about 1 watt to 10,000 watts, operating at line frequencies, but much of what's described
here can be applied to a wide range of other transformers too.

Let's start with the materials. To make a typical transformer, you need the iron laminations
for the core, enameled copper wire of several different diameters for the windings, a
bobbin (or some material to make one), insulating material to apply between wire layers,
between windings, around the whole winding assembly, and on exposed wires, and in most
cases it's also a good idea to use an impregnation varnish.

The photo here shows several stacks of iron E-I laminations, two coils of wire (with
cardboard protecting the wire from damage), one roll of thick, stiff Pressspan, another roll
of NMN laminate (we will soon see what that is), two small bundles of spaghetti for wire
protection, and a can of transformer varnish. Add to this some glue, cotton straps, ropes,
adhesive tape, terminals, bolts, angle iron, and other small material, and that's it.

All these materials are sold by companies specializing in transformers and parts for
transformers. Enameled wire is also sold by many other distributors, but is usually cheapest
at the places that sell it together with the other materials. You will have to dig into the
 phone book or some other
directory to find these
companies, since they don't
usually have a shiny nice store
in the downtown shopping
mall!

Transformer iron is an alloy of

iron with silicon and some
other minor components. It's
characterized by a relatively
high permeability, very high
saturation flux density,
relatively low hysteresis loss,
and relatively high specific
resistance. This latter factor,
along with the practice of using
the material in thin, insulated
sheets, reduces the power
losses produced by eddy
currents.

The most common shape of

these sheets is shown at right.
It's the classic "economy E-I"
shape. Why it's called E-I
should be pretty obvious when looking at the photo! But the explanation for "economy"
might be a bit more elusive: It's because at the exact proportions shown in the photo, the I's
are nothing else than the cutouts to make the windows in the E's, when two E's are cut
facing each other! This allows stamping E's and I's out of a large steel sheet, without any
wasting of material, except for the little round bits cut out of the bolt holes. By the way,
small laminations often don't have such bolt holes, and such cores are held together by
clamps instead of bolts, or even welded.

The lamination in the photo is a large one, as the comparison with my hand shows. It's an
E80 (the center leg is 80mm wide), typically used for transformers in the 3 to 10 kilowatt
range!

In any E-I lamination you are likely to encounter, the center leg is twice as wide as each of
the other parts. This is because the entire magnetic flux has to go through the center leg, but
then splits up, with one half of the flux returning through each of the side legs. If you ever
come across a lamination that has all three legs of the same width, then you are looking at a
lamination intended for three phase transformers! 

Such an economy E-I lamination like shown here has completely fixed proportions, beyond
the rule above, that stem from the need to cut the I out of the winding window of two E's
facing each other: If the center leg is 2 units wide, then the window is 1 x 3 units, the total E
is 6 x 4 units, the I is 1 x 6 units, and so on.

Not all laminations follow the

"economy" proportions,
though. Here is an example of a
lamination that comes in one
piece, instead of being divided
into an E and an I, and that has
the windows proportionally
much larger than the E-I
lamination shown above. Such
a lamination is a bit more
expensive to make, because the
steel cut from the windows
is wasted, unless the
manufacturer can find some
other use for it. But being able
to accomodate a much large
winding assembly, it has some
advantages in certain cases. 

These "non-economy"
laminations were quite usual in Europe, many years ago, but nowadays copper is so much
more expensive than steel, that transformers are usually designed to use more steel and
less copper. And for that goal, the economy lamination is very well suited. So you won't very
often come across a lamination like this, unless you are restoring antique equipment.

The laminations should be thin,

and reasonably well insulated
from each other, to reduce
eddy currents to an
insignificant value. Typical
thicknesses vary from 0.2 to
0.5mm, but higher frequency
transformers (audio) use much
thinner ones, while extremely
large transformers might use
slightly thicker ones.

The insulation is often applied

at the factory that makes the
big rolls of steel sheet, even
before stamping the E's and I's.
Different kinds of insulation
are used: A thin oxide layer, a
thin layer of enamel, or any of several chemical processes. Antique transformers sometimes
even used very thin paper!

When I was young, patient and overly eager to do things right, I painted each and every E
and I for my transformers, using diluted transformer varnish, to make a thin, nice layer.
The photo shows the steel for a 200 watt transformer, drying. Later, getting old and lazy, I
noticed that the layer of rust on old, recycled laminations is more than enough insulation,
and that the very thin and imperfect insulation that comes on new laminations is enough
too, even if it takes only a light scratch with the multimeter's test probe to puncture it and
get through to the steel. We don't need perfect insulation between the sheets! We only need
enough resistance to reduce eddy currents to a low level.

 Transformer steel is not all born alike. Manufacturers will provide data sheets about their
products (often on their web sites), where you can see what they offer. There are usually
many grades, with vastly different loss characteristics. At a given flux density and
frequency, a good material might have ten times less loss than a cheap material! So it pays
to look, investigate, and decide intelligently what to buy. Thinner sheets normally have
lower loss, and the rest of the secret lies in the exact alloy. In any case, you need to know
what material you have, to be able to make a meaningful transformer design!

Some transformer steel is grain-oriented. That means that when rolling the steel sheets, a
process is used to align the crystalline grains in the direction of the rolling. This kind of
material has particularly good behavior when the magnetic flux is aligned with the
direction in which the sheet was rolled, but is worse than standard material in the
perpendicular direction. Such grain-oriented material is ideal for toroidal cores, which are
made by coiling up a long strip of steel, but is not a large improvement for E-I laminations,
because in these a significant portion of the material has to work with the flux
perpendicular to the rolling direction.

Enamelled copper wire comes

in many different diameters,
and with several different
kinds of enamel. The diameters
vary from less than that of a
hair, to about that of a child's
finger. Different standards
exist for the wire diameter. A
very common one is American
Wire Gauge, shortened to AWG,
which is used in much of the
world. Britain has its own
standard, and in many
countries the wire is specified
simply by its diameter in
millimeters.

Thick wires usually are coated

with a sort of enamel that is
very tough, an excellent insulator, highly heat-resistant, highly resistant to solvents, and
that clings to copper even better than dirt does to children! This enamel is usually yellowish
clear, so that the wire coated in it looks mostly copper-colored, but many exceptions exist.
To solder the ends of these wires, it's necessary to scrape off the enamel, using a sharp knife
or similar tool. This procedure would be too difficult with a thin, fragile wire, so that these
thin wires are instead covered with an enamel that has most of the same characteristics of
the other one, except the heat resistance: It will melt and turn into solder flux at a
temperature a common soldering iron easily achieves! This allows easily soldering these
wires, without previously stripping them. But transformers using this latter kind of wire
enamel cannot survive temperatures as high as those using only the former kind of wire
enamel. The red wire on the right side in this photo has this kind of enamel. But be careful
with colors! The clear wire on the extreme left side also has solderable enamel, while the
dark violet one in the middle is of the non-melting variety! 

The thickness of the enamel layer depends on the wire thickness, the manufacturer, and
can sometimes be chosen: Some manufacturers will offer the wire with seeral different
thicknesses of enamel. In any case, the diameter specified by a certain AWG number refers
to the copper diameter, so that the complete wire, with enamel, will be slightly thicker than
what the AWG standard tells!

Here is a wire table for AWG

wire. It shows the AWG
number, the diameter in
millimeters excluding the
enamel, the approximate
typical total diameter including
the enamel (but this varies
somewhat), the cross sectional
copper area in square
millimeters, the area of the
square of window space
occupied by that wire in a
transformer (including the
enamel, of course), the current
carrying capacity at a typical,
average value of current
density, the resistance in ohms
per meter, and finally how
many meters of that wire come in one kilogram, because enamelled wire is usually bought
by weight, not length.

This table has wires from AWG #1 to #40, and for the thickest ones I didn't calculate all data.
But you should be aware that there are wires exceeding this range! The thinnest I have ever
used was #46. It breaks when you blow at it! The photo here shows a #39 wire lying on a #7
wire. The hairy thing below is my floor carpet. Note that even this #39 wire is not much
thicker than the hairs of this carpet!

It's interesting to note that every three AWG numbers, the cross sectional area exactly
doubles. Any deviation from this in my table is due to approximation errors.

Modern transformers of small

to moderate size are usually
wound on plastic bobbins. Here
you can see simple ones. Some
bobbins have pins or terminals
molded into them, others have
one or two divisions. Some
don't have the slits for
terminals, which the
ones shown here do have.

Typically for a given size of E-I

laminations, bobbins will be
available in two or three sizes,
accomodating different
numbers of steel sheets. So you
can vary the amount of steel in your transformer not only by choosing the lamination size,
but also the height of the lamination stack!

Here is a little transformer using a divided (or split) bobbin. This is very practical, because it
completely separates the primary from the secondary winding, making it much easier to
achieve the degree of
insulation required for safety.
More about that later.

If you cannot find a plastic

bobbin in the proper size, don't
despair! Bobbins can be easily
made from materials such as
strong cardboard, or
Pressspan, which is nothing
else than a particularly strong
cardboard.

The bobbin shown here was

made from 1.5mm thick
Pressspan, which is really too
thick for this small bobbin, but
I had nothing better on hand.
The pieces are cut to size using
a sharp knife (X-acto or the
like), and glued together with
cyanoacrylate adhesive (instant
bonder). The clever structural design of this super high tech bobbin holds it together
perfectly while the glue sets!

You must make the inner dimensions of the bobbin core a tad larger than the transformer
center leg, but JUST a tad, no more, unless you want to waste valuable winding space! The
sides can be made pretty tight to the size of the laminations, because if they don't fit at the
end, they are easily enough cut or filed down, even after the winding has been made. But
the length of the bobbin must be smaller than the window length of the core, by as much as
2 or 3%, plus any tolerances of your manufacture! Because it is critically important that
the E's and I's can touch each other properly, without being kept separated by a bobbin that
deformed during winding, and grew!

Be sure to at least break the corners as shown here, or even better, round them off.
Otherwise the wire is guaranteed to tangle at the sharp corners during winding, and a wire
loop sticking out of the completed winding can ruin the whole thing!

Note that the junction of the bobbin's center piece is placed in the middle of one side, and
not in a corner. It's next to impossible to produce a reasonably symmetrical and precise
bobbin when placing the
junction in a corner.

If the material is thin

compared to the bobbin size,
the junction should be made by
overlapping the material. Of
course, the overlapped junction
is always placed on one side
that will end up outside the
core window, so that the added
bulk has little detrimental
effect.

To bend this thick material in

reasonably clean right angles,
my technique is to use a sharp
knife to cut out a 90 degree
wedge from the inside, along
each bend line, leaving only the
outer third of the material
intact.  After that admittedly
cruel treatment, the Pressspan
eagerly bends to my will.

Most antique transformers, and

many of the larger modern
ones, don't use a real complete
bobbin. Instead, they use only
the center former, and no sides
at all! It takes some tricks and
practice to wind a transformer
like this without having the
whole thing come apart many
times over during winding, but
for people who have acquired
enough practice, it's faster than
making a real bobbin!

Further down, I will show you

a trick to make this kind of
transformer, with high quality.

Note in this photo how the

Argentinian maker of this
transformer (back in 1931!)
used insulating material of
several different thicknesses
for the bobbin center, the
interlayer insulation, the
interwinding insulation, and
the terminal support.

You might ask why any insulation material is required at all, if the wire is insulated by its
enamel layer! Well, the enamel is very thin, and easily scratched. It might survive as much
as a few thousand volts, but it might also break down with a lot less! It depends on type,
condition, thickness, temperature, and other factors. So, wherever the voltage can exceed a
few tens of volts, some additional insulation needs to be used. Specially between the
primary and secondary, safety regulations ask for an insulation good for at least 4000 volts,
to avoid electrocuting somebody when there is a lightning transient on the AC power
network.

In antique transformers, the most usual insulating material was paper, impregnated with
something like beeswax, tar or the like. This impregnation had several purposes: Mainly, it
would seal the pores of the paper, making it a really good insulator, while without the
impregnation it would only insulate as well as the same thickness of air! But in addition, it
kept moisture out, it helped stick the thin wires in place during winding, and it improved
the thermal conductivity of the completed winding assembly.

It was also quite sticky, dirty, messy and gross.

Modern insulating materials are far superior. Plastic sheets such as Mylar provide excellent
dielectric strength and have no pores, so they require no impregnation to realize their high
degree of insulation. Nomex instead, with its fibrous structure, behaves like paper, but both
Nomex and Mylar are much better than paper at surviving high temperatures! This is a key
characteristic of insulating materials: The temperature class. It's coded with a letter. Paper
would have an A or B rating, telling that it is fine for temperatures not much above that of
boiling water. Different plastic insulation materials instead are routinely available in
classes as high as F, G or even H! They can safely run much hotter than paper can.

The photo shows an NMN

insulating sheet. This is a
sandwich of a Mylar sheet
embedded between two layers of
Nomex. The Nomex will eagerly
soak up and distribute the
impregnation varnish (or the oil,
in an oil-inmersed transformer),
while the Mylar will provide safe
insulation even in places that for
any reason stayed dry! I love this
material. It's thermal class G, if I
remember right.

Insulation materials come not

only in many different variants,
and temperature classes, but of course also in many different thicknesses. You choose the
proper thickness so that it has enough dielectric strength and mechanical strength, without
taking up an undue portion of your valuable window space!

Despite all modern materials, good old paper and cardboard is still used sometimes. Mostly
in its form known by the German word Pressspan, which means "compressed chips", and is
simply a very dense paper or cardboard.

It's very good practice to soak a completed transformer in some impregnation varnish. It
will form fillets around wires, papers, and anything else. It will improve the insulation,
make the transformer highly moisture-proof, glue everything together so that nothing can
rattle, come loose, or chafe through, it will improve thermal transfer, and so on.
Varnish comes in several thermal classes, just like the insulation material, and also it comes
in variants that dry at high temperature, or at room temperature. My experience is that no
varnish ever fully dries at room temperature, and when you start using the transformer
and it warms up, the varnish inside will start drying, and stink! So, it's necessary to apply
heat anyway, regardless of what sort of varnish you use.

Now that you have turned into a person very knowledgeable about transformer materials,
let's turn to those pesky questions such as "how many turns do I have to wind?"  or "what
wire size?" or "how much power will I get?"

There are three typical situations:

1. You need to repair/rewind a transformer that burned out.

2. Your want to rewind an existing transformer, to produce the voltages and currents you
need, which are different from the original ones. A variation of this case is when you want a
certain voltage, at the highest current that transformer can provide.

3. You have fixed specifications, want to design a transformer to optimally meet them, and
you will buy the core and all other materials.

Let's start with the first case.

You MUST  find out why that
transformer failed! A correctly
designed, correctly built and
correctly used transformer is,
for all practical ends, eternal. If
it failed, there is a reason. If
you know that the transformer
was shorted, overloaded for a
long while, exposed to intense
lightning transients, thrown
into water, gnawed through by
rats, exposed to corrosive
substances, or anything like
that, then your best approach is
to unwind it, count the turns,
measure the wire sizes, and
rewind it exactly as it was
originally made.

The photo shows an antique speaker field coil, mounted in my winding machine. I unwind
coils by pulling off the wire while having the thing spin in the machine, so that the turns
counter in the machine will do the pesky job of keeping count. The problem, as illustrated
here, is often that thin wires won't come off nicely! They are stuck in place, and will break,
then entire chunks of wire will come off all together. This often makes it hard to accurately
count the turns.

In such cases you might simply estimate how many turns you didn't count. Or you can
collect all the pieces of wire you removed, weigh them, calculate the amount of wire from
there, and calculate the turns number from it. Or, instead of unwinding the coil, cut it with
a knife or better a Dremel tool, remove it in one block, measure the cross sectional area of
the entire winding, then remove a little piece of wire to measure the diameter, and finally
calculate the number of turns from this. Any of these methods will usually be precise
enough for non-demanding applications, and none of it will be precise enough when you
need anything critical.

By the way, do you know how to precisely measure the diameter of a thin wire, when you
don't have a micrometer screw? Simple: You wind 10 or 20 or even more turns tightly on a
former (such as a screwdriver stem), measure the length of the coil with a common ruler,
then divide by the number of turns to get the wire diameter. It's highly accurate. Sometimes
it's even better than using a micrometer screw, which can flatten the wire if you apply too
much torque! 

But there are cases when you have a burned transformer, and no good reason why it
burned. It might have been a manufacturing defect, a huge transient, an overload that went
undetected, but maybe - the Gods of Electromagnetics forbid - that transformer might have
been misdesigned! In that case, painstakingly rewinding it with the same wire gauges and
turn numbers as original, will only produce a transformer that will fail again. So, if you
don't know why a transformer failed, re-do the design, and compare your results with what
the manufacturer did! Many manufacturers are cheapskates, and use substandard
transformers, in the hope that most clients will never use them intensively enough to blow
them up! This sends you straight to the section about the third case, further down this page!

In the second case, when you want to rewind an existing transformer for new output
values, very often the transformer will already have a properly wound and healthy primary
winding. In such a case, keep it! There is no point in unwinding and rewinding the primary,
if it is fine. The calculation work for such  a transformer is quite simple: Before taking it
apart, measure the voltage delivered by the secondary. Disassemble it, unwind the
secondary, counting the turns, and calculate the number of turns per volt from this.
Calculate the new number of turns you need for your desired voltage. Calculate what's the
largest wire size that will comfortably fit in the available space. Get the wire, wind it, and
assemble the transformer. The power rating will be the same as before, and this allows you
to calculate the current you can safely draw, at your new voltage.

And if you also want a new primary, well, do the same as above, but unwind and re-wind all
windings, according to the value of turns per volt you found out!

Do you know what you can do with all that wire you remove from old transformers? Well, a
super trendy wig, like the one shown here, modelled by my sister, is sure to catch
everybody's attention! Otherwise, there isn't really much use for such wire. It comes out
totally kinked, stretched, broken, scraped, with varnish, wax or tar sticking to it. Don't even
dream about ever re-using it in any other transformer!

OK, now it's time to really start designing a transformer. Because this is what you have to do
in case 3, which is essentially creating a transformer from scratch. I hope you are still fresh
and aware of everything you learned in Transformers and coils, because you will need it
here to understand what's going on.

The design process starts with guessing the size of core you need, for the power you want. If
you are experienced in electronics, you will be able to make a reasonably close first guess.
Otherwise, use the data given by core manufacturers to get this first guess.

The core chosen will have a certain cross sectional area, and will have a certain window
area. The two multiplied are the "area product", which can be related to the approximate
power capability, with a reasonably simple, but nonlinear curve. This curve also depends
on the quality of the core material, and several other factors.
 The next step is calculating
how many turns per volt you
need on this core. To this end,
you have to decide how much
flux density you will put
through your core, and then
you can apply the equations
from Transformers and coils.
The optimal flux density might
be anything from 0.8 to 1.6
Tesla, and sometimes even
outside this range! General
rules of thumb are these:

- Larger transformers use

lower flux densities.

- Better core material uses

higher flux densities.

- Transformers that are always

energized, but rarely used at
full power, use lower flux
densities.

- Likewise, transformers that

work at full power whenever energized, use very high flux density.

- Forced air cooled transformers use higher flux density.

- Oil-immersed transformers use even higher flux density!

- Higher flux density produces better voltage regulation.

- Lower flux density produces less base loss.

- Lower flux density is less likely to produce humming noise, and magnetic stray fields.

- Lower flux density produces lower iron loss, but higher copper loss.

I have seen many text books giving design equations that result in a flux density of 1 Tesla
in each and every transformer you calculate by them, like if that were a sacred rule! If you
come across any such book, BURN IT! It's nonsense! While 1 Tesla indeed tends to produce a
workable transformer in most cases, in at least 70% of all situations it's far enough from the
optimal value to warrant some effort toward optimization! Specially in small transformers,
and in those using the better core materials.

So, I suggest to start with a value chosen from the rules above, and then calculate the
transformer based on this value, analyzing the losses, heating, voltage drop, efficiency, and
so on. Then change the flux density, by 10 or 20%, and re-do all the calculations. You will see
what I mean! There is a clear optimum value for flux density in each particular case, and
this value is very often sufficiently removed from 1 Tesla to make you wonder why some
book authors still copy that "magic number" from other, long gone authors! Most likely they
have no idea about the matter they are copying.
That said, sometimes I do wind my transformers for 1 Tesla, because there are cases when
this is really a good value!

The loss calculation isn't very hard: The manufacturers of transformer steel specify the loss
of their products, as a certain amount of watts per unit of volume or weight, under certain
conditions of frequency and flux density. And the better of these data sheets also contain
curves, or give equations, to calculate the loss under different conditions. That's about the
iron loss. The total loss of the transformer also includes the copper loss, which is caused
simply by the current flowing through the resistance of the wire. For a given flux density
you get a certain number of turns per volt, this allows you to calculate the total turns in
each winding. Dividing the available window cross section between these wires, insulation,
bobbin, and inevitably wasted space, you get the wire cross sections. From the dimensions
of the core, you can then calculate the total wire length, from this and the cross sections you
calculate the resistances of the windings, and from that and the currents you calculate the
power loss. It's easy!

What? You are banging your

head against the wall?  Come
on! Don't cry! I have prepared
an Excel sheet for you, which
takes care of these calculations!
It's really too time consuming
to do all this math step by step,
every time. Click on the
screenshot at right to get the
Excel file, and then play with it
as you continue reading.

In this sheet, you enter your

data in the green area, and
watch what happens in the
orange one. The first three
values you have to enter are
the ones that specify the core.
First is the center leg width of
the lamination used, in millimeters. The 100mm width given in the example is a pretty large
lamination. You will typically use values between 12 and 50mm. The sheet is based on the
proportions of the economy E-I core, so that you don't need to enter any other dimensions
of the lamination. If you happen to be using a lamination that has different proportions
than the economy E-I, you should still enter the width of the center leg, but later you will
need to manually compensate for the larger available window, by increasing wire size
beyond that calculated by the sheet, reducing the copper loss, and so on.

The second value you have to enter about the core is the stack height, also expressed in
millimeters. This is simply the height of the stack of E's, well compressed. This sheet does
not allow you to enter the stacking factor, which tells how much of the stack is actually
steel. There's always some little space used by insulation, and even wasted space due to
imperfect compression. But the effect of this is small enough to ignore, as long as you
compress the stack well enough!

Good stack heights to use are from the same as the center leg width, to close to twice that.
Often you have the choice to use a certain lamination, stacked as high as the center leg is
wide, or use the next smaller lamination, stacked much higher, with both options producing
the same output. It pays to simulate both options, optimize each, and compare the
efficiency, voltage drop, weight, and cost! The differences can be profound.
And the third value is the loss factor of the steel material. This must be taken from the
datasheet provided by the manufacturer of the lamination. My sheet expects this loss factor
to be expressed in watts per kilogram of material, at a flux density of 1 tesla and a
frequency of 50 hertz. Many data sheets include the value in this exact form, but those
published by US companies might instead express the loss factor in an eclectic mixture of
metric, CGS and Imperial units! If that's what you have, you will need to convert the value
into its fully metric equivalent. You might want to modify the spreadsheet to do that.

The value of 2 W/kg @ 1T and 50Hz is pretty representative for modern low cost
laminations. A modern ultra low loss material might be a lot better, while an antique or
ultra-cheap material might be significantly worse.

The next three values in that column are pretty obvious: You have to indicate the primary
and secondary voltages, and the frequency of operation. The secondary voltage refers to the
open circuit (no load) voltage. And the frequency will usually be either 50 or 60 Hertz. If
you enter a frequency far away from this, it's quite possible that the loss calculated for the
material will be rather imprecise, so use this sheet with caution if you need to design a
transformer for a very different frequency.

In the right hand column, you have four values which are design decisions which you can
vary somewhat. The first is the all-important flux density. Just try varying that value, and
watch how things change in the orange output area! Specially, see what happens with the
iron loss. I have already given guidelines about what flux density to use. Use them and see
what happens in your case, when you change it.

The next is the amount of copper cross section you will allow for each ampere of current in
the windings. Reasonable values are about 0.25 mm^2/A for very small transformers,
increasing to 0.5 for large ones. 0.35 is typical for medium sized transformers (50 to 300
watts or so). When you adjust this value, the design of the transformer doesn't really
change, but the sheet will calculate a new set of currents, power, voltage drop, efficiency
and loss. With this parameter, you basically are telling the sheet how much you will stress a
particular transformer.

The fill factor expresses how much of the lamination's window will actually be filled with
copper. It can never be very high, because a lot of that area gets inevitably filled out with
the bobbin, the wire's lacquer, the air around the round wire, the insulation between layers,
between windings, and some space is always lost due to sloppy winding, even if you are
careful! The value of 0.4 used in this example has proven in practice to be achievable
without much trouble. If you wind very carefully, and minimize the amount of space
devoted to insulation, you should be able to get up to 0.5. But don't push this number too
much, or you will end up with a transformer design that you cannot actually wind! On the
contrary, if you have never before wound a transformer, and will do so by hand, in a
ragged, ugly winding, it might be a good idea to design the transformer with an even lower
fill factor, such as 0.3, to make sure you will be able to fit all the turns! Of course, using a
lower fill factor means simply using thinner wire, and this means that at a given amount of
loss and heating, you get less current.

The fill factor can be pushed beyond 0.5 when you wind a transformer with square wire
(instead of round), or with copper tape separated by thin layers of insulation. But square
wire is hard to find and a hassle to wind properly, and tape winding is acceptably easy only
for transformers that have rather few turns. This is often the case with high frequency
transformers used in switching power supplies, but not at line frequencies.

The temperature rise defines how many Kelvins (same as degrees Celsius in this case) hotter
than the surrounding air and objects you want your transformer to run. You need to
carefully choose this value, according to the highest ambient temperature (inside the
equipment!) at which your transformer will have to work, also taking into account the
highest temperature your wire, insulation material, varnish, glue, etc, can survive. And
what's most difficult, you will also need to estimate the thermal gradient from the
innermost wire turns (the hottest ones) to the transformer's surface! Calculating all this can
be quite hard, and I can't give you simplified equations for it. Maybe you can find them
elsewhere. The value of 70 Kelvins which I used in the example design is relatively high.
This is so because this transformer would work in open air, not inside a housing, where the
ambient temperature is never above 25 degrees Celsius; also, I used class G or higher
insulating material, wire and varnish throughout; and finally, this transformer was
carefully impregnated with varnish, giving it a reasonably good thermal conductivity
between winding layers.

If your transformer will not be impregnated, or use class A or B insulation material (paper),
or run inside a cabinet that can be hot, then you will need to use a lower value for allowed
temperature rise then my 70 Kelvins!

Finally, you can enter your local and current prices for enameled copper wire and
transformer steel laminations, to have the sheet calculate the cost of these main materials
for your transformer. All the additional cost, for the bobbin, insulation material, terminals,
bolts and so on, is usually small compared to the copper and steel cost. The most expensive
item is usually the wire, by far.

The first two lines of the orange output area of my spreadsheet show some basic results for
that transformer: The cross sectional area of the magnetic core and of the winding window,
also the total copper area (after applying the fill factor), the turns per volt constant that will
be valid for all windings on this transformer, and the average length of one turn, which is
calculated as the average between the length of a wire that goes around the center leg
touching it, and one that goes around the entire winding package, touching the outer legs.

Then you have a line for the primary winding and one for the secondary. Each of these lines
tells you the number of turns, the length of the wire need to wind it, the copper cross
sectional area of the wire, and the nominal current that will flow at full rating. The number
of turns isn't rounded off, so you will have to do that, because you can't wind a fraction of a
turn. You can fiddle with your voltage data to get the sheet to show round numbers of turns.
The wire length is based on the length of the average turn, so this will be correct only if you
wind the primary and secondary side-by-side, on a split bobbin. If instead you wind
the secondary on top of the primary, you will need less wire than calculated for the
primary, and more than calculated for the secondary. Anyway, these lengths are not very
useful in practice, because wire is bought by weight, not length. The main situation where
they are useful is when you have to wind a transformer with several thin wires in parallel,
because these are much easier to bend than one thick wire. In such a situation, it's great to
know how long the total winding is, so that you can cut the strands and twist them together,
before you start winding.

The remainder of the orange output area is divided into two columns. The left one shows
some important performance data of the transformer: There is the input power, expressed
in voltamperes, which is really more correct than watts. The value calculated by the sheet
does not include the magnetizing current; Calculating it would need additional information
about the core. But in medium to larger transformers, at least, the magnetizing current
tends to be small enough to be ignored.

Then comes the percentual power loss of the transformer, at full load. This includes both
the iron loss and copper loss. The output power is of course the input power minus this loss.

Then we can see the voltage drop at full load. The value is calculated only from the
resistances of the windings. Any additional loss caused by imperfect coupling between the
windings is not considered here. So, if you use a poor core or winding technique, that
results in bad coupling, you should expect a somewhat higher voltage drop. Just for user
convenience, the sheet also calculates the output voltage under full load, which is based on
the voltage drop calculated above.

Below comes the weight of iron laminations and copper wire used in the transformer. This
has several purposes. One is knowing how heavy the beast will be, of course. The other is
knowing how much material you have to buy! If you use side-by-side winding of the
primary and secondary, you need to buy one half the calculated copper wire of each size
(plus some extra, of course, to be on the safe side). If instead you wind the secondary over
the primary, you need a little less than half of that weight of the primary wire, and a little
more than half that weight of the secondary.

And then, the sheet will calculate the total cost for laminations and wire, and also divide
this by the power, to give the cost per watt for your transformer, which is a good figure of
merit which you might want to optimize. Even while this calculation doesn't include the
cost for insulating material and other odds and ends, it's still a good reference.

The right side column of this area is about thermal matters. These tell whether your
transformer will survive, so don't take them lightly!  The sheet calculates the power loss in
the iron, in the copper, and adds them to get the total power loss. Copper loss is calculated
at ambient temperature, though. When the wire heats up, its resistance increases, and so its
loss increases too! For this reason, take the calculated value with a small grain of salt. The
same is true for the voltage drop end efficiency calculations!

You need to be aware of the fact that the iron loss is essentially constant, regardless of the
load placed on the transformer, except for a little effect caused by voltage drop in the
windings reducing available magnetizing voltage, which causes a slight decrease in core
loss when the load gets higher !  The loss in the wire instead increases with the square of
the current taken from the transformer, and the value calculated by the sheet is for the full
rated current.

This gives you some big help in optimizing a transformer design. For example, a
transformer that will spend lots of time plugged in, but idling or loafing along at low load,
will see very little copper loss, but the iron loss will be there all the time. So, you should
design that transformer with a relatively low flux density, resulting in low core loss,
accepting a higher copper loss instead, by setting a smaller value of copper cross section per
ampere. After all, most of the time the rated design current won't be present, so that the
very high copper loss resulting in the calculation will be present only very rarely, for short
times! Transformers used in radio communication equipment, in audio amplifiers, and
many other uses, are best designed in this way.

The opposite case happens with transformers that are energized only briefly, but run at full
output power whenever energized. Examples of such use are microwave ovens and spot
welders.  In such a transformer, iron loss always happens at the same time as copper loss,
and you can optimize the transformer to get the lowest total loss, regardless of how it
distributes between the iron and the copper. Even more, you might intentionally place
more loss into the core than the windings, based on the fact that the core is less prone to be
damaged by heat, has more thermal mass, and that the short operation time won't allow the
peak heat to distribute through the transformer! And then, such a transformer that operates
only for short times can be designed to have a really huge loss, because it will have time to
cool off between uses! These things are what makes microwave oven transformers that
deliver 800 watts be as small as a 200 watt transformer intended for continuous service at
low rate, and run at a flux density of 2 teslas or even more!
The heat produced by a transformer has to be dissipated to the surrounding air. The
spreadsheet calculates the approximate total surface area of the transformer, and finally
calculates a required thermal transfer coefficient, which expresses how much power the
transformer needs to dissipate per unit of surface it has, and per temperature rise allowed.
This coefficient tells you how difficult it will be to keep this transformer cool enough to
survive! The violet area below this coefficient includes referential values (not calculated by
the sheet) which you can use to try judging whether your transformer will be OK, when you
have it in a tight area, in a more open area, cooled by a fan, or immersed in oil. I have my
doubts about these values, specially aout the value for the oil-immersed transformer, so
please take these with a big grain of salt, and let me know if you have any further, better, or
more reliable data.

Anyway, my transformers designed for a coefficient of around 12 have all survived so far,
even while getting quite hot at full load, so this value can't be too far from the truth.

A typical design sequence using this spreadsheet would be to first enter the tentative core
size and loss, the required voltages and frequency, then start with something like 1 tesla
and 0.35mm^2/A, leaving the fill factor at 0.4 and setting the temperature rise according to
your transformer's materials and environment. Then you can observe the power and
current it would operate at, and the losses, efficiency, voltage drop, and also you would get
the thermal transfer coefficient which you can compare to the table to gain an idea of
whether the transformer will survive. You can then tweak the flux density and current
density, trying to get the characteristics into the range you need, without exceeding the
thermal possibilities. If you just can't find a combination that provides what you need, you
will have to try with a larger (or lower loss) core. Then you might want to explore several
different core sizes, optimizing each, and watch the cost, finally settling for the design that
best provides what you need, at the lowest possible cost, while staying in the survivable
thermal range.

This work with the spreadsheet is only the first step, though. When you have arrived at a
good design using the sheet, you need to tweak it to make it buildable with real, available
material! For example, you cannot get wire in any desired diameter. The sheet doesn't know
that; It might ask you for a wire measuring 1.2345 square millimeters, or anything else. It's
your job to see what wire you can actually buy, or maybe what wire you happen to have in
stock, and adapt the design. The AWG standard is quite finely stepped, so you don't need to
change the design very much to adapt it to standard AWG sizes. But I have heard that in the
US many stores only sell the even numbered AWG sizes of wire! That's odd (pardon the
pun), since even down here in less developed Chile I can easily buy all AWG sizes, even and
odd.  If you are limited to even sizes only, you will have to make bigger compromises.

A good approximation technique is to round the wire size to the nearest AWG size, or if the
values calculated fall just in the middle between AWG sizes, you might want to use the next
thicker wire for the primary, and the next smaller wire for the secondary. That way the final
losses and the amount of space required will be almost exactly the same as calculated by
the sheet.

If your transformer uses lots of turns of thin wire, you are about ready to start winding at
this point. But if it uses a winding that has few turns of a thick wire, you should check how
well (or how poorly) that wire fits in an integer number of layers, considering the width of
the bobbin, and about 5% of lost space due to the wire not being perfectly straight. The
problem is this: If the sheet calculates you need 48 turns of a certain wire size, and it
happens that you can fit only 15 turns per layer, then you will end up with three complete
layers, plus one additional layer in which you have just three turns! So the total height
taken up in the window by those 48 turns will be as much as 4 complete layers, that could
have 60 turns! Consequently, the winding might end up too high, and won't fit the window!
Then you cannot assemble the core, and you have to unwind that winding, throw the wire
away, get new (thinner) wire, do it again... you get the idea. Try to avoid such frustration!

When you are in the situation just described, it would be wise to try the next smaller wire
size. It's very likely that this smaller wire size would accomodate 16 turns per layer, thus
allowing you to wind the 48 turns in three nice, clean, complete layers, and using up a little
bit less space than calculated by the sheet. This can in turn allow you to use the next larger
wire size for the other winding, which will almost completely compensate for the higher
loss and voltage drop of the smaller wire you used for the 48 turns!

Putting it in short words, you have to pick the best wire sizes for your transformer so that
their cross sections are close enough to the calculated values, but still allow a good, space-
saving distribution on the bobbin and thus inside the window area of the core.

Sometimes you might end up with a high current transformer requiring a very thick wire.
Such a wire is very stiff! If the bobbin is small, you might not be able to bend that thick wire
tightly enough around the corners of the bobbin. The result would be a huge loss of space,
and the completed winding wouldn't fit in the window, making it unusable. To work around
this problem, you can replace one thick wire by a bundle of seven wires, each of which is
one third as thick as the single wire. Such a seven wire bundle twists very nicely into a
round cable, and is more then 20 times as flexible as the single thick wire! It costs only very
slightly more money, and performs great. So, this is the way to go when you have a need for
such thick high current conductors. It's good to know that an AWG number 10 units higher
is roughly one third the diameter. So, if you would need a #7 wire and this is too thick to
wind comfortably, you can use 7 strands of #17, lightly twisted together.

Sometimes instead of using one thick wire you will also find it convenient to wind with two
or three thinner wires in parallel, without twisting them. This technique can significantly
ease the distribution of a winding in entire layers.

Another hint: Most transformers use some thin and some thick wire. For transformers that
have the windings on top of each other (instead of side-by-side), I suggest to always first
wind the windings that use the thin wire, then the ones using thicker wires, regardless of
which will be primary and secondary. This allows to wind the stiffer wire on the outside,
where the bending radius required is a lot larger and thus less demanding. Whether the
primary is under or over the secondary has no significant effect on performance.

You might have noticed that my spreadsheet only considers transformers that have a single
primary and a single secondary. But many transformers use several secondaries, and some
use two or more primaries! In such cases you will have to do some more work manually.
You should use the sheet to calculate the transformer, simulating only the main secondary,
tweaking it for the total power, and then manually reduce the wire size of that
secondary proportionally to the percentage of the total transformer power this
secondary will have to deliver. Then you can add the other windings, calculating their turns
number from the turns per volt calculated by the sheet, and the wire size from the current
they have to carry, and the mm^2/A you selected.

Or if you have two equal secondaries (or two equal primaries!), you can let the sheet
calculate a single secondary (or primary) of twice the voltage. That will produce the correct
number of total turns and wire sizes. You only have to remember to cut the wire after
having wound half of the turns, bring it out, start again and wind the second half!

You might have noticed that I didn't assign additional wire cross section to the primary, to
account for the magnetizing current. The reason is that the magnetizing current is normally
much smaller than the main current, and on top of that, the magnetizing current is 90
degrees out of phase with the main current! The vectorial sum of the main and magnetizing
currents is so little higher than the main current alone, that there is usually no need to
consider the difference.

You might also miss any discussion of core saturation. The problem is that's quite hard to
discuss saturation of silicon steel cores, because they just don't saturate at a well defined
level of flux density! Instead, the saturation is quite gradual: It might start at a level as low
as 0.5 tesla, become more noticeable at 1 tesla, then the curve bends further, but even at 2
tesla there might be a significant amount of permeability left! The effect of this is that with
increasing flux density, the magnetizing current increases more sharply, but it would be
really hard to reach a level where the saturation makes the transformer stop working. So,
the most important consideration about flux density is the sharply increasing core loss.
Only when you are using very high flux density, would it be a good idea to allow some
additional cross section for the primary wire, to accomodate the larger magnetizing
current.

Enough calculations. Let's go to winding!

Very often, winding a

transformer for a hobbyist will
start with unwinding an old,
burned one! The photo shows
part of the guts of a
Heathkit tube tester from the
1950's, which was given to me
in damaged but restorable
condition by my friend Renato
Menare. Its power transformer
worked, but got extremely hot
in just one minute of operation,
and started smelling burned
after two minutes. 

After restoring the tube tester,

without touching the
transformer, I used it for about
a year, switching it on only for
a minute at a time to test one tube, and then letting it cool off. But eventually the inevitable
happened: The transformer burned out, filling my home with smoke.

Such a tube tester transformer  is one of the worst nightmares any transformer maker
can get: It has two secondaries, each of which has a huge number of taps to provide all the
different filament and plate voltages needed by any of the thousands of different tubes
around in the 1950s! It takes patience to rewind such a thing. Every few turns you have to
install a tap!

The first step is removing the transformer from the circuit, unsoldering all wires and taking
notes which wire goes where. The fact that may wires are the same color doesn't help. Then,
the core has to be disassembled. To do that, you first remove the bolts, then push a sharp
knife between the first and second lamination, prying them apart to break any glue or
varnish or rust between them, then grab the lamination with flat pliers and wiggle it out.
Depending on how much the core was compressed during manufacture, this can be quite
hard to do, and one or two laminations might be damaged in the process. That's not the end
of the world, the transformer should later work even with one or two laminations less.
Usually, after removing the first few, the others come out easily. Sometimes each lamination
needs a little help with the knife to come loose, while in other transformers the core falls
apart on its own as soon as compression is relieved.

Once the winding assembly has

been freed of the core, it is
mounted on a suitable wooden
core in the winding machine.
Then the windings are
carefully unwound, letting the
turns counter of the winding
machine do its job. You should
take notes on the number of
turns of each winding, between
each tap and the next, and
anything else you find
worthwhile noting down.
Shooting pictures with a digital
camera can also be very
helpful, should you later
suddenly get doubts about
where each tap connection
should be located!

You should also save the wire, so you can measure its diameter and find out what sizes of
wire you need to buy. 

As the layers of wire and paper come off, things usually turn darker and ever darker! This is
because transformers work hottest at the inside. This picture shows severely carbonized
insulation, both the paper and on the connection wires. Probably the paper slowly
carbonized, becoming slightly conductive, causing further loss, further heating, until
the beast failed for good. This is the problem of paper insulation!

When I was done unwinding this

transformer, I found that even the
cardboard winding core was totally
carbonized, crumbly and definitely
unusable. I was left with the heap of
burned, charcoal-like insulation
shown here, kilometers of thin,
crumbly, burned copper wire, burned
pieces of hookup wire, these photos,
and a piece of paper where I had
written down wire sizes and turn
numbers.

Don't do such a job in your parent's

bedroom, because as you can see, it's
messy! Even the kitchen might not be the best place to do it. Neither mothers nor wifes tend
to like this sort of transformer autopsy!

When not even the bobbin is usable, you will need to make a new one, or find one that fits. I
was lucky this time, and found one in my junk box (aka treasure chest) that just fit this core,
and even had side walls! It's a great thing that core sizes are standarized, even if several
different standards exist...
 It's probably high
time to introduce
my transformer
winding machine.
Here you can see
it in all its glory,
somewhat
obscured by the
messy
background (my
workbench).
Amateur radio
friend Enrique
Villanueva,
CE5FSB, gave me
this machine
when I was still a
schoolboy. That
was many years
ago, Enrique is no
longer in this
world, but
I remember him every time I wind a transformer! He was a true gentleman, and always
helpful.

This machine is simply a motor and switchable two-speed gearbox with central neutral
position, that drives a three-pronged thorn, opposed to which is an adjustable centering
screw. It's quite handmade, but does the job well. The fast speed is about 120 rpm, and the
slow one is about 15 rpm.

I added a turns counter to it. It didn't have one when I got it. This turns counter came from a
surplus store, out of a broken gas meter. It advances 4 counts per revolution, so I coupled it
to the machine's drive shaft via a 4:1 speed reduction, getting exactly one count per turn. To
make this coupling, I made two gears! One was cut from the lid of a coffee can, has 16 teeth,
and is visible in the picture. The other one was made from a piece of wire, has 4 wire loops
acting as teeth, and is hidden in the photo. It's crude, but was cheap and has worked well
for about 30 years now! I can hardly even try to calculate how many transformers I have
wound wit this machine!

When winding a transformer, you need to have the wire unwind straight and cleanly from
the spool on which it's sold. If you simply stand the spool on the ground, the wire will twist
while unwinding, curl up, and kink. At that point, you can throw it away and start anew! So,
don't. Instead, you need to fashion some device that allows the spool to rotate, letting the
wire unwind without kinking. This photo shows one of the methods I often use: A
screwdriver, serving as axle, held in a vise.

Sometimes I'm too lazy to set up the vise. In those cases I simply hold that same screwdriver
between my knees while winding the transformer!
  Here you can see the junk box
bobbin, made from Pertinax,
mounted on a wooden core in
my winding machine, and with
part of the primary winding
already wound.

There are several styles for

winding transformers. The
highest quality one is to
painstakingly lay the windings
out in neat, perfect, orderly
layers, with every turn of wire
placed precisely next to its
neighbor, in close contact, and
never crossing over. Each layer
is separated from the next by a
sheet of thin insulation
material, cut precisely to the
width of the bobbin, and to
such a length that it will
overlap a bit. This overlap is placed at either of the outside sides of the bobbin, not on the
sides that will end up in the core's window. Such a winding is gorgeously beautiful to look
at, produces an excellent fill factor, but is very time consuming to make. I tend to use that
technique when winding few turns of thick wire, but not when winding many turns of thin
wire. One time only I wound a 78,000 turn high voltage transformer in that way, because no
other technique would do, but I almost turned crazy, and never repeated that feat.

Modern small split bobbin transformers are normally wound in a very untidy way: The
operator at the factory simply lets the machine run, and fill the bobbin section with wire,
letting it build up wherever it wants to. There are no layers, no insulation between layers, it
looks poor, is less reliable, the fill factor is less good but still acceptable, and it's fast and
cheap to do.

The winding shown in this photo, instead, is a hybrid of both techniques. The winding is
split up into just a few layers, two or three or so, but each layer is wound thick, with the
wire turns actually building up on each other. I let the machine run and guide the wire to
let it slowly fill the layer from one side to the other (never going forth and back several
times!), letting the windings build up to the desired height, about two millimeters or six
wire diameters in this case. When that ugly layer is complete, I apply a coating of self
adhesive tape as insulation, and then wind the next layer. It's almost as quick to do as a
totally wild winding, but significantly more reliable.

A word about tapes: Transformer parts stores sell self-adhesive mylar tape, usually yellow,
in several thicknesses and widths. This is a good material, and you should use it. But I often
don't have it on hand, and use alternative materials. Vinyl insulating tape can be pressed
into service, but isn't great , because it gets very soft when hot, and the wires can press
through it. Much better, even if you don't believe that, is painter's masking tape! It has just
about the optimal elasticity, is thin, cheap, comes in several widths, holds up well when hot,
and looks pretty good on transformers for antique equipment, on which any plastic tape
would look out of place! Masking tape is what I used for this transformer.

A question many newcomers

have is how to handle the ends
and taps of windings. When the
wire is rather thick and robust,
you can simply let the end stick
out of the bobbin! In that case
it's good practice to protect that
wire by a piece of spaghetti (I
don't mean an Italian noodle,
but a piece of plastic or fiber
hose that looks much like it). It
should ideally be only slightly
thicker than the wire. You slip
it over the wire, and anchor it
in the winding assembly, with
adhesive tape and the pressure
of the windings. It will
protect the wire from chafing,
and provide additional
insulation at places where the wire might pass very close to other wires or to the core.

But thin wires should not be treated like that. They are too fragile, and might very easily
break later, forcing you to rip up and rewind the whole transformer!  Instead, you should
take some pigtails of stranded, plastic-insulated wire, strip and tin the ends, solder the thin
enamelled wire to the end of a pigtail, and embed it in the winding like is shown in this
photo. You need to place enough layers of insulating material both under and over the
connection, to make sure that no sharp tip or edge of the wires may puncture through the
insulation. This adds quite a lot of bulk, so of course these connections must be done on the
sides of the bobbin that will end up outside the core's window!

When you solder these connection, make absolutely sure that the enameled wire stripped
properly in the solder bath. It's very frustrating to end up with a nice new transformer, that
has one winding that doesn't conduct, because of a badly done connection! In this photo, the
first one and a half loops of the thin enamelled wire around the pigtail didn't strip, but the
other three loops did, so the connection is secure.

One word about safety: Between the primary and secondary windings, and at any place
where there might be high voltage, you need really good insulation. After connecting this
pigtail, which is the end of the primary winding, I had to apply such safe insulation. When
doing it with adhesive tape on a bobbin like this, it's done by winding several layers of that
tape, and winding it not only all the way to the side walls, but even a bit up on these walls,
forming a kind of cradle bedding for the secondary winding. You need to get either a perfect
seal between the tape and the side walls, or having so much tape, and the wire moved far
enough toward the middle of the bobbin, that the creepage distance from primary to
secondary, around the insulation, is at least 4 millimeters. This is even a legal safety
requirement!

After winding the two

secondaries with their
lots of taps, and re-
assembling the core, the
finished transformer
looked like this, in all the
glory of its dozens of
connecting wires! In this
Heathkit tube tester, the
wires connect directly to
the circuit. In other
cases, these wires would
be neatly dressed and
soldered to terminal
strips, which are either
embedded in the outer
layers of insulation in the winding assembly, or bolted to the core.

A winding machine with turns counter is a

great tool, but it's not absolutely necessary.
Transformers can be wound with much
simpler tools too. And despite having my
machine, sometimes I have to wind
transformers that are larger than what the
machine can handle!

Such was the case in 2008, when I had to build

two transformers for 10kVA each, starting
from scratch. These are the transformers I
chose as an example to put into the
spreadsheet before uploading it to this page!
In the sheet, the primary voltage is 230V and
the secondary is 2000V. In truth, one of the
transformers works in this way, while the
other is opposite, the 2000V winding serving
as primary. In the following discussion, I will
use "primary" to refer to the high voltage
winding, regardless of how the transformer
will be used later.

I built the simple but effective setup shown in

the photo. A big wooden bobbin was made,
with dimensions such that the complete
winding package for the transformer would precisely fit inside. Note that this bobbin is just
the support for winding! It will be removed before final assembly of the transformer. For
this purpose, it's held together by screws, and the wooden pieces on the inside are designed
so that they can be easily removed from the finished coil assembly. This big wooden bobbin
got fitted with a hand crank, and mounted on a steel tube serving as axle, which was
clamped to the workbench.

Each wooden piece of the bobbin was separately wrapped in kitchen wrap (saran wrap,
Sichtfolie) before assembling the bobbin. This assures it can be disassembled after
varnishing the winding assembly, without the wood sticking to the coil assembly! 

The spools of wire for these big transformers weigh 30 kg for the secondary, and 25kg for
the primary. So I made a simple but sturdy support structure for them and placed it at the
work site.

Instead of a complete bobbin with side walls, I

chose to employ only a basic bobbin, made
from a sheet of 1.5mm thick Pressspan (I
couldn't obtain a material strong enough with
a better temperature rating). The Pressspan
was cut to size, half-depht cuts were made
with the knife at the bending lines, then it was
bent around the wooden bobbin. The
overlapping side was smeared with epoxy
glue, and the whole thing was compressed
with wooden boards and clamps like shown
here, to get it nice and straight.

Since the Pressspan might carbonize and become slightly conductive at high temperature, I
wound two layers of high temperature NMN laminate over this core, to insure permanent
safe insulation between the winding and the core. It's temporarlily held in place with plain
office type adhesive tape, but this tape is later removed when winding the wire, to keep it
from carbonizing and possibly causing trouble.

This transformer has sufficiently few turns and thick wire to wind it in orderly layers,
separated by insulating sheets. To keep the whole thing from falling apart, I bound the
layers together with cotton straps, and to make sure the wire turns don't get closer to the
edge of the bobbin than 5mm or so, I wound cotton ropes at the edges, used as spacers.
These ropes will be removed later.

The photo shows the assembly, ready to start winding. A double rope makes one turn on
each side of the bobbin, enough spare rope for the successive turns is coiled up on
screws driven into the bobbin, and the cotton straps are installed and coiled up too. The
wire end, protected by a piece of high temperature red fiber spaghetti, is anchored in a hole
drilled into the wooden bobbin. Time to start winding!
The first layer has to be wound
very carefully, pushing each
winding into tight contact with
the previous one. When that
first layer is complete, be sure
to count the turns to make sure
you actually got as many turns
as you calculated! Otherwise,
you need to compress the
winding a bit more, and then
add the remaining turns.

When not using a turns

counter, such as in this case, a
good thing to do is to wind a
full layer, then count the turns,
and write it down. Don't forget!
Otherwise it's just too easy to
loose count of the layers! That
sounds stupid, but it's very
real. A good way to count the
turns is to lightly draw a pointy, non-scratching object (plastic or wood) over the wire turns,
and count the clicks as you feel them. Counting by sight tends to be confusing.

Since the wire isn't ever perfectly straight, it's impossible to completely eliminate air
between the turns. That's why you have to consider a safety factor when calculating how
many turns you can fit in each layer!

The next layers instead are easier to wind, because the wire will embed itself slightly in the
depressions between two turns of the previous layer, automatically assuming the correct
spacing. Note that this produces either winding layers which alternatingly have one more
or one less turn, or else the windings with the same number of turns in each are alternately
offset sideward by one half wire diameter, respective to each other. You need to consider
this when designing the transformer, when you intend to do a neat, tight winding like this.

After each layer, the wire is pressed flat,

using boards and clamps, on the sides of the
bobbin that will end up inside the core's
window. This further helps to actually make
the winding fit. It doesn't matter at all if the
windings bulge out a bit on the other two
sides, because these will end up outside the
core, where space is plentiful.

If you do this, be careful not to damage the

wire's insulation. It's quite tough, but not
infinitely so. The boards should have a
smooth and not too hard surface. I used a
thick paper as cushion between the
chipboard and the wire. 

After winding and compressing a layer, a

single layer of insulating material (NMN
laminate in this transformer) is wound,
overlapping it a bit on one side that won't be
inside the core window. Then the four ends
of the cotton straps are crossed over, pulled
tight, and reattached to the bobbin, and the cotton ropes are wound another turn, taking
care to avoid tangling the straps with the ropes! The straps will remain in the transformer,
while the ropes will be removed. So the straps should hold just the wire and insulation
sheets, but not the ropes.

If you simply let the wire unwind from the spool

and wind it on your transformer, it will get a bow
shape instead of lying flat, and have so much air
below it in the center region of each bobbin side,
that later when compressing the layer you would
get excessive bulging on the other sides. To prevent
this, the wire gets a pre-bend in the opposite sense
while winding, by guiding it with the thumb like
shown here. I used a woolen glove for this, because
the wire has to be kept pretty tight, is quite stiff,
and it would wear through my skin, despite being
quite smooth!

 This photo was shot during the winding of an

intermediate layer of the primary.

The wire and the cotton ropes are placed between

the ends of the insulation sheet, for the transition
from one layer to the next. Said in a different way,
the insulation sheets are simply wound into the
coil of wire and rope.

Here you can see how a center tap is made. The winding was arranged in an even number
of layers, so that the center point ends up at the transition from one layer to the next. At this
point, the wire was brought out and back in through a single hole, and protected with
 spaghetti. The spacing ropes were
also brought out and back in through
two holes, to keep them from
interfering with the wire tap. Finally,
the cotton straps are threaded so that
they will hold both wire ends in place.

After this, the insulation layer can be

wound, and then the ropes and the
wire for the next layer.

After winding the last layer of

the primary, the spacing rope is
anchored in a hole in the
bobbin. The end of the wire is
treated just like the beginning
of it, and brought out through a
hole too. I drilled all these holes
where needed, while winding. 

Then several layers of

insulating material are wound,
since the voltage between
primary and secondary can
reach 10kV or more during a
nearby lightning strike! These
transformers were built to
send power over a 600 meter
long outdoor transmission line,
in a mountainous and
lightning-prone area.

Since the secondary winding uses much thicker wire, the spacing rope needs to be thicker
too. I used one strand of thick rope for the secondary, and two strands of thinner rope for
the primary. As a result, both windings are spaced about the same 5mm from the sides.

The secondary is wound just like the primary. In this case it was a little more complicate,
because I actually wound two secondaries, each of them having a wire half the cross section
calculated in the sheet. On top of that, each of the secondaries is center-tapped too.This
allows me to do several clever things with my transformers, and as a bonus lets me wind
with a thinner, more manageable wire. This is #7, still stiff enough!

The photo shows the completed secondary, before applying the final layers of insulation.
You can see the spacing ropes, and how the cotton strap will hold the last turn.
The spacing ropes are pulled through holes
and secured, several layers of insulation are
wound, the final layer is secured with a loop
of masking tape, and then the cotton straps
are pulled tight one last time, and knotted
together using a special pulling knot, the
same sort truckers like to tie down their
cargo. If you don't know how to tie such a
knot, ask a trucker, a sailor or a boy scout.

At this point, the winding assembly is ready

to remove part of the wooden bobbin, and
start the varnish impregnation process.

Removing one of the side walls of the wooden bobbin reveals not only the structure of the
inner part of the wooden bobbin, designed for strength and easy disassembly, but also you
can see the spacing ropes partially falling out, leaving the insulation protruding nicely
between the turns of wire. This produces plenty creepage distance for safe operation!
After removing all those
ropes, the winding
assembly looks like this.
Note how the wires are
nicely tucked in between
the insulation layers.

While the cotton straps

do a great job holding
the end turns of each
layer in place,
preventing them from
falling out and the whole
thing springing open,
this assembly is still far
too weak to be used like
this. Considerable forces
act on wires of big
transformers. They need
to be secured very well.

And a further closeup showing how the straps hold the wires, and bend the insulation,
always maintaining a safe creepage distance.

In this photo you can also see the overlap of the Pressspan bobbin, complete with some
epoxy glue that seeped out before setting. Since the bobbin was made 2mm shorter than the
core's window length, such seepage and similar imperfections cause no trouble.

Without removing the other remaining parts of the wooden bobbin, I soaked the entire
winding assembly in impregnation varnish. I poured the varnish in from the top, until it
flowed out profusely from the bottom. Then I let the assembly soak, let the excess drip off,
and let it dry somewhat on the surface.
 But this is an oven-drying
varnish, so it needs to be
heated, or it will never dry. I do
have a thermostatically
controlled oven - but not large
enough to fit a winding
assembly of this size! So I
applied enough DC current to
the primary winding to slowly
heat up the whole thing to a
temperature high enough to
dry the varnish.

Every transformer varnish has

a recommended drying
temperature. To get it right, I
occassionally removed the
power supply, and measured
the resistance of the primary
winding. Comparing to its
resistance when cold, and
considering the thermal
coefficient of the resistance of
copper, it's easy to calculate the
internal temperature! Then I
adjusted the DC current to keep
the temperature just right.

I removed the other wooden

bobbin side, and the spacing
ropes on that side, when the
exposed side of the assembly
seemed to be dry. The newly exposed side was still fresh, so drying continued with the
assembly supported only by the wooden parts in the center.

When the varnish stopped smelling, signalling that it was dry, I removed all of the
remaining wooden parts. This was quite easy, thanks to the kitchen wrap, which stayed
partially adhered to the Pressspan core. In this photo you can see that. The brownish color
is that of the varnish, while the near black sections inside the assembly are partially
carbonized kitchen wrap. This stuff doesn't endure the temperature the varnish needs to
dry! But no harm was done, except to the wrap, which is of course irrelevant.

At this point, the winding assembly has a monolithic feel, with everything firmly glued
together by the varnish. It could actually be used without further work, but the edges of the
thin insulation material are quite fragile. Any object striking them could bend or even
break them, compromising the creepage distance and thus the safety of the transformer!
2000 volts at 10 kilowatts is not something to take chances with.
So I filled these areas with silicone caulk. This material is available, inexpensive, easy to
work with, tixotropic, permanent, an
excellent insulator, and endures very
high temperature. In short, it's a
nearly ideal material for this task!
There is only one point to watch: Be
sure to use the neutral curing type,
not the more common, acid curing
one! The last thing you want to do is
releasing highly corrosive acetic acid
into your new transformer!

The color of the silicone is your (or in

this case, my!) choice.

I didn't do a particularly neat

caulking job, but the point was to get
the edges sealed and protected, not to
do a work of art.

The winding assembly is now ready!

The next step is assembling the

core. I usually do this in the
same way for every
transformer: I place the
winding assembly on one side,
then I start inserting E
laminations from alternating
sides. Distributed throughout
the core, I occassionally insert
two consecutive E's from the
same side. When almost all E's
have been inserted, things tend
to get pretty tight, and forcing
additional E's in between the
last one and the winding
assembly, can lead to
damage to the latter!

This is where the E pairs inserted from the same side come into play: They form excellent
guides for inserting a third E between each two neighboring E's, even using a wooden block
as a hammer to drive them in, if necessary! This is the best trick I have found to obtain a
nice, tightly compressed lamination stack.

After all E's have been inserted, the I's are slid into the voids. After that, two wooden blocks
and a big hammer are used to knock all the laminations into their correct positions,
aligning them with each other, and specially, align the screw holes of all the laminations!
At this point, the transformer is
functional, and you can hook it
up and try it, if you want. But it
will hum like crazy, because all
those loose steel laminations
will magnetically repel each
other at twice the line
frequency rate, and vibrate.
The core needs to be tightly
compressed to stop all that
noise. The performance will
also improve when the core is
correctly compressed.

In small transformers this is

done with clamps. But big ones,
like this, use bolts. Often you
won't find real bolts long
enough and thin enough,
though! In those cases, buy some threaded stock, which is sold in great lengths, cut it to size
(a Dremel tool with a heavy duty cutoff disk does this very nicely!), and use it with washers
and nuts on each end. 

In large transformers, these bolts sometimes have enough shorting action to cause
significant additional loss and heating! For this reason it's a good idea to insulate the bolts
from the core. You can use tubing for that purpose, or like I did here, slide in a sheet of NMN
laminate (or plain paper) rolled into a tube.
Installing the bolts just on the
core leaves you with an
unevenly compressed
lamination stack, and what's
more important, with nothing
to mount the transformer! For
that reason usually some angle
stock is used . It distributes the
force over much of the core,
and provides convenient
surfaces to drill mounting holes
into.

Some transformers use formed

caps instead, or complete steel
frames.

Note the insulation sheets

under the washers of the bolts!
Depending on the specific
transformer, they might make
any difference, from barely
noticeable to dramatic!

At this point, the transformer is truly ready for trying. If it still hums, you can try tightening
the bolts even further, and inserting wooden or plastic wedge pairs between the winding
assembly and the core center leg, to compress the latter. If even this fails, which is often the
case, then you have no better option than once again getting your varnish can, and soak the
core in varnish! You can loosen the bolts, let varnish flow into every space, then tighten the
bolts again and warm up the whole transformer by applying a suitable amount of DC for at
least a full day. I have yet to see a transformer that still hummed after that treatment!

Depending on the application, different things can be done with the connections. If they are
made of flexible wire, they might be directly wired into the circuit. In small transformers,
often plastic bobbins with pins are used, and the windings are connected to these pins, like
shown here, and then the whole transformer is soldered to a printed circuit board. The
example shown here is a current sensing transformer, which also has a one-turn, high
current winding, which is brought out separately from the bobbin pins.
Often terminal strips are
attached to the winding
assembly, and the windings are
connected there. But in larger
transformers, the most
common practice is bolting
terminal blocks to the
transformer, and connecting
the wires there. I did this with
my large transformers, leading
to the final product shown in
the very first photo of this web
page. That system is more
solid and reliable then most
others, and allows repeated
solderless disconnection and
reconnection, which I need a
few times per year to
reconfigure my transformers
for different conditions of usage.

Some people wonder whether they should try winding their own transformers, or if they
should instead shell out big $$$ to have the job done by a professional winding shop. I can
only tell you one thing: If you had the patience to read this long web page from start to end,
then you most certainly also have the patience required for winding your own
transformers!!!

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