On Mon, 11 Apr 2011 15:48:43 +1000, "Phil Allison"
wrote:




** The primary appears to be EXPLODING !!

You ridiculous ******.

Phil - your mamma should wash your mouth out with soap.


** You need to get your hands off of it.


I SAID the other two scenarios were long shots ..

** And I said they were ridiculous drivel.

- but so is everything else that has been suggested.

** Your opinion is based on your ignorance only.

The windings of the trasnformer do not
APPEAR to be overheated - looks like just blackened at the connections
between the winding and the connecting wires.


** See the vaporised metal coating deposited on the plastic cover next to
the tranny?

That is a damn EXPLOSION !!

It happened very suddenly and made a loud bang too.

I said:

" High voltage spikes on the primary could also cause insulation failure
leading to the damage seen in the pics - lightning does this sort of thing.
So also could back emfs from the blower fan if the is a bad connection in
the AC supply feed."

If the insulation on the enamel wire of the primary is punctured by a HIGH
VOLTAGE SPIKE, effectively shorting out most of the primary - then the
120 AC supply ( no fuse exists remember ) will easily turn the two exposed
wire ends into metal vapour !!!

Cos they just became the fuses.

It just so happens that many small transformers made in China, India & Sri
Lanka etc are very prone to this sort of failure - due to bad manufacturing
practices.



.... Phil


So you are agreeing with what I said before - most likely problem is
cheap crap component.

We can be relatively sure it wasn't lightning 3 times.
If the back emf from the motor is causing the problem, the bad
connection to the motor should have made itself VERY evident by now.
Not saying it is NOT part of the problem - like you, I wasn't there
watching it fail - and neither you nor I heard the noise you speak of.

And IF the problem is what you say it is (and I'm not saying it is
not), then probing the old primary and getting to the winding beyond
where the solder joint "exploded" you should be able to measure a
significantly lower than normal primary resistance.

That measurement has not, as far as I know, been made and reported.

If it was mine, or if I had the transformer at hand, I'd have it apart
and analysed in no time. If the primary is shorted, I'd know, within
an hour or two of the failure..
And with that second primary, it would not be hard to determine if the
110 volt primary is shorted without even dissassembling the
transformer..

At this point no-one has actually posted FOR SURE what the primary
configuration is. Is it a mult-tapped primary, set for 115, 208, and
230 volts, or is it 2 independent primaries, or is it 2 primaries that
need to be connected either in series or parallel depending on the
voltage (115 or 230)

I don't know this, and you don't know either unless you are
clairvoyant, because it has not, to this point, been established and
reported.

So we are all guilty of the same thing - making ASSumptions.