Re: Harman Kardon AVR 3700 blown standby power supply
Ok, here goes. Please excuse my horribly messy test bench. It is on the very fine edge of organized chaos!
I'm going to do my best to explain what I have done, but keep in mind that I'm not 100% sure I am doing things exactly right. This is a bit of a case of the blind leading the blind...
**Edit** the capacitor in series is a 10nf polypropylene that I had around.
This one is the bad Harmon Kardon transformer, trying to show the whole test setup. Signal generator is 1Khz square wave for all tests.

Close up of the bad transformer on the breadboard.

This is a picture of the "ring" on the bad transformer, notice how there are almost no oscillations, I believe this is because the short changes the "Q" of the transformer, but I think that the root of it is that a short will electrically be more similar to a piece of wire than coil. This may be completely of base, please someone correct me if that isn't the case.

This picture is just a small SMPS transformer I had around to show a good transformer under test. Same setup, had to use jumper wires for this one, it is to big to fit the breadboard. The is not the same type of transformer, but I don't think it invalidates the example.

Close up picture.

Good transformer "ringing" under test

This is just an example of the same good transformer, but I have jumpered the other primary winding, just to show an example of what I read about online. It doesn't actually matter what winding is shorted in the transformer, any shorted winding will drastically reduce the "Q" of the whole thing. I am not going to pretend to understand why. I think that level of math is above my pay grade

Shorted primary winding "ring" waveform.

Same setup as above, but this time with one of the secondary windings shorted.

And, pretty much the same results.

That's good enough for the girls I go out with. I hope it helps. Also, if you smart and formally trained folks have a better explanation of what is going on, I would love to hear an explanation that is a little bit "dumbed" down for those of us with no formal education if it is at all possible.
Thanks again for all of your help.
Sincerely,
Jason
Ok, here goes. Please excuse my horribly messy test bench. It is on the very fine edge of organized chaos!
I'm going to do my best to explain what I have done, but keep in mind that I'm not 100% sure I am doing things exactly right. This is a bit of a case of the blind leading the blind...
**Edit** the capacitor in series is a 10nf polypropylene that I had around.
This one is the bad Harmon Kardon transformer, trying to show the whole test setup. Signal generator is 1Khz square wave for all tests.
Close up of the bad transformer on the breadboard.
This is a picture of the "ring" on the bad transformer, notice how there are almost no oscillations, I believe this is because the short changes the "Q" of the transformer, but I think that the root of it is that a short will electrically be more similar to a piece of wire than coil. This may be completely of base, please someone correct me if that isn't the case.
This picture is just a small SMPS transformer I had around to show a good transformer under test. Same setup, had to use jumper wires for this one, it is to big to fit the breadboard. The is not the same type of transformer, but I don't think it invalidates the example.
Close up picture.
Good transformer "ringing" under test
This is just an example of the same good transformer, but I have jumpered the other primary winding, just to show an example of what I read about online. It doesn't actually matter what winding is shorted in the transformer, any shorted winding will drastically reduce the "Q" of the whole thing. I am not going to pretend to understand why. I think that level of math is above my pay grade

Shorted primary winding "ring" waveform.
Same setup as above, but this time with one of the secondary windings shorted.
And, pretty much the same results.
That's good enough for the girls I go out with. I hope it helps. Also, if you smart and formally trained folks have a better explanation of what is going on, I would love to hear an explanation that is a little bit "dumbed" down for those of us with no formal education if it is at all possible.
Thanks again for all of your help.
Sincerely,
Jason
Comment