Transformers mounted
Tonight’s project was simple enough, all I had to do was to bolt the two transformers and two chokes in place. I didn’t even try to connect them, just bolt them up to the chassis. But first, I took the TO-6 mounting sockets out of the chassis, unsoldered the wires and soldered on new leads. Why? Mostly just because I used a yellow and green lead, the same as Nik at Ceriatone uses for all the ground connections, and I didn’t want someone mistakenly connecting a MOSFET to ground. Also, the leads were about two inches too short to connect to the new power scaling board.
TO-6 MOSFET mounting sockets:
The next snag was that the chassis is drilled for only one choke. Why, oh why, am I adding a second choke? For the power scaling, of course. So I had to drill two extra holes in the chassis and then figure out a way to hold the nuts in place as I tightened the mounting bolt up. The nuts are hidden by the two turret boards, but could be reached with a box wrench, so it wasn’t as much of a problem as I expected.
Finally, the mounting holes on the Ceriatone chassis didn’t quite line up with the West Labs mains transformer, they were off by a few millimeters. Nothing a quick going over with a rat tail file couldn’t fix. The output transformer bolted right into place, though, which was nice.
Output transformer mounted in place:
Top view, with the mains and output transformers, and the two chokes. Yes, it is heavy.
