Marko Delac

Delatsch Electronics
2018. January 6.

Simple Single Ended Output

Transformer Winding Tutorial
Practical way to wind your own SE OTs

Winding your own power and output transformer puts in you in a very convenient
position when making or designing a piece of electronics gear. It gives you freedom to
experiment, upgrade an existing transformer or create a completely new design that simply
cannot be found among the off the shelf transformers available. By being able to wind a
custom power and output transformers according to your needs and preferences, you can
control the end product you are creating and building in a significant way. By using multiple
voltage taps which stock transformers lack, or simply not using some of the taps stock
transformers come with can be a great advantage by itself. For example, if you are designing a
guitar preamplifier which requires relatively small amounts of current, but you need a high
voltage winding and thinner gauge for the heater wires (if you want to use 12.6 volts instead
of 6.3V which is more current efficient and less noisy) You also don’t need the 5V winding the
stock transformer came with. So, you can wind a custom transformer that will have all the
features you need, and at the same time not have the features you don’t need — making the
transformer significantly lighter and more compact than the stock transformers available.
There are many different ways to calculate and wind the output transformer. In this
tutorial I will try to explain and demonstrate rather simple methods (in my opinion) of
calculating and winding your output transformer. Before starting with the calculations and
numbers of turns, there are several important things to bear in mind. The most important
question is what is the output transformer going to be used for? If you are planning to wind
an output transformer for your guitar tube amplifier or home hifi amplifier, there are really no
complicated steps involved and the calculation is pretty easy.
However, if you are planning on winding a very linear high end hifi or line output
transformer for recording piece of gear it will take more than just simple calculations.

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 When designing an output transformer for a guitar amplifier or even a decent sounding
(not high end) hifi output transformer you don’t have to worry too much about leakage
inductance, inter-winding capacitance, balanced windings, shielding, core quality, heavy
interleaving of the windings, secondary winding resistance and all the other losses and bits
and pieces which you should take into considerations when designing s transformer for the
applications mentioned above. The calculations themselves are more than sufficient even for
higher quality transformers, the linearity and other high end characteristics will demand a
higher quality core, interleaving and better overall winding and assembling practises.
Calculating SE output transformers is very similar to calculating power or PP output
transformers. The main difference is that there is a DC current flowing through the
transformer’s primary winding. Relatively high DC current in the primary winding can over-
saturate the core which would cause significant and unpleasant distortion of the original
signal. In order to prevent this unwanted core saturation, we need to have a so called air gap
between E and I laminations. There is a theoretic formula for the air gap so you could ideally
calculate the correct air gap size, but it really doesn’t give any real benefit in practise. Because
it is very difficult in practise to fit the E and I laminations so that the air gap is exact. Usually,
the way it’s done in practise is to use a piece of pressed paper between 0.1 mm (0.04”) and 0.3
mm (0.12”) thick. The exact value and total precision of the air gap is not critical to the
sound. The more important thing is the fact that there is an air gap. Of course after you’ve
built the transformer you can listen, measure and adjust the air gap by changing the thickness
of the paper to see how it effects the performance of your transformer.
Since we are breaking the magnetic path in the core and making it virtually infinite for
the unwanted magnetisation, our ac signal’s magnetic field is also suffering and losing part of
its strength as well. That’s why we need to compensate for that loss by increasing the number
of turns in the primary.
There are many ways to calculate the number of turns for output transformers. In this
tutorial I will use two different methods. They’re available in both metric and imperial. If you
would like to wind a transformer for hifi use, I suggest using the first method. For a guitar
transformer I would suggest a second one.
So, let’s start with the calculations. For the speaker impedance you can choose a
nominal value of the speaker you are planning to use. We will use 8 ohms in our example, so
we can type that into the cell B3 of our spreadsheet. Lets say we’ve picked 6V6 tube and we
want to make a simple SE hifi mono block amplifier and we need to wind an output

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transformer for it. First, we consult the data sheet for 6V6 tube and find out that for Class A
operation it gives an output of around 5 watts. We use that for cell B4. The plate load is also
found in the tube data sheet, so we use 5000 ohms (Cell B5). We also want to input the lowest
frequency we hope our transformer will achieve. Lets say it’s 50Hz. Just like the PP
transformer you can try lower frequencies but for your first transformer I would not
recommend it. Anything between 40-70Hz will work just fine with average speakers. So we
use 50 for cell B6.
Now according to the calculated value of the core cross section you can choose the
closest size you have on hand or available. For this calculation use a cross section that is as
close to the recommended one (Cell B9), since this calculation does not use the core size to
determine the number of turns directly. So, the selected value of the core cross section in cell
B15 is just for your reference.
The other value you need to check is the DC current that’s flowing through the primary
winding. You should be able to find that value in the tube data sheet or sometimes it will be
written on the schematic. You can also use the data sheet of an existing transformer as a
guide. Type the DC current value into the cell B21.
To make sure the windings will fit onto your bobbin you need to specify the window
cross section. Type the window length and width into cells B31 and B32. If the window cross
section (Cell B33) is higher than the total space occupied by wire + copper stacking (Cell B44)
you should be able to fit your windings to the bobbin. Now as someone who is just starting or
winding your first SE transformer, you should use a core and a bobbin where the difference
between Cell B33 and B44 is at least 20 percent.
As you can see from the spreadsheet, that’s all that you had to do to calculate your SE
output transformer! You can now start winding!
Let’s use the other method to calculate a similar transformer, but for guitar use. You can
choose your speaker impedance (Cell B3), power (Cell B4) and Plate load (Cell B5) as in the
first method. For the minimum or lowest frequency we can use 60 or 70 (this value is really
not critical for guitar OT since the lowest frequency on an electric guitar is 82 Hz (also the
calculated frequency will not be an exact value in our practical transformer).
For SE transformers the default magnetic flux density is usually 4000 Gauss. Depending
on the quality of the core it can be higher, but this is a good starting point. For our purposes
we can use the default 4000 Gauss. So if you don’t won’t to experiment or you are not sure
what value to use, just use this default value in cell B12.

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 For the selected cross core section you don’t have to stick too closely to the effective or
recommended value (Cell B9). A core can be a lot smaller than the recommended core cross
section. The proof of that is a Fender Champ output transformer which is really, really tiny.
You can also use a bigger core. No matter which size you choose, be sure to type it into cell
B15, since the calculation for the number of turns depends on the size you choose, for this
method.
For the DC current you can choose the same value or a slightly lower current value than
for the previous example, so that you can wind it with a lower gauge wire and fit into a
smaller bobbin (Cell B21).
Don’t forget to double check wether you can fit the windings onto your selected bobbin
by typing the values for window length and window width to cells B31 and B32.
As with the previous example that’s all you really need to calculate your SE output
transformer. You are ready to go winding!
As for the winding layout, for guitar amplifiers and simple home hifi amplifiers you can
just wind the whole primary winding and then secondary winding on top of the primary
winding. If you would like to expand the high frequency response, you can use one or more
interleaves. Try winding one half of the primary, then the whole secondary and finally the
other half of the primary. There is also a famous interleave layout that you can try: wind a
quarter of primary winding, then half of the secondary winding, then half of the primary
winding, then the other half of the secondary winding and finally the quarter of the primary
winding. (1/4P-1/2S-1/2P-1/2S-1/4P)
The other very important difference between PP and SE output transformer is the
stacking of laminations. For push pull and power transformers you first insert all of the E
lamination (one from the left side of the bobbin one from the right side) and then you fill in
the gaps with all I laminations. For SE transformers you have to insert all of the E laminations
from the same side of the bobbin, and then stack all of the I laminations together and put a
piece of pressed paper between E and I laminations. That can be tricky to do, because you
have to find a way to hold all the I laminations together and then fasten the E and I
laminations together using a special metal bracket or couple of I laminations from of the
smaller EI type of laminations that will fit and the screw holes will match when you put them
across the assembled core. For more info and details on practical winding and assembly of the
transformers, please check my other tutorials and video tutorials available.

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