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Aliexpress r-core turned up. It will fit between the tubes and even the original capacitors in the vertical orientation. Barely. The primary is marked "0-115v-230v-CN" which is a little confusing compared to western transformer standards.If we were dealing with common western transformers, it would be reasonable to assume that there are two primary windings, and they should be wired in series for 230v or in parallel for 115v. But that is not the case. For whatever reason, the chinese trafo factories prefer autoformer style primaries, so the 0-115v part of the winding is beefy enough to supply the whole VA rating, and the 115-230v part is wound with smaller wire. "CN" is meant to be tied to the chassis / earth. So in my situation, i am folding over the 230v primary lead and securing it with heatshrink, in case i some day sell this amp to someone overseas - don't want to just cut it impossibly short like Stax would have. Undecided how i will deal with the CN lead yet. The next concern is that both of the secondary voltages have two windings as well, and the phase is not marked. I view this as a dereliction of duty. But at the same time, no western vendor seems to have a similarly equipped transformer on the shelf, let alone at such a reasonable price. So the 220v secondaries have to be wired in parallel, and you have to match phase for that. It's best, at this point, to connect all of the leads on the transformer to terminal blocks. So they aren't just flapping around in the breeze and potentially shocking you or shorting to each other. Also, if you're a cheap bastard like me, sometimes you scavenge from broken junk. In north america, some small appliances - particularly fans for some reason - have cords that have an integrated fuse in the plug. Combine that with an inline cord-mounted power switch and a terminal block, maybe some wire ferrules, and you have a reasonably safe line cord for experiments. Anyway. Connect the secondaries to a terminal block and add a jumper between one lead from one secondary and one lead from the other, and measure the AC voltage between the leads that are not jumpered. If you measure roughly the sum of the volts of those secondaries, that means that you have connected them positive-negative-positive-negative (or reverse of that), so you can mark the first and third leads in that configuration as being the same phase. If you measure roughly 0 volts, that means you have connected them positive-negative-negative-positive (or the reverse of that), so you can mark the first and fourth leads as being the same phase. Works the same for the 6.3v secondaries of course. If you have a need to know whether dissimilar secondaries have the same phase or need to match phase to the primary, it's best to have an oscilloscope so that you can actually see the difference between positive and negative phases, but i expect that in this application we don't really need to know that much information. I think i will cut the 220v secondaries short, and solder them in parallel with one set of wires to connect to the power board. I may wire the 6.3v secondaries directly to the tube sockets. I will have to read up on the pros and cons of letting the heaters float vs. tying one side to 0vdc directly or through a resistor. The published schematic shows one side of the heater power tied to 0vdc.

Cut some big pieces of wood into smaller pieces of wood, which will then be made into bigger pieces of wood in the end. Been a while. Felt good

Just picturing some poor mastectomyed and liposuctioned duck wondering what the hell is next... Foie gras?

Getting ready for a trip to the Perigord by trying some local recipes. Grilled duck breast and duck fat fried potatos sarladaises.

Why not drink a cold beer at 10:20am on a hot Sunday?

I'll get my coat.

Cuck Dynasty Matriarch Dead at not soon enough https://people.com/phil-robertson-dead-duck-dynasty-star-was-79-11741649

Speaking of weather, we're now 11º above the mean for this date in the maximum temperatures, and 9º above in minimum. It feels like late July 😰. It's 10:20 am and I'd be drinking a cold beer.

Thank you guys! Wow we have some amazing visuals. Thanks for the cake and the message @swt61, for the card @skullguise, and damn, @Grahame them pics include everything I like, Audio Gear, Book, RPG elements, my flag and CATS! lots of them. Thanks a lot to all of you! Glad I'm back into the "case"

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday!

Asian Mango Salad 🥭 🥗 But because: Poolside with extra 🐔

Happy Birthday Özgür. V1.0 V2.0 V3.0

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/may/30/loretta-swit-actor-dead

Cheers - happy birthday

Happy Birthday!

That's what I'm thinking, there is just not enough gain here. The could compensate with transformers but that introduces other issues. You could compensate with the bias but that is a huge can of worms and will end with blown up drivers.

¡Feliz cumpleaños, Özgür!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday.

Happy birthday!

Happy Birthday!

Very Happy Birthday!