Anyone for rusty transformers?

[Thermionic]

A while back I came across a post on the 'web, where it was claimed that Rupert Neve ordered a specific thickness of rust on the cores for his "pumpkin" transformers used in the Neve 9098-series consoles.

Can anyone elaborate on the reasoning behind this? It strikes me as a fascinating concept, and knowing what an academic science transformer design is, it wouldn't surprise me to find out that this was the case.

Allegedly, rust on the core affects hysterisis curves in a negative manner, have I interpreted that sentiment correctly?

edit: According to this Link, rust insulates the laminations from one another, so that would tend to suggest the Rupert anecdote is not a marketing myth.

Anyone?

Cheers,
Justin

[Geoff_T]

Originally Posted by Thermionic

A while back I came across a post on the 'web, where it was claimed that Rupert Neve ordered a specific thickness of rust on the cores for his "pumpkin" transformers used in the Neve 9098-series consoles.

Can anyone elaborate on the reasoning behind this? It strikes me as a fascinating concept, and knowing what an academic science transformer design is, it wouldn't surprise me to find out that this was the case.

Allegedly, rust on the core affects hysterisis curves in a negative manner, have I interpreted that sentiment correctly?

edit: According to this Link, rust insulates the laminations from one another, so that would tend to suggest the Rupert anecdote is not a marketing myth.

Anyone?

Cheers,
Justin

Hi Justin

Sounds like urban legend to me... it would be hard to define an equal degree of rust and far simpler to put a thin coating on one side of the laminate.

It's almost as good as the guy that posted on RAP years ago that Neve consoles were built out of melted down Lancaster bombers!

The Lancaster was replaced by the Lincoln in the late 40's and then the 50's V bombers took over defence of the nation. It's very unlikely that material from the Lanc hung around 20+ years.



PS Many years ago (early 60's) I worked at a company that made automatic motor control gear, both ac and dc. The ac contactors used laminations in the solenoid part that pulled the contacts together and the laminations, which the company stamped out themselves from stock material, had a green oxide like coating on one side.

That coating could be any colour the company chose so maybe there's a brown version that was mistaken as rust?

[poncival]

If it was an oxide-like coating, maybe it got nicknamed "Rust" like the iron oxide we like to record on