On Mar 19, 2025, at 10:30?AM, avinoam83 via groups.io <avinoam83@...> wrote:

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Does this wire look good to you? They don't sell multiple colors, but I should at least be able to tell if I removed the enamel.

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Also, do you perhaps have a photo of what you mean with the transformers?

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Thanks!

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On Sun, Mar 16, 2025 at 07:56 PM, Jim Bennett / K7TXA wrote:

Folks, after having build at least three QMX rigs, three QMX+, and uncountable number of QCX+ and QDX, I thought I'd share with you a couple tricks / tips that have helped me save a bit of time.

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First, winding T401, that trifilar toroid. You'll see that the instructions tell you to wind three lengths of the supplied wire together, then separate the ends, remove enamel insulation from the ends, and then identify which ones pair up on either side of the donut. Fairly easy to do, except that in the process of removing enough enamel from the ends to get a good solder joint you may find that you've mixed up the wires and have to get your multimeter out and check for pairs again. Make your life a little easier - use three different colors of enameled #28 wire. No need to worry about that pairing up process. No, Hans only supplies copper colored wire, but a spool of #28 or #26 wire on Amazon costs very little. And as a bonus, you'll have enough left on those spools to build a bazillion kits!

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Second, why not make your enamel scraping / removing process on ALL of the toroids easier? I stopped using the supplied wire and use that colored stuff on ALL of my toroids. You'll still have to scrape it off, but it sure as heck is a lot easier to tell if you got the gold/red/green (or whatever color you bought) enamel off sufficiently as compared to removing copper colored enamel from copper wire!

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Third, and this one is a trick I was tipped off to by Stan Dye. It is the use of lead cutoffs on transformers T501 and T507. These two guys have multiple leads to solder to the board. And believe me, if you've messed up either one of them and have to re-do it, you are not looking at a fun job. Removing one of the other components on the board is hard enough - usually only two leads to remove. These two dudes have five and six leads to solder, respectively. Mess up either one and you have multiple leads to try to unsolder and then figure out how to install the repaired component. Well, this trick (I hate using the word "hack" - that's what I do with my machete in the jungle) is to solder in a cutoff component lead in each of those 11 holes, rather then the leads from T501 and T507.? There is no enamel scraping to do or worry if you've got enough removed for a good solder joint. When you've wound your T501 and T507, simply scrape off enough enamel to solder to the appropriate cutoff lead that is now sticking out of the board, kinda like a porcupine quill. Should you have to re-do the winding on either of those two transformers, it is a simple matter to snip off its leads from the "quill", re-do your transformer, and then connect it to the quill. Two things to watch out for: be sure the quill is not too long - you don't want it sticking up so far that it hits the top of the case (or the bottom), and secondly, be sure it is not touching another component on the board.

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Anyway, those tricks work well for me and have made my QMX+ kit building a lot easier.

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Jim / K7TXA
Eagle, ID

SKCC 10447T
BUG 301