[MRCA] [MMRCG] Easy DC to DC inverter

[Tim]

Hi Ray - I like your Build-Versus-Buy philosophy!
Here's a 120 VAC Inverter I built about 30 years ago to power Christmas
lights and the Margarita blender at remote campsites. (Roughing it..)
It generates a 60 cps square wave using a 555 timer and a CD-4013 plus
2N2222A transistor drivers for the IRF 130 MOSFETS.
The four transformers are 24 VCT 120V radio shack types...  It worked(s)
great with all junk box parts.  Some pix:

https://www.n6cc.com/wp-content/uploads/IMG_7186.jpg
https://www.n6cc.com/wp-content/uploads/IMG_7187.jpg

Cheers! Tim
N6CC

On Tue, Jun 25, 2024 at 8:11 AM Ray Fantini via groups.io <RAFANTINI=
salisbury.edu at groups.io> wrote:

> Some ideas work so well and are so simple is hard to wrap your head around
> them. Last couple years have been playing around with solid state inverters
> for powering tube equipment in the field. Recently Craig, N3TPM turned me
> on to this simple circuit, have also seen this several places on the
> internet so decided it was time to try it for myself. Near as I can figure
> it’s a multivibrator or at least that’s how I drew it. I have put together
> a couple of these on the bench and have to say that due to its low parts
> count and simplicity find it hard to beat. Uses a regular transformer and,
> in this case, using a center taped twenty-five-volt two-amp transformer and
> it develops 120 volts on the secondary all day long. The transistors are
> nothing special, just 2N3055 or the like from the junk box. Unloaded
> current drain is only around six hundred mills and with Rx being 680 ohms
> the running frequency is around sixty cycles, increasing Rx raises the
> frequency and lowering Rx decreases the frequency. When Rx is 250 ohms was
> running around fifty cycles and at 1.2 K was just above seventy cycles.
>
> Have not tried it yet but would like to see what this will do to
> substitute a mechanical vibrator, going to assume that it will work but
> have not gotten that far yet myself.
>
>
>
> Additional comments are commentary: Do not read if easily offended!
>
> Ok, so I know that there is a plethora of cheap Chinees crap out there
> that you can buy for nothing all day long but screw that stuff. Why buy
> when you can build? The advantage of this circuit is its low frequency so
> there are no big noise issues, it uses cheap junk parts and can be
> understood and repaired by anyone with minimal understanding of
> electronics, just try repairing or replacing something on one of those
> small micro inverters.
>
> Basic assumption: We do this because this is what we want to do, not
> because it’s easy, or cheap. If we were only interested in getting on the
> air and racking up contacts there are way better things then playing around
> with this stuff. Don’t know, maybe some feel they may not be up to the task
> of understanding or building their own but what better way to learn? Big
> advantage to working with a lot of this old military stuff or any vintage
> hardware is its bigger, easy to work on and easy to understand where as
> modern equipment that’s microprocessor driven or using LSI devices and
> surface mount technology are way more difficult to deal with.
>
> Least that’s how I see it, or perhaps I am just a victim of my own
> prejudices along with my own personal history and preferences, maybe in
> twenty years people will look back and regard these as the “Golden Days”
> when cheap Chinee’s junk freed us from having to use soldering guns?
>
> As you can tell it’s a slow day at work, and I have time to sit around and
> write up such dribble.
>
>
>
> Ray F/KA3EKH
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