Big Huge Watts Tube Audio Turrets

[The New Steve H]

Now that I've made my first turret amp, I've decided I love turrets. They keep the leads off the board, and you can wind stuff around them when you can't stuff it in the hole.

I got myself a bunch of the wide turrets from Watts Tube Audio. Wondering what other people think of them.

It's funny; sometimes we're told to use 20-gauge wire, and then we're supposed to cram several wires plus leads into a single turret or eyelet. Am I the only one who finds this impossible? I'm sticking with 22-gauge Teflon as much as I can.

[M Fowler]

I use those turrets as well. I wrap my components around the turret and leave the hole for one 20awg wire some times you can get two in a hole.

For the power supply I sometimes double up on turrets if three or four wires are going to be attached, or use a larger eyelet instead of turrets. If your making your own board you can mix it up with different size turrets and eyelets as needed.

Mark

[The New Steve H]

I got a tool for cramming them into the board, but I didn't get the tool that goes under the board. I hope I don't need that other thing.

[Structo]

Hey Steve,

Don't worry about using 22 gauge wire, if you look up the current handling on a AWG table it says that 22 ga. can handle 7 amps.

It should perform well in the preamp.

I would use 20 ga. in the power amp if it is high power.

http://www.cablesandconnectors.com/wiregauge.html

[kwijabo]

i had used pcb express for a few amps, then RJ installed turrets for me on the l'pool-clone. i found those ones to be useful for that clone, but thought a couple sections got a little tight.

so for my last build i used those double wide turrets from watts. they were fantastic. first of all they were easy to solder to and secondly the inner diameter is quite spacious. actually maybe even too spacious for a single, 1/2 MF resistor. so i like mark's idea of using different sizes and possibly eyelets depending on # of connections/components.

[ToneMerc]

In the beginning I found that I wasted money on the insert tool. I use a drill bit dia. that allows a press fit of the turret into the board, thus I don't need the holder. I flip the board over, resting the turret heads on a 3.5 x 11 x 1/2 alum plate. I then
swage the ends using the swage tool, either the commonly found one or a center punch tool that I reground.

TM

[The New Steve H]

Thanks for the gauge info. I put heavy wire on the heaters and anything that might conceivably carry current. That's about it.

I think using big wire is actually bad engineering. We're used to thinking in terms of overbuilding, but heavy wires put pressure on the components and can snap things off. I like the way the flexible 22-gauge wires give. It's not as pretty as heavy wire with crisp angles in it, but I'll bet the amps will last longer.

The little pins on my octal sockets do NOT like stiff wire. I know that for a fact.