I was about to toss out some old computer monitors, but thought to pull the flyback transformers for use in some of my high voltage projects. Question: Is there some simple trick to determine which pins are which? Maybe there is somewhere online that posts pinouts for more common flybacks found in more common monitors and TVs?
Also, maybe someone knows some cute trick to removing them from the circuit board? There's a lot of pins and they are soldered in pretty securely.
Dominic
Trace the circuit before you remove the tranformers. You should be able to extract the key pins that way, and all of it if you want to expend the time. Sometimes when tracing it helps to have a sample schematic, so you have a general idea of what you will be looking at. Figure out the driving circuit, indeed you may want to extract some of the driving circuit as parts, and the rest sort of falls into place (or you may not even care about since there'll be various lower voltage windings you don't care about).
Micahel
You can identify windings by checking for continuity using a multimeter.
If you have a signal generator and a 'scope, you can estimate turns ratios by injecting a small test signal; if not, I would say the OP has the best idea. The wire guage may also give you a clue: the high-voltage winding is probably finer wire.
I prefer de-soldering wick e.g. Servisol Soldamop. It just soaks up all the solder like magic leaving the area completely clean except for a very thin tinning.
Thanks for suggestions and they certainly make sense to me. I am actually a bit knew to electronics, but have university education. May I ask how to safely access this section of the board and if you have suggested books or, even better, online reading that specifies how to safely access the high voltage section? I suspect there are some commonly understood ways to go about this.
Dominic
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