Is it possible to...

[Audiognome]

Hi Al,

no, you're not doing anything wrong at all, just ignore the centre tap.

Only thing to watch is the current (as Andrew is suggesting) - see the link which Colin posted above, if you're in any doubt.

Nigel.

[alnewall]

Thanks everyone.

Thats another one of lifes little mysterys cleared up. Hopefully.

[Bizzie]

Originally Posted by alnewall

Hmm, well ok.
Lets take the question a stage further.

If i ignore the centre tap and wire the two 55v taps to a bridge rectifier i get the voltage i was expecting, ie 167vdc when smoothed.

Its just that the circuit diagrams for rectifiers and supplies always show a transformer with a single secondary (0-110 etc) with a bridge, and never a 55-0-55CT which is what i have.

So is this going to be ok, or am i doing something fundamentally wrong.

I have already tried wiring the heater circuit of my akido headphone amp in this way and found that I got a terrible hum that I couldn't get rid of until I took the centre tap to ground and then the hum reduced to almost an inaudible level.

I have tried wiring as a full wave rectifier with the centre tap as - the the output from the diodes as + but then only get 3.5v max and although this works with no hum the heaters take too long to get up to temp.

I did find and answer with a google search but coudn't make head nor tail of the answer and they didn't post a diagram to help explain but it did seem to involve some capacitors from + to -.