Metropoulos Forum

Let the wire sit for 5-10 minutes after winding. Use your hands and turn it snug as it will try to unturn. Then carefully unturn the entire line leaving the turns as best you can.

Its easier to unturn from BOTH ends BTW.

Re turn about 3 inches and leave enough for the hook up at pin 2 and 7 on V7. Put a nail at the split point on your board and fasten the wire with a pull tie.

You can see I've maked all the pins on all the socket tracings straight to V1. This gives you the correct turn ratio as it changes. Count your turns to see what fits best.

Get ready for some fun....

As you turn you come to pin 2 on V6. Leave a small loop about 3 inches and bring the loop onto the BACK of the turn, or the OTHER side from where it came off. Continue with a few turns afterwards. Next take that loop and turn it COUNTERCLOCKWISE. Hold the base or "spine" as I call it. It should fit perfectly. Takes a little practice so you should try this with some other wire first.

Continue along and try to get a best fit between the sockets counting the turns to keep things equal. The pin 7 leads need to be a little longer so leave about 5 inches. Twist the same as before. This allows turns in between the pins as well, where most leave straight. The advatage of using a board is that the back wall is not in your way. Done correctly, this works evey time and is perfectly straight. You can do this and replace an entire heater harness with minimal component removal.

Leave the leads to pin 9 on V1 to V3 a little longer. They have to travel a little further,

Remember, the leads comming off the main spine have to be turned opposite. COUNTER CLOCKWISE. The spine is clockwise.

Do a dry fit in the chassis and cut leads to length. Allow length for the curves. You can unwind the leads to the pins(make sure you unwind the lead itself, clockwise to straighten). But, this works really well to leave them wound. On the power tubes I found it was ok to leave both leads on pin 7 going in from the same side, but on pin 2 I have the 2 split going in from different directions. Just much easier to fit and solder.

You get this. I may shorten the pin 9 leads on V1 -V3.

Also made a little board for the extra PT voltage wires. Soldered from behind and double heat shrinked. Stripped wire goes straight through the turret and put a little hook where it comes out of the front hole. Fill entirely with solder. Got a little staking tool off ebay for $20. Works great for little jobs like this.

Dude, thank you so much for inspiring me to do this. Took me only half an hour to do the whole she bang even with hand twisting. Much faster and neater than cutting them into pieces.

Your winds are counter clockwise. Lefty?
So your offshoots to the tubes will be clockwise. cut the tops of the loops and they wind easier.
Grab those loops clockwise. Perfect heaters by hand. Sweet:
Fun stuff!

I'm righty, held the wires by right hand and twisted them by left one. Yeah that was really fun. Last time I spent almost 2 hours cutting and twisting them segment by segment in between the sockets and it took forever. Now I could do this all day . It's strange never having seen anyone has done it this way. This should be heaters wiring standard. Thanks for inventing it!

My Xmas lights are going to kick ass this year.

vanhalen5150 wrote:My Xmas lights are going to kick ass this year.

Nice work! Great method, very well thought out.

wow, perfect technic ! very neat build !

Xplorer wrote:wow, perfect technic ! very neat build !

It looks a little overdone really. I need to get back on this build. Its been sitting idle for ever. Im actually going to use all Xicon yellow box caps in it now.

Ok, back at this. Nobody down in the 12000 section since June 24/13.


Blew the cobwebs off this morning. Took out those heater wires. Decided I'm going to do the across the sockets with a back chassis twist. Like the Suhr amps I've seen.

All Xicons yellow box caps and modern resistors. May need to change some turrets on one of Brian's brown boards (BBB's). The leads are a little short.

Change the turrets location, or lengthen leads?