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Re: [TowerTalk] Test Fixture for Common Mode Chokes

To: towertalk@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Test Fixture for Common Mode Chokes
From: "Jim Lux" <jim@luxfamily.com>
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2026 09:56:23 -0500
List-post: <mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
        



The tolerances on inductors wound on  toroids (even the special #31 mix) are 
surprisingly wide for people used to buying components with 1% or 5% tolerances 
as a matter of course - we’ve gotten spoiled with modern component 
manufacturing.

Not only is there batch to batch changes, there are dimensional changes (not 
such a big deal on a 2.4” toroid, but significant on a little 3mm one) - and 
changes with temperature.
And how the winding is done.

I ran into this when looking at using commercial “beads” (long skinny tubes) of 
31 mi as a part of a wideband wire antenna design.

 


On Fri, 23 Jan 2026 14:58:37 -0800, Jim Brown <jim@audiosystemsgroup.com> wrote:

<snip>
My only fault with Steve's work, and it is a critical one, is that his
choke designs failed to take manufacturing tolerances into account. The
problem with that is that the NiZn materials have such high Qs compared
to Fair-Rite's #31 material, which is a very special MnZn material,
whose characteristics DO allow repeatable designs IF those tolerances
are taken into account. My designs were done after measuring nearly 100
#31 cores, selecting four at the limits of their complex
characteristics. When I did the same with 40 #52 cores, purchased over a
month or two from four franchised industrial vendors in lots of 10, I
could not repeat his designs.
<snip>


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