Lifon 157-0042B or Lifon 157-0042C anyone

[janczmok]

Hi,

anybody got a spare Lifon 157-0042B oder C ? Mine seems very corroded - no issues yet, but i want to make sure ....

 

[eraser]

You are a few years late. They used to go for $20 or so. Today you are lucky if you can find one for under $150.

 

[joshc]

Replacement flybacks can be sourced from spare analog boards. It's quite hard to find them on their own.

 

[eraser]

Replacement flybacks can be sourced from spare analog boards. It's quite hard to find them on their own.

Yeah, although the results are mixed. I've bought analog boards for their flyback and found that they had already started arcing or were nearing the end of their life. It's the analog board lotto.

 

[joshc]

Yeah, although the results are mixed. I've bought analog boards for their flyback and found that they had already started arcing or were nearing the end of their life. It's the analog board lotto.

Yeah, but there aren’t new ones available either, so it’s a lotto either way.

 

[eraser]

Yeah, but there aren’t new ones available either, so it’s a lotto either way.

There are NOS ones on eBay right now. You just got to pony up the money ($150).

 

[janczmok]

I didnt found anyone on ebay.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

What is it about flyback transformers that make them so hard to make nowadays? We've seen other hobby parts be reproduced in modern forms (like certain failure prone chips in vintage systems, portable hybrid, etc). I know there has been some discussion before about making new ones, but how come it's seemingly not reasonably possible? What makes them different from any other transformer?

 

[eraser]

I didnt found anyone on ebay.

This is the replacement flyback:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/121655780759

What is it about flyback transformers that make them so hard to make nowadays?

A flyback transformer is custom for the circuit and purpose. It serves a precise function in the circuit and you can't replace it with a generic part like you can with a capacitor or general purpose transformer. I have spoken with a few engineers as well as a few in the community like MacEffects. The general feedback is that it would be something on the order of $25,000 just for the engineering plus whatever it would cost to actually manufacture a really custom piece of electronics hardware. The costs spiral from there.

It's doable for sure, but who is going to pay for it? Is the vintage Mac community large enough and ready to pay the costs like the arcade community has been for their flyback projects? We've not entirely exhausted our supply of flyback transformers yet so it's not a crisis point. In addition to that there are other questions like what happens when we have a supply for flyback but run out of CRTs? Those have a limited lifespan too. As an aside I have anecdotally heard that for the arcade community that the newly manufactured flyback transformers are not nearly the same quality as the originals. Whereas the originals lasted for decades the new ones seem to last only a couple years. The community projects are awesome but aren't hitting the same quality levels of a fine-tuned assembly line turning out millions of them for a global corporation like Apple, Sony, Samsung, LG, etc ...