Tapping

A tapping is mainly used in a transformer. Here, the primary winding as well as the secondary winding can contain several tappings. One or more tappings on the primary winding of the transformer enable different primary voltages to be supplied, whereby only one output voltage is transformed. An example of this is a transformer used for the European market as well as the American market. Different voltages prevail in the areas of application. In the European market it is 230 volts and in the American market 120 volts. By tapping the primary winding, the transformer can be used in both scenarios. Likewise, the secondary winding may contain one or more tapings. The secondary winding has taps when multiple output voltages must be generated from one input voltage. Furthermore, there is a special type of tapping, the center tapping. In this case, the winding of the secondary is split and tapped after half of the windings. This type of transformer is used as an output transformer for push-pull output stages and for feeding a two-way rectifier.