Power supply regulation

[rippersoft]

I am building a power supply from salvaged parts off a 9 track tape unit. The transformer puts out 60VAC from the secondary and is at least 1KVA. I want to regulate the power down to 24-30VDC to use with stepper motors and HobbyCNC driver board.

There are many DC/DC converters out there $$$. There are voltage divider circuits. There are many ICs that can give me the output regulation, but cannot handle the 60VDC input.

My question is which way should I go to get the 60VDC lowered to an exceptable level so that these regulator ICs can be used and not burn up alot of amps lowering the output voltage of the transformer?

Thanks for the help!!!

[Al_The_Man]

There is not to many ways to do it efficiently, is it a square lamination type or a Toroid transformer? if the later then you can usually take turns off, it is a bit harder with a square laminated type, but can be done and is the most efficient way, you mention 60vac and 60vdc, if it is 60vac that would give you around 84VDC. The secondary is usually wound last so it is usually easy to take turns off, if a square type, you would have to measure the AC accuratley as possible, and then take a measured amount off, say 10 turns and measure again and see how many turns/volt the transformer is wound in.
Al