Imhotep's Lab Interactive FAQ

I'm building a new SS-IRO and I need some help with component
selection. I have 2 large solenoid coils (off a pair of industrial valves)
which are about ~450 ohms each, and the external connection wire
is #14 AWG or maybe even #12, but I doubt the internal wire is that
big, seeing that the coils are around 4" diameter and length. But,
these 2 coils are the largest finely wound ones I have seen and should
give good results for CEMF and IRO usage.
I have several pounds of 6010 welding rods for cores, around 14" long
and this allows room for external pickup coils (I have some theories to test)

I want solid state oscillating, with adjustability. and for future iterations,
I would like on times in the microsecond range for testing the
Newman Theory using coil lengths in the range of a few miles of
wire! Furthermore, I want this first version to handle voltages in
the 100+ range, I believe I have seen component values up to
300V commonly?

Anybody feel free to jump in. Wish I was more "Electronics Tech" sometimes

Hi Mate,

Sounds like some monster coils. If their resistance is that high then they are likely a very fine gauge, AWG 30 or smaller perhaps.

Ok so you want to oscillate these things in solidstate mode using transistors yes?

For starters, the high resistance will choke your amp draw something fierce. This may be what you are after, but I have always found a lower resistance to be more powerful in its ability to charge larger batteries, of course at the cost of more input.

I will assume that they are not bifilar which will pose a problem in triggering it correctly. You have a few options.

A) Rewind the coils bifilar.

B) Piggy back off another bifilar coils trigger signal (not always ideal)

C) Use a PWM chip or IC to trigger your transistor. (What I would most likely do, be helpful if you had a scope for this though)

I cant offer too many suggestions if you choose to use relays unfortunately.

If you do choose to rewind you can use JB's solidstate schematic, which is in some ways even easier to build than the SG circuit.

If you want to piggy back off another coils signal you will need to post the specs of that coil.

If you want to use a PWM or 555 etc I can show you some basic schematics. The beauty of this option is you can specify frequency and ON time MUCH easier than the other two.

Let me know what you think.

Regards

Woot! thx, I will reply more properly this weekend,

THANX REN!!! YOU ROCK!