I am trying to make a solenoid. I would like it to be fairly powerful, and by that I mean, perhaps a couple pounds of force. This is what I have done (and it didn't work so well.)
1. I bought some nylon rod as well as 34 gauge magnet wire.
2. I turned the nylon rod to be a spool on my lathe.
3. While the newly made spool was in the lathe I rigged up something to allow me to wrap the magnet wire around it while it was spinning.
4. I bought some "soft iron" with supposed permeability of 50,000 and turned a plunger out of it on the lathe.
5. When I was done wrapping, I measured the resistance to determine the maximum current I could put through it and powered it with enough voltage to be roughly 65% of that (the max current was like 50 mA since the gauge is so small). I also calculated a rough number of turns. It was a little shy of 8000.
The solenoid was very weak. First I tried it with a bolt, and then with the plunger I made and it performed the same. Where did I go wrong? Was it naive of me to think I could make a powerful solenoid this easily? I once heard you're supposed to wrap the wire very orderly with no overlap over loops. Is this correct? Is it because I need thicker gauge wire? I have used commercial solenoids that pull a couple amps. What gauge is typically used?
Thanks for any replies!
1. I bought some nylon rod as well as 34 gauge magnet wire.
2. I turned the nylon rod to be a spool on my lathe.
3. While the newly made spool was in the lathe I rigged up something to allow me to wrap the magnet wire around it while it was spinning.
4. I bought some "soft iron" with supposed permeability of 50,000 and turned a plunger out of it on the lathe.
5. When I was done wrapping, I measured the resistance to determine the maximum current I could put through it and powered it with enough voltage to be roughly 65% of that (the max current was like 50 mA since the gauge is so small). I also calculated a rough number of turns. It was a little shy of 8000.
The solenoid was very weak. First I tried it with a bolt, and then with the plunger I made and it performed the same. Where did I go wrong? Was it naive of me to think I could make a powerful solenoid this easily? I once heard you're supposed to wrap the wire very orderly with no overlap over loops. Is this correct? Is it because I need thicker gauge wire? I have used commercial solenoids that pull a couple amps. What gauge is typically used?
Thanks for any replies!
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