Re: Small gauge secondary works!

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: Ed Phillips <evp-at-pacbell-dot-net> 

"Original poster: Troy Peterson <troypeterson-at-shaw.ca>

Any tips on hand winding really small coils? I've got 5 pounds of 40awg
magnet wire around here.. I've wasted  probably half a pound of it
trying
to wind a tiny secondary....  I think it would be cool to make a really
small coil with something along that line though, like you said - small
and
easy to find capacitors n' such.

Cheers,
Troy"

	A year or so ago I wound a small secondary (1-1/2" dia by 7" long) with
#39, almost as small.  I ended up holding the form in my lap, turning it
with my right hand, and feeding the wire onto the form with the left
thumb.  Taped the wire to the end of the form to start and then just
turned the form by hand while guiding the wire with the thumb to keep
turns from overlapping.  You can sort of "feel" the wire as it comes
onto the form and keep sliding it sideways to keep the winding snug.
Kinda lousy description but it does work if you are patient enough.
This method of controlling wire feeding works very well for larger wire
and a form on a hand-turned winding jig.

	Should mention that for wire this small you want to stand the form on
the floor and let the wire unwind over the end (making sure it's smooth
with nothing which can catch the wire).  High-speed commercial coil
winders use this method and guide the wire off the form with a plastic
funnel.  The wire ends up with a twist this way but for small wire that
doesn't hurt anything.

	All of this takes incredible patience but, since you have plenty of
wire to wasted, I think you can wind a good coil if you are careful
enough.  Note that mounting the coil on a spindle and still turning by
hand will make the job a lot easier.

Ed

By the way, I've never seen such a large spool of wire that small; 1
pound is the largest I've been aware of and most are smaller.  Where did
it come from?