Jim Harvey (UDN) wrote:
Jimlux, Interesting approach that I had not thought of. Thanks for the suggestion. It can be adapted to very large diameters without much trouble. I would put a roller on top pushing down to create a three point support.
It works even better on larger diameters. The nice thing is that it effectively provides a "gear down" of the drive motor. Usually, the weight of the secondary is enough, and if not, you could always put some weights into the tube while winding.
The limiting factor is the wire tension, which tends to pull it up off the rollers.
For a small diameter (3-4"), one way is to have a trusted assistant and a battery powered drill motor (e.g. your DeWalt or Makita), and a long piece of 1/4"-20 threaded rod, some endcaps for your pipe that you drill through, and one or two improvised v-blocks. With a drill motor, winding 1000 turns only takes 10-20 minutes, at most.
Setting up a fancy (or not so fancy) coilwinding jig and controller would probably take longer than buying your assistant a beer, and certainly longer than actually winding the coil.
Even handwinding 1000 turns on a 3" form is something that only takes an hour or so, sitting in front of the TV.
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