Electrical wire help needed.

[The Buddha]

I am looking for a 24 guage wire spool. However it has to be a proper nearly perfectly wound block of coil, 2 inch ID by 3 inch OD by 3/4 inch length. If its epoxy coated as a block, even better.

I am wondering if anyone knows what its called or if its even available.

I plan to wind my alternator rotor with it.
Thanks.
Cool.
Buddha.

[DoD#i]

It's called magnet wire, but it's a wee bit confusing that on the one hand you want a pre-made, epoxied "block" (that's called a coil, by the bye) and on the other hand you say you want to wind your alternator with it (when we speak of winding, we mean winding, not stuffing a pre-made coil in a space).

You can have custom coils wound by others to specified dimensions, but that's naturally not cheap. You might get lucky and find a pre-made coil of dimensions to suit you. Finding 24 gauge magnet wire and winding your own is likely to be the most cost-effective route. It's slightly tedious, but not actually difficult. $3.99 + shipping for 100 feet from this place. $6.35 for 204 feet. $12.55 for 408 feet. I didn't really shop, that's just the first place I found, so you might be able to do better on price.

http://www.action-electronics.com/magnetwire.htm

Here's a nice page on home-brew coil winding (for a different shape coil, but the ideas translate nicely)

http://www.otherpower.com/stator.shtml

[The Buddha]

OK I should explain. Yes its magnet wire, enamelled copper wire.
Its not windable. Its a split clam shell type magnet. Center spool comes apart so any hand winding will get pinched and not even let the thing close.

The thing has to be a block 2 inch ID, 3 inch OD and 3/4 inch length already made and coated with heat resistant stuff made with 24 guage wire - ~250 ft length.

I believe it is called a self supported coil or an air core coil. I will chase your links too but I am finding several places that sell it. I have to call and get the particular size and stuff checked and buy one.
Thanks for the links.

Cool.
Buddha.

[DoD#i]

If you can find one fitting your specs to buy at a reasonable price, go for it.

If you need to make one, it's quite feasible. You make a 2 inch disk from 3/4" thick material, and scribe a 3" circle on two larger pieces of material. Clamp together with a winding crank, disk in the middle. Wind until you hit the 3"circle, then either epoxy it right there (if you made your circle and side plates from something epoxy doesn't stick to - plastic cutting board, for instance, or wood heavily waxed before winding) or transfer the wound coil to a mold for encapsulating. If you get the right magnet wire, you can actually just tie the coil and heat it (they make "self-fusing" magnet wire where there's essentially a layer of hot glue outside the insulation layer).

[The Buddha]

OK radical shift here. OK I have questions but still a shift.

Can you tell me how much magnetism a coil like that 2 X 3 X 3/4 of 24 guage wire hooked up to 12V battery, and of course pulling ~2 amp will pump into a clam shell style rotor ? Its 4 prong per pole, 3.6 inch dia rotor ...

Cos I am thinking of making a 3.6 inch OD aluminum donut, drilling and fitting it to the crank, radially drilling 12 1/2 inch deep holes drilling deeper @ 1/8 and threading it. Then I buy these mondo 1/2 inch OD, 1/4 inch ID X 1/2 inch length neodymium magnets and screw them in N S --- 12 of them ... 6 pairs. 38-45 magnet power, 12 of them, 6 pairs ...

Now, will steel be better than aluminum for the donut ?

So will it power my bike up ?

I figure 35-40 watts are eaten by the electromagnet, so in the 200 watts I have in the old alternator, pretty much 150 is all that is in the system. All I have to do is make it generate that much and I am golden.

I will have to switch to a GS style regulator with a heat sink capacity, cos the xs one simply turns down/cuts off the power to the rotor brushes instead of actually dealing wiht the extra current.

Cool.
Buddha.

[jeremy_nash]

is it not feasible to modify an alternator off another motorcycle to fit the xs?   sorry, I'm no help

[The Buddha]

Yes but, Inherently that method is more clunky. It requires a bracket to hold the stator and some contraption to mount and index the rotor on the crank and you can forget about timing that thing with the standard methods on the 80+ ones. The earlier points based crap run spark timing off the cam. So those are modded easier for the banshee stator. But I got a 82 ... crank trigger is needed for it. My case, I index and drill and glue another magnet there and I am golden.

No this method is far better IMHO. A 4 inch aluminum round rod cut, drilled and drilled 12 holes radially, then small bolt holes in those holes will do the trick. The neodymiun magnets are stronger for power by a factor of 10 compared to the GS magents and they are tougher than hardened steel. So much so, I cannot machine it. 1/2 inch OD, 1/4 inch ID, 1/2 inch length puts out 3000 gauss at 1/8th inch distance. Freaking enough to suck the filling out of your teeth.

I am thinking I need to tone it down ... so I will run just 6, or 4, or 8. or 10 ... really ... people are going just nuts with these and wind power ... These are like 10 times the power of the GS junk. Heck, if the GS magnet fails or you get goats, take it off and glue/bolt 12 of these on the stock rotor and voila, instant massive electrical power ... enough power to jump start a small country.

Cool.
Buddha.

[The Buddha]

OK I am a bit confused.

Magnetic field strength is given by B = Mu X N X I / 2 (a)

I believe a is in meters and its the radius of the coil, and its somehting like 3cm average so it will be .03m.

I am gonna say I = 2, N is 350 or so turns so we have MuX350/.03.
Mu for iron and I think its near pure soft iron cos it has no residual magnetism, so its 6.28 X 10 power -3. Henry per meter.

So its 73.2 tesla.

Of course the clam sheel design will add to that 3cm diatance.
And the fact that the coil is inside the prongs of the clam while the core of the clam is inside the coils - that essentially reverses the magnetism in it makes it all prolly 50 or so atleast ... given that I can lose ~10% from that atleast, maybe 20% ... I need atleast 35-40 tesla in my magnets.

The neodymium magnets put out 1/2 a tesla ... ergo, I need 80 of em.
I am thinking of runnign 12 and seeing what that works like ... but looks like I may be farting to compete with thunder.

Cool.
Buddha.

[DoD#i]

The divisor is actually length, not radius. Here's a better than average (yet still leaves a few things lacking) discussion of it. I haven't bothered to dredge up my books to refresh details (falls into the "I learned it, barfed it back for tests, and never used it so I mostly forgot it" part of education.)

http://instruct.tri-c.edu/fgram/WEB/B-Coil.htm

[The Buddha]

Length would be ~3 X that. I have accounted for that ... however the length can be weird  cos its bend back over it.

In fact that will sorta kill the magnetism too a bit wont it.

I am approximating heavily in my favor and still need ~20-25 tesla. I am getting 1/2 per magnet.
need da-bling 50 of the suckers and where do I even fit them. Gaaa and crowding them tight will kill each other. I  have to have atleast 1/2 inch between the 1/2 inch magnet. Oh that is another place where they lose, they are so close and they are wedge shaped poles too, not at all discrete.

OK I guess I have them on efficiency. I can line up 2 of these 1/2 inch like poles tight up against one another and 1/2 inch down have the other set of like poles. K that is 24 magnets for a whopping 12 tesla.
Lets just hope I have temperatire on my side and efficiency and I can machine by hand it so its closer to the coil and really really make for more efficient one.

Cool.
Buddha.

[The Buddha]

Oh a coil makes more power with a nice discrete north - south pass doesn't it. Not like the weird northlike, then south like then north like ... and 4 of these per cycle, but i am hitting it with 6 sharp north, south per cycle.

Maybe 12 tesla will be enough.

Cool.
Buddha.

[The Buddha]

Oh I had another question.
Is the magnet with the North pointing to the coil supposed to leave the coil before the one with south enters the coil ? cos if so I may have to cluster the bloody things. I cannot have more than 4 each prolly.
Cool.
Buddhe.