Regardless of what a person needs a magnet for, it can easily be made at home. When such a thing is at hand, with its help you can not only have fun picking up various small pieces of iron from the table, but also find useful applications for it, for example, to find a needle dropped on the carpet. From this article you will learn how easy it is to make an electromagnet with your own hands at home.
A bit of physics
As we remember (or do not remember) from the lessons of physics, in order to convert an electric current into a magnetic field, we need to create induction. Inductance is created using a conventional coil, inside which this field arises and is transmitted to a steel core around which the coil is wound.
Thus, depending on the polarity, one end of the core will emit a field with a minus sign, and the opposite with a plus sign. But polarity does not in any way affect visual magnetic abilities. So, when physics is over, you can begin decisive actions to create the simplest electromagnet with your own hands.
Materials for making the simplest magnet
First of all, we need any inductor with a copper wire wound around the core. It can be a conventional transformer from any power supply. An excellent tool for creating electromagnets is the winding around the narrowed back of the picture tubes of old monitors or televisions. The wires of the conductors in the transformers are protected by insulation, which consists of an almost invisible layer of special varnish that prevents the passage of electric current, which is what we need. In addition to these conductors, to create an electromagnet with your own hands, you also need to prepare:
- Regular battery for one and a half volts.
- Scotch tape or electrical tape.
- Sharp knife.
- Weaving a nail.
The process of manufacturing a simple magnet
We start by removing the wires from the transformer. As a rule, its middle is inside the steel frame. You can, having removed the surface insulation on the coil, simply unwind the wire, dragging it between the frames and the coil. Since we do not need a lot of wire, this method is the most acceptable here. When we have released enough wire, we do the following:
- We wind the wire around the nail removed from the transformer coil, which will serve our electromagnet with a steel core. It is desirable to make turns as often as possible, tightly pressing them to each other. Do not forget to leave the long end of the wire at the initial turn, through which our electromagnet will be powered to one of the poles of the battery.
- When we reached the opposite end of the nail, we also leave a long conductor for washing. The excess wire is cut with a knife. So that the spiral wound by us does not dissolve, you can wrap it with tape or electrical tape.
- We clean both ends of the wire coming from the wound nail from the insulating varnish with a knife.
- We lean one end of the stripped conductor to the plus of the battery and grab it with tape or electrical tape so that the contact is well maintained.
- We wind the other end in the same way to the minus.
The electromagnet is ready for operation. Having scattered metal clips or buttons on the table, you can check its performance.
How to make a more powerful magnet?
How to make an electromagnet with more powerful magnetic properties with your own hands? The power of magnetism is influenced by several factors, and the most important of them is the electric current power of the battery that we use. For example, having made an electromagnet from a square battery of 4.5 volts, we will triple the strength of its magnetic properties. A 9-volt crown will give an even more powerful effect.
But do not forget that the stronger the electric current, the more turns will be required, since the resistance with a small number of turns will be too strong, which will lead to strong heating of the conductors. With their strong heating, the insulating varnish can begin to melt, the coils begin to be shortened on top of each other or on the steel core. Both will sooner or later lead to a short circuit.
The strength of magnetism also depends on the number of turns around the core of the magnet. The more they will be, the stronger the induction field will be, and the stronger the magnet will be.
We make a more powerful magnet
Let's try to make a 12-volt electromagnet with our own hands. It will be powered from a 12 volt mains power supply or from a 12-volt car battery. For its manufacture, we will need a much larger amount of copper conductor, and therefore we should initially remove the inner coil with a copper wire from the prepared transformer. A grinder is the most excellent way to extract it.
What we need for manufacturing:
- Steel horseshoe from a large padlock, which will serve as our core. In this case, it will be possible to magnetize the pieces of iron at both ends, which will further increase the lifting capacity of the magnet.
- Coil with copper wire in varnished insulation.
- Insulating tape.
- Knife.
- Unnecessary 12 volt power supply or car battery.
The manufacturing process of a powerful 12-volt magnet
Of course, any other massive steel pin can also be used as a core. But the horseshoe from the old castle will do just fine. Its bend will serve as a kind of handle if we begin to lift weights with impressive weight. So, in this case, the process of making an electromagnet with your own hands is as follows:
- We wind the wire from the transformer around one of the horseshoes. Put the coils as tightly as possible. The bend of the horseshoe will interfere a little, but that's okay. When the length of the side of the horseshoe ends, we lay the turns in the opposite direction, on top of the first row of turns. We make a total of 500 turns.
- When the winding of one half of the horseshoe is ready, wrap it with one layer of electrical tape. The initial end of the wire, designed to be fed from a current source, is displayed in the upper part of the future handle. We wind our coil on the horseshoe with another layer of electrical tape. We wind the other end of the conductor to the bending core of the handle and on the other side we make another coil.
- We wind the wire on the opposite side of the horseshoe. We do everything in the same way as in the case with the first side. When 500 turns are laid, we also output the end of the wire for power supply. To whom it is not clear, the procedure is well shown in this video.
The final stage of making an electromagnet with your own hands is feeding to an energy source. If this is a battery, we extend the ends of the stripped conductors of our electromagnet with the help of additional wires that we connect to the battery terminals. If this is a power supply unit, cut off the plug going to the consumer, strip the wires and fasten the wires to each one from the electromagnet. Isolate with electrical tape. Plug the power supply into a power outlet. Congratulations You have made a powerful 12-volt electromagnet with your own hands, which is able to lift loads over 5 kg.