Home made enameled wire ???

Pure cooper wire is so hard to find, I don't even know why you would consider such a dastardly act.

There's stuff called "Q dope" sold for this purpose. It's just a variant on clear nail polish. Modern coatings on mass-produced magnet wire are superior to anything you can get at home. The 'Beldsol' variant allows solder-through, which I find convenient.

When true varnish was used on copper wire, it was backed up with a wrap of cotton (because the varnish developed cracks and wasn't reliable).

No, it isn't "sold for that purpose". Q-dope is for high voltage NODES. That would be the exposed connections between two endpoints on a conductor in an HV circuit. It is made for sealing those exposed nodes. NOT for "enameling an entire wire". It's just a

GE had a paint, called Glyptal, that they used on electric motor, I wonder if that would be any good.

I'm not sure if I'm going to try making my own enameled wire, but if somebody had done it in an easy and effective way, I might be tempted. The ideas I had so far are not "easy and effective".

Thanks

Short quantities of high temp enameled mag wire are available. Then all you have to insulate with glypt or q-dope are the nodes which should already be on your list of things to do. GC Electronics has the red HV "q-dope" or whatever their brand is. Several hundred volts per mil breakdown strength on that one.

Red Insulating Varnish

Since I'm making strips of .060" thick and .500" wide and since it doesn't wind too well, I think that I am going to do like Tim Williams did and wrap a winding of maybe 10 turns one on top of the other with insulation in between and put 3 winding side by side and connect them in series. It's probably the most efficient way to use the space that I have around the core anyway.

Thanks everyone

When I made mine, I think I made 8 double edge coil sets. Each started with the middle of a ribbon section diagonal across the bottom of the slot in a wooden form wide enough for two coils, side by side. I wound the two ends of the ribbon into one of the coils, with the ends at the outside. Then I removed the wooden form and tied the coils, wrapped them with mylar tape and epoxied them into a solid unit. I stacked 4 of these on one of the E stacks, with thin spacers between, to allow for some cooling air to get to the bottom, and epoxied the coils onto place. I trimmed the coil ends so that each overlapped the end of its neighbor, and lap soldered then in series. This way, I could connect the coils on one E stack either in series or in parallel with the coils on the other E stack.

If this doesn't make sense and you want to understand this example, let me know, and I will take the camera out to the shop and photograph the ugly monster. It has never been prettied up, with one half just sitting on the other, with a thin slab of plywood or something between the halves. But I have been welding with it, off and on, for about 20 years. It works very well, with my buzz box and a rectifier, giving a very quiet arc with almost no splatter. With some rods the flux forms a smooth scab that curls up and falls off when the weld cools (wish I could remember what kind of rods those were), leaving a nice clean bead. That never happens with AC feed.

M. Popelish

You lost me at "When I made mine"..... Seriously, I think I get a general idea. A picture would be nice though, I always like to see how people put things together. I often get idea from other people's idea.

Thanks

My huge inductor...

Since photos are not allowed in this group, and you have also been discussing this construction in Yahoo groups, Electronics 101, I'll get a photo posted there is a few days. I'll let you know when it is available.

Good, I can't wait to look at your contraption.

Thanks

Wrapping in polyester film, or polyester adhesive tape allows winding flexibility of flat conductors, if sharp edges are not present. With adhesive tape, placing a layer on one side only can be sufficient.

RL

What is polyester tape used for? Is it specifically made to wrap wire? Is it readily available?

Find the yellow 3M "transformer tape". The adhesive forms seals that cannot be beat. Another brand name is "Permacel".

One example.

Hard to find in small lots though.