The item in photo is a coil of 20-gauge copper wire (with enamel or varnish insulation), is 12 inches in diameter, weighs close to 5 pounds and has a resistance of about 25 ohms. The coil is wrapped with electrical tape. Appears to have been homemade. Found it in a box of electrical odds & ends which I rescued, to keep some potentially good (?) stuff from going to the landfill.
I would have gone with a degaussing coil ! It looks a bit like the ones we had 30 odd years ago. Having said that when I was at school I recall some apparatus with a similar coil used for demonstrating the principles of magnetism.
It does look a good bit like commercially available degaussing coils. With CRT monitors being well on the way toward the same end as the dinosaurs, it's probably not worth even experimenting to see if it works for that task. Also, if my measurement of 25 ohms is right, it would pull about 4.5 amps when hooked up to 115 vac outlet. Guess that would make me a little nervous. Possibly a very brief activation is all it takes though. Anyway, thanks much. Maybe the best use for this item is taking it to the metal recycler!
Since the reactive part of the impedance is lossless, the slick part is that the coil will only be dissipating power in its resistance, and with 967 milliamperes going through its 25 ohms, that comes out to:
P = I²R = 0.967A² * 25R ~ 23 watts.
So, while it'll warm up somewhat, I'd bet that it wouldn't get can't-keep-my-finger-on-it hot no matter how long you left it connected to the mains.
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