[TheForge] Re: Generators

[Mike Spencer]

> http://www.lindsaybks.com/dgjp/djgbk/magneto/index.html  is Dave Gingery's 
> take on remagnetizing.

Yeah, I should just break down and get his book.  He's probably
smarter than I am. :-)

> ...in the Portland Oregon area there is a place that is called Wacky
> Willy's.

Just 4,000 miles from here as the pickup wends. I wish there *were* a
couple of good junk repositories near me.  The only good one within
100 miles that had electronic stuff got closed down because they were
scrapping navy surplus electronics with a sledge hammer. It's now
large berm inside a chain-link fence with Toxic Site signs all over
it.  Similar with the only good industrial junkyard in Halifax after
forty years of scrapping lead-acid batteries and letting the lead
salts and acid just soak into the ground.  Got some great stuff from
them before they turned into a smoking crater.

> I think that the voltage is irrelevant.  That much current at
> any voltage will cook you.  1 Farad is a LOT of electrons.

Yeah.  I think on the order of 0.1 farad would be plenty.  But voltage
isn't irrelevant.  A farad is one-coulomb-per-volt capacity.  More
volts pushes in and stores more energy.  But AFAIK, if you hook up a
capacitor rated for, say, 15 volts to a 120 V DC source, you'll likely
burn through the dielectric inside that keeps the plates apart,
possibly resulting in bits of the capacitor suddenly seeking remote
corners of the shop as various of its parts vaporize from the short
circuited current.

I have proof of concept in the form a battery/capacitor bank/coil that
will shoot the wrist pin from  a chainsaw three inches and/or make it a
very weak magnet.  I just need to crank up the ooomf [1] about 4 orders of
magnitude. 


- Mike

[1] Ooompf: one of those technical terms that makes your eyes glaze
    over before you realize I don't really know what I'm talking
    about.


-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^

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