Romex as Coil Wire??

[wdesilvey]

One of my local free HDD mag sources told me yesterday that a 12-14 ga romex is ok for coils. If so, well, I have gobs of that stuff around. Any Advice??

[Tritium]

The insulation takes up a great deal of space and will not handle much heat generated in the stator before it fails. Might work for a "toy" as a learning tool but not in a serious machine.

Thurmond

[wdesilvey]

Thanks for quick reply! This guy is the owner of one of the (dwindling number of) computer repair shops in nearby Salina, KS.

I told him I had around 75 ft of stranded copper wire ( about maybe 12 strands of 16 ga per cable) that I had burned insulation off. He says that cleaning then multi-dipping in polyurethane will provide ample and proper insulation.

He says he lives completely off the grid, having built a few turbines on his own. So, what say the folk here??

[wooferhound]

What is the voltage rating of Polyurethane insulation ?

[wdesilvey]

Unknown. Cant seem to find it on the specs, tho I have sevearl differnet cans/types on hand. Also have some of that high $$ clearcoat left from a repair project on my truck last year.

And, what of this Plasti-Dip sprayable insulation? (Have some of that too, but no max temp listed there either!)

Thanks!

[vawtman]

I think what Woof is telling you is to buy the right stuff for the job.

Mark

[TomW]

Ok, heres my thinking on this.

You recycle some wire, recoat it wind it into coils. You have a pile of time into this by now.

You toss about $200 to $300 at magnets for one of the standard DanB style mills here.

You mount the magnets assemble the alternator. Now you have, say, $300 in this project, 80 or more hours of time.

It fails due to a short in a thin spot of insulation, heats up and destroys all the coils / stator due to a cascade failure from the heat during a high wind event. Oh, your tower is bent and your blades are trashed because the melted stator lost all the conductors in it and the turbine freewheeled itself to destruction and because one blade departed the prop early on it hammered your tower to a pretzel shape and destroyed the rest of the prop.

Now don't you wish you used the right stuff[magnet wire]?

Do you want us to give it to you straight and we get called names for discouraging you? Or. Do we just tell you "its gonna work fine"?

You can always find someone online to tell you "it works fine" but they probably either got lucky or "heard" it.

Just thoughts from the negative waves department.

Tom

[wdesilvey]

OK! i AM a tell it to me straight kinda guy. If it aint gonna work, pls tell me!!

[ghurd]

"He says that cleaning then multi-dipping in polyurethane will provide ample and proper insulation".

How much money do you make per hour?

How much time does it take to clean the wire?

How much time does it take to "multi-dip" the wire?  Don't forget about dry time and the complications related to 500' or 1000' of wire.

What is the cost of the polyurethane?

"free HDD mag sources" means tiny magnets?

How good will properly insulated #14 magnet wire work with those magnets?

What kind of RPM, turns, magnet volume, etc, will it take?

Free-ish wire is (insert word of choice).

How much money does HE make per hour?

He thinks it is a good idea, right?

Offer him half the going rate per pound of magnet wire, and you supply the wire.  Offer him $5.75 for 80 feet of multi-dipped, properly insulated, #14, magnet wire.

That's about half what our sponsers sell real magnet wire for.

If HE thinks it is a good idea, maybe he could make a lot of money selling magnet wire?

Did HE use wire treated as he suggests you use for his windmills?

What plans did he use for his windmills? (bet he stutters on that one)

Is it 3 phase?  How many magnets and coils?

HE is feeding you bad info?

Yes.  I am grouchy.

Today I burned out $20 worth of switches making a $30 item.

Or you could believe it will work fine.

I am not offended, I expect the others are not offended either.

Pretty much just calling "bad info" as "bad info".

G-

[jonas302]

used wire not a great idea  if you need to use used for getting started  at least unwind a moter or something and salvage the proper wire I think if you google search the board there are some people doing this and a few made really nice wire straiting devices

I can't even think how you would clean and coat a wire and clearcoat from your truck is way to brittle to work

[jonas302]

http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2008/3/1/0139/02555

[wooferhound]

exactly, there is no voltage or temperature rating. I got my wire off of eBay for CHEAP Cheap cheap

If you make you own wire to save cost, and it shorts out an blows up, then you rebuild it right, how much does it cost then?