GAWD, I *HATE* winding these freaking things! Out of ALL the Amateur Radio activities I do, winding toroid coils is at the all-time absolute BOTTOM of my enjoyment scale. I'd rather work on antennas in a blizzard (and I have...) than wind these abominations. Yeah, I know Toroidal Inductors have high inductance for their volume, they're self-shielding, and have a whole slew of other neat properties, but GAWD, what a PITA they are to wind!
When I built my Elecraft K2 transceiver, I bought the coils prewound from "The Toroid Guy" for about $35, and when I bought the 100 Watt amplifier module, I again bought the prewound cores for about $40, and it was money well spent, every penny of it!
The latest kit I'm (still!) building is an LP-100 Digital Vector Wattmeter, which is an excellent piece of equipment. It gets rave reviews over at eHam.net, it's extremely accurate, and has a PC interface so you can capture the data, and make all kinds of Geeky plots of neat things to know about your antenna system.
It also has two toroids to wind.
Now as toroids go, these don't look like they'd be particularly hard to make. The cores are a couple of inches in diameter, the wire is a decent sized gauge, and there's only 26 turns to wind. He even gives you a very clever way to mark the cores, so you can get the windings on "just right".
Yeah, right!
Well, any way, after fighting one for about 20 minutes, I have it wound, but now I have to straighten the windings on the core, then put the bushing through the center so I can mount the core(s) in the coupler housing.
Gawd....I *HATE* winding toroids!
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Yawn....just more Kabuki Theater, but interesting reading, nonetheless. Read All About It Here.....
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Every so often when I'm checking my PiAware ADSB receiver/display I'll notice an aircraft with a flight path that catches my eye. I...
Quit holding back & tell us how you really feel!
ReplyDeleteMy first job out of high school was as a RFI/EMI technician. The company designed and manufactured filters for the Minuteman Silos (yes - that long ago). I remember winding lots of toroids in those days. I'll never forget one of the supervisors telling me to put enough turns on a 3 inch core until it looks like a baboon's a-hole.
ReplyDeleteYes - toroids can be a pain in the butt and resemble one too. :)
I wound one of them before dinner, and told my wife "I'd cuss at the other one later!", but decided to wait until tomorrow to do it.
ReplyDeleteI have a saying in things like this... Pay the Man :-)
ReplyDelete