hello everyone,
I have been reading daily and think I have some good questions!
For starters, can somebody explain better the primary/secondary winding situation? What I mean is, sometimes you see them using "air cored" windings, and they will wind the secondary BELOW (I think?) the primary on the same "air core". And sometimes you see the two windings separated by iron "rods", with space between primary and secondary. I found many beginners guide(s) but they all seem to glaze over the winding part, don't really explain where or how to wind them, or on what (sometimes it is vague- "use iron core" or "powder iron core"). I found an CFL driver circuit that uses a transistor and 3 coil windings to illuminate a CFL, and it appears that ALL THREE of the windings are together on one single iron core? that that make sense? It uses "flyback voltage".
2. And then they discuss "insulating layers" and "sticky tape". Again, very vague and hard to "See" what they mean. Should I make a neat pass of windings (one layer) and then wrap painter's tape around them, then make another row and so forth? that seems to be the routine but its so vague I am not sure.
3. WOuld 0.1mm copper/enamel wire be suitable for a 50turns : 500turns ratio (approx 800volts "flyback" from a 12v battery I believe) or should I use something thicker.
4. Can I use multiple windings to take say, the 800volt "flyback" from an additional secondary winding (so 1 primary and 2 secondary windings on the same iron "core") and wire them in series for 1600volts?
So far I've learned alot about: transistors, oscillators, diodes, Zdiode, capacitor, resistor, magnetic flux, positive feedback, Integrated circuits, gating, basically all the novice/beginner terms, but I have to construct anything useful. Most of what I want to make contains capacitors and windings which I am still fairly clueless how to use effectively. The phasing of the windings is also a little bit confusing to me, because if you wind them on the same iron rod by hand it seems impossible to get them exactly straight. I am thinking of setting up a dremel to help me create my high voltage secondary windings.
My ultimate goal is to understand enough to design my own injector/ignition driver circuits for controlling a modern EFI engine (1990-2010 era engines) so I am concerned greatly with the operation of inductors, and high voltage capacitive discharge circuits for controlling combustion in an engine. Everyone keeps discussing the magnetic field, collapsing, I never see much discussion of the electric field though. Arn't the electrical and magnetic components of current flowing in a wire perpendicular?
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It will be both educative and entertainment to design a transistor oscillator with a hand made low power transformer - the voltage can be high but the current can be low (must be very low) and you will not get a shock. Transformers (most of them) do not have cancer causing parts/ elements and they can be very small because they will not be handling much power.
Let me repeat this back to you the way I think you wanted me to design something (so you can check it for me)
By wiring a coil in with a transistor and capacitor/resistor in a specific way, there will be an oscillating current on the collector/emitter side as the transistor turns on and off, responding to the voltage potential held between the base and the capacitor(?). Is this the circuit you had in mind?
By manipulating capacitors and resistors the timing and shape of the waveform is adjusted, and there are probably an infinite number of ways to further adjust such oscillating circuits. The output, or amplification of the circuit (collector/emitter of one single transistor) contains the alternating current with some frequency f, with the 'basic' transistor turning on at 0.6v on the base and using about 0.2v to operate (a 9v source will show 8.8v on the turned on collector/emitter circuit).
You mentioned a transformer though. So one of the coils will have another coil on top of it(this is where Iam kind of stuck), with more turns to drive a secondary circuit at much reduced current but higher voltage? That is what I guess you meant to do, is it correct?