This might blow your mind

[Magluvin]

Picked up some fresh reeds at Radio shack. Had 2. Broke the glass on one. I try to handle them carefully, but oh well. Like when bending the leads, it is best to grip the lead with small pliers/needle nose, closer to the glass bead end, and bend the other end how ever. The bending stress can crack the glass quite easily.

But RS only carries the reeds in reed relay form. Just straighten the leads and slide out one end. But this one was tight. So I used the needle nose to try and widen the opening, carefully, as I keep the rest of the relay in tact, for later uses. But the plastic housing broke very easily, and poof! Guess what? 



The reed is ok   Soldering it in now.
Mags

Way more than I expected       thought that was funny

[Magluvin]

Here is the setup with my old bifi, till my wire comes.
The led is yellow. Trying different ones. They all seem to light.
More tomorrow. Was hot today. Im beat.

Mags

[TinselKoala]

If you put a tiny capacitor in parallel with the reed, as close as possible, it will make the reed last longer, especially if you are using the reed to switch any substantial inductance directly.
When the reed opens, the energy stored in the magnetic field of the inductor wants to keep the current going as the field collapses, and this makes a little arc at the reed contacts when they open. This will result in erratic performance, complete opens (nonconduction) or complete shorts (contacts welded closed) in fairly short order. You can absorb this rush of current into a little capacitor and prevent it from damaging the reed.
If you are just switching TTL levels and using the reed to actuate a buffer stage, especially CMOS, and there isn't too much wire involved, your reed can last a long time without a parallel capacitor, since the inductance will be small and currents low.

I still think you are gonna need a battery, though.

[Magluvin]

I was wondering on that. I originally wanted to put it together without the breadboard like Z had his. But I may have changes to make and wanted the flexibility to change things quickly, just while I am getting used to what is happening. I twisted the leads to the read to reduce inductance there. Ill try the cap on the reed though.

Really just trying things. Like distances from mag to coil and how far out does the led light. The distances in the vid( and Mopozco vid  huge) is a good bit from being very close. Even Romero had some distance, compared to conventional gen and motor armature/stator spacing.
So here we have some consistency as to the necessity of that spacing being very tight or loose. So I take these things into consideration.

I havnt had any issues with the reed. The 2 I had before going to get the poofy ones, one I broke and the other worked but was visibly burned on a previous project, and probably better to get new ones. I have lots of these big reeds also, but they are not as quick on and off. Even the ones I have may not be of the same characteristics of many others of its size. But I gota start somewhere.

Anyways, I understand what your saying.  And thanks for the help.

Mags

[tomperrino]

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