Hi,
Does anyone have any ideas of making amorphous iron in the garage? This could possible work for the MEMM core since it would most likely have nano size domains.
The idea of heating iron to molten level does not sound attractive, and then cooling it within microseconds to achieve the amorphous stage. Yikes! Any ideas? Supposedly the only method to achieve such rapid cooling is by limiting the iron to a thin wire, which is fine, and then perhaps rapidly pouring some cold liquid over the iron.
Another idea is to make amorphous iron powder. This could be mixed with a binder to make an amorphous iron powder core. It might be easier to create such powder iron since you can don't have to worry about cracking the iron during the flash cooling stage. This would allow you to basically hit the molten iron with a high power flow of cold liquid.
Regardless then resulting iron would have to pure, like 99.9+% pure. Perhaps another problem is preventing the liquid from appreciably reacting with the iron.
Is this realistic? Best to just buy the amorphous powder iron, but where?
Thanks for any input.
Regards,
Paul Lowrance
I just posted the above, but came across an interesting technique ->
http://www.vacuumschmelze.de/dynamic/en/home/researchampinnovation/processtechnology/vacuuminductionmelting.php
I'm wondering how difficult it would be to make a vacuum induction melting pot. Not sure if it does any good to put the iron in a vacuum to help remove impurities if I'm just going to be pouring a liquid on it.
Regards,
Paul Lowrance
Hey Paul, sorry if I got you distracted with the amorphus cores.... I have some links to suppliers, I'll see if I can dig them up...
-art
Thanks Art. I'm trying to find out if amorphous magnetic material has atomic size domains. If true then it should work better than even nanocrystalline cores if the amorphous material has similar saturation & permeability.
How cost effective are these amorphous cores? Hopefully better the metglas. :)
Regards,
Paul Lowrance
Quote from: PaulLowrance on October 10, 2006, 02:03:02 PM
Thanks Art. I'm trying to find out if amorphous magnetic material has atomic size domains. If true then it should work better than even nanocrystalline cores if the amorphous material has similar saturation & permeability.
How cost effective are these amorphous cores? Hopefully better the metglas. :)
Regards,
Paul Lowrance
Hi Paul,
Would powdered magnetite work for the type of core that you want? You can probably buy it on ebay pretty easy.
What about "black sand"? Does that fit in?
If an arc were to be struck under water between electrodes of the right material (viz Jean Louis Naudin's bingofuel etc) would the shock of the changing temperatures do it? Or heating up the material and dropping it into dry ice?
Paul R.
Hi Liberty,
Powdered magnetite could work if they were nano size particles. Is there such a small mesh size powder? I've seen 300 mesh, which is around 50 microns (um). I think 10 nm would be something like 2,000,000 mesh.
I've heard of nanocrystalline magnetite and I used to think it was very common, but it seems this greatly varies in nature. Anyhow, it would definitely pay off to at least try. Wouldn't it be great if the "smoking gun" design core consisted of grabbing a small bucket of dirt, sifting out the magnetite by placing a PM certain distance from dirt to collect magnetite, and then mix some binder purchased at a local hardware store. :)
Hi Paul-R,
I believe black sand consists of Hematite, and/or Magnetite, and/or Maghemite. We could easily separate Hematite thereby leaving both Magnetite and Maghemite, which is fine.
Any recommendations on a binder? Would some type of epoxy work?
Regards,
Paul Lowrance
Both Ron Classen and the Mullers (?Mollers) used epoxy resin for a similar purpose, I reckon:
http://www.theverylastpageoftheinternet.com/ElectromagneticDev/Ron_Classen/coil%20cores.htm
Paul R.
Quote from: PaulLowrance on October 11, 2006, 10:50:27 AM
Hi Liberty,
Powdered magnetite could work if they were nano size particles. Is there such a small mesh size powder? I've seen 300 mesh, which is around 50 microns (um). I think 10 nm would be something like 2,000,000 mesh.
I've heard of nanocrystalline magnetite and I used to think it was very common, but it seems this greatly varies in nature. Anyhow, it would definitely pay off to at least try. Wouldn't it be great if the "smoking gun" design core consisted of grabbing a small bucket of dirt, sifting out the magnetite by placing a PM certain distance from dirt to collect magnetite, and then mix some binder purchased at a local hardware store. :)
Hi Paul-R,
I believe black sand consists of Hematite, and/or Magnetite, and/or Maghemite. We could easily separate Hematite thereby leaving both Magnetite and Maghemite, which is fine.
Any recommendations on a binder? Would some type of epoxy work?
Regards,
Paul Lowrance
Hi Paul,
I think your issue will rather be how to make a magnet domain only that small, rather than particle size of the magnetite powder. The magnetite that I have is about like the toner you would find in a 300dpi laser printer. If you could make magnets using the size of the magnetite powder particles, you would at least be able to test your model to see if it will work.
I would think that no matter what size the particle is, it will bind together with other particles when you try to magnetize it unless physically separated. Smaller particle size could be an enhancement for later improvement. You might use a filler to separate the particles, but then you loose the magnetic ability of the powder because it is so spread out. A bit of a catch 22.
I hope it goes well for you.
Best wishes.