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How can we make our electromagnet more efficient?
We built an electromagnet and we need it to hold up 4oz screw for about 60 seconds on a 6V battery. The problem is, the magnet uses up roughly a tenth of a volt per second, and we think it needs to stay above 3 or 4 volts to hold up the screw. What can we do to optimize the efficiency? Use thicker wire? User more or less loops of the wire around the core? Less wire? Pleas help!
PS: we MUST use a 6V battery.
2 Answers
- 1 decade agoFavorite Answer
use thinner wire and a lot,lot more turns on your coil, this should reduce the current taken from the battery but still give a strong magnet as you have more turns on your electomagnet which will make up for the reduced current.
You could also wind your coil on an 'horseshoe' shaped piece of metal where the two ends come close enough to bridge with your screw, this produces a much more efficient magnetic circuit.
good luck
- BenLv 41 decade ago
If you can't change your wire thickness to increase the current (because you only bought one roll of XX gauge..) then you can wind several coils in parallel (look up 'bifilar winding').
