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Making a pickup

Making another pickup... Below is my setup. The Fiskars hand drill is 3.5 to 1 ratio so 100 turns of the handle = 350 turns of the pickup.

I'm using nails for the metal part of the magnetic pickup and a flat rare earth magnet that will be glued to the bottom (the middle nail will be cut to length after I wind the wire). The nail heads are countersunk... which I learned from my last one needs to be done. I had tried nails last time thinking the flat head would be better than a bolt head, but it is still too tall. I think it will work better this time like this.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Now I need to find a cheap, easy way to count the revolutions of the pickup so I don't have to do it in my head.

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Permalink Reply by Eric Kasten on March 30, 2014 at 4:49am

A pedometer is a great idea (that's the one people wear to measure steps right?). But what is the reed switch?

Would one of those bicycle wheel revolution things work too?

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Permalink Reply by Skeesix on March 30, 2014 at 5:17am

What is the gauge of your magnet wire? If it's 42 awg, the arrangement shown in the photo will cause the wire to break. If it's thicker you may be able to get away with it.

You can use either a pedometer or calculator and a reed switch + magnet to activate it once every revolution. The calculator only works at lower speeds like your hand crank drill.

This is a pretty good tutorial http://behindthetone.com/johnfisher/counter/count.htm

If you wrap the wire tight enough, you don't really need to pot it. "Tight enough" is as about tight as you can make it without breaking the wire.

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Permalink Reply by Eric Kasten on March 30, 2014 at 9:53am

The wire is 40 guage. How can I modify this so as to reduce the likeliness of a break? This is the second pickup I'm doing with this setup and I had no breaks on the first... but anything I can do to reduce that risk is helpful.

Good link. Thanks. Where can I find a reed switch? I will look on ebay... I like that idea.

The sire is wound pretty tight I guess.... but I'm not an extremely knowledgeable source... lol... The first pickup sounds good. I didn't notice noise. How would hot glue or epoxy work?

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Permalink Reply by Skeesix on March 31, 2014 at 9:02am

You would do like the others are saying and set the magnet wire on the floor and let the wire slide off the reel vertically. Be sure to feel around the edge of the reel to make sure it's very smooth. I ran into this on one of mine. There was a bit of plastic flashing sticking out at the parting joint causing the wire to break. I just sanded it off with fine sandpaper.

You can pot with a variety of things including wax, lacquer or epoxy. There was a post on this recently and some people reported using super glue. I don't think hot glue would work as it wouldn't saturate into the coil.

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Permalink Reply by Eric Kasten on March 31, 2014 at 11:08am

I'm adding a new mount for the mag wire. It will sit 90 degrees from how it is in my pictures and allow the wire to slide off as if it was on the floor. I will take a photo when finished.

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Permalink Reply by Eric Kasten on March 30, 2014 at 1:06pm

Found reed switches on ebay... ordered one. Will pick up a cheapo calculator this week and build the counter!

THANKS for the help!

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Permalink Reply by Eric Kasten on March 31, 2014 at 11:10am

Picked up 2 calculators from the dollar store. They have a thin plastic film that the contacts are stuck on... maybe painted on. Anyway the soldering to this film as well as soldering to where the film contacted the chip failed on the 1st calc. On the second calc I just stuck thin sire through holes in the film where the painted on contacts are and ran the wires out the bottom of the calculator. A quick test and it works. Will photo it when I get the reed switch and all set up.

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Permalink Reply by Eric Kasten on April 3, 2014 at 4:16am

Got my reed switches in the mail yesterday. But also came down with a fever... Will be back out in the garage tomorrow... this weekend at the latest.

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Permalink Reply by Eric Kasten on April 7, 2014 at 1:14pm

Sorry for the slow reply... Picked up 2 more calculators from Wally World and both of them also have the film under the buttons instead of a board. The one I was going to use (film type) is too iffy. Will maybe order a pedometer... I hope to have better luck.

Up to 1350 turns on the pickup..... slowly but surely....