Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Build Micro-hydro Generator: The Stator

1.       Prepare a jig for winding your coils by cutting a 3 cm by 16cm piece of cardboard, folding it in half and securing with a small piece of electrical tape.

2.       Cut 8 short (4 cm) strips of electrical tape and set these aside.

3.       Leaving a lead of about 10 cm, start winding the first coil on the jig. Wrap the wire neatly onto the jig, forming a tight coil. Use 200 wraps or turn

4.       Carefully slip the coil off the jig and secure it using two pieces of the electrical tape you set aside in step 2 above.

5.       Using a small patch of emery cloth or sand paper, remove the enamel insulation from the ends of each lead, exposing about 1 cm of bare wire. Be sure the wire is completely bare!

6.       Repeat steps 1 through 5 to make three more coils.

7.       Lay the coils loosely on the disk in the position shown by the template. Arrange the coils so their windings alternate between clockwise and counterclockwise, as shown on the template. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT! Arrange and connect the coils so that an electron would follow the path shown by the arrows, starting with the counterclockwise coil on the left hand side.

8.       When you are sure you have them arranged correctly, connect the coils by twisting the bared ends together, covering the connections with small pieces of electrical tape.

9.       Check your connections: Set your multi-meter for measuring electrical resistance (ohms). If your connections are good, there should be little resistance to the movement of electrons, and the meter should produce a reading of about 10 ohms or less. To check this, touch or connect the probes to the two free ends of the wires from the coils. If the coils are not properly connected, the reading will be a very large number, or infinity.

10.   Once you are confident the coils are properly positioned and connected, glue them to the stator disk. Lift each coil up a little and apply a large blob of glue to the template where the coil touches. Let the glue solidify before gluing the next coil.

11.   With the utility knife, cut 4 slits through the cardboard between the magnets as shown on the template. These slits will be used to fasten the stator to the plastic container later.

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