Electromagnetics

My current goal is to create a working electromagnet that can move at least a fork or a spoon. Once my finish product is done I may donate it to Future City or I may keep it. 

The basic requirements for mine are,

1. A ferromagnetic core (I will add links)

2. Conductive wire (normally copper)

3. A switch

4. Something metal to test it with

5. And of course, An electric current

For an electromagnet you would need (commonly iron) core. Then you'd wrap wire around it. When you connect an electric current to either side of the wire it forms a magnetic field. As said by Northeastern University, "Electromagnets are made of coils of wire with electricity passing through them. Moving charges create magnetic fields, so when the coils of wire in an electromagnet have an electric current passing through them, the coils behave like a magnet." But, for my magnet I would like to turn it on and off not by connecting and disconnecting wires but rather a switch. That means I have to learn about electrics, and a bit of magnetics and just a small bit of electromagnetics.

An electro magnet is a form of magnet. What makes it different is that it has the ability to be turned on and off. The way it works is that wire is wrapped around a ferromagnetic core, in my case a bolt. The wire is connected to an electric charge. The windings are the key component to the magnetic charge. So the more windings the stonger the power. So on mine I wound it about 5 times.

My first test when hooked up worked just fine but I didn’t exactly love how weak it was. So in an attempt to make it stronger I made a second one. Yet this time I used brand new magnet wire. By the end of the class I had the wire wrapped and it covered in tape. I took both ends of the wire and touched it to a battery’s connections. The electromagnet worked magnificently; it picked up the bolt immediately and when the wires were disconnected the bolt dropped. So now that I knew that, I could start hooking up a switch. This process took me multiple days to finish with many things being the culprit of me not being able to finish as soon as I wanted. One of them being the wires were too short. So I sautered more wire to the preexisting wire. But I did finish. And finally I tested this final project. But somehow the electromagnet was slightly weaker. Assuming it was the battery that was the problem, I switched it out and tried again. And again, same as before, it was still weak. I tested all the connections in an attempt to find the problem. I found out the switch had a slight leak of power that was causing the problem. Even though it wasn’t as strong it was still working.  And so I left it at that.