Noticing a resurgence of toroid winding anxiety lately and saw Tom Hammond's
(N0SS) excellent tutorioal on how to strip the leads, at his suggestion,
here's the technique that I use to wind them -- I use the same stripping
method(s) that Tom explained in his post.
If your wife won't part with hers, go somewhere that sells sewing needles
(pretty much any department store or hobby store such as Wally World,
K-Mart, Target etc.) and get yourself an assortment of sewing needles. Pick
the ones that have eyes big enough for the different sizes of wire that you
plan to use. I don't remember the needle #'s anymore, but probably you
should get ones to fit #30, 28, 26 and 24 gauge wire. Any bigger wire than
#24 is stiff enough that the needle would just get in the way.
Once you have the needles, if you are as fumble fingered as I am (read that
as age 63, drink too much coffee and cant see well anymore), you better
either file or grind the points off the needles. Certainly keeps you from
having to bandage your fingertips a bunch of times. Now, if you're diabetic
like me, your fingertips are pretty insensitive anyway due to frequenct
testing of blood sugar (involves sticking your fingers with needles anyway).
Once you have your needles and have blunted them to your satisfaction,
simply measure out the required length of wire as called out in the manual
and add about an inch. Thread the wire through the appropriately sized
needle, and fold it back on itself. You can even twist it a bit to keep it
from slipping out of the needle. (That's what the extra inch is for.) Next
start threading the needle through the hole in the toroid and pull each turn
snug (remembering that each time the wire passes through the center of the
thing counts for one turn) but don't pull so hard that you break the wire.
You should also be careful not to overlap the turns as well, as you will
want to spread them out so they cover about 85-90 percent of the core. This
isn't too critical, and if you accidentally overlap a turn or two, in most
cases it won't seriously affect the performance of the coil, it just won't
look as pretty.
When you have the required number of turns wound on the core, simply take
your wire snippers and trim the excess lead length to what's required, and
strip/tin them using Tom's technique. After doing a couple, you'll wonder
what all the fuss was about anyway.
Anyone having further questions, feel free to email me off list.
73,
Jim Sheldon, W0EB
Wichita, KS
[hidden email]
_______________________________________________
Elecraft mailing list
Post to:
[hidden email]
You must be a subscriber to post to the list.
Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.):
http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
Help:
http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htmElecraft web page:
http://www.elecraft.com
Locked
