For my final year engineering project, I needed to make an inductor. Now that the context is provided, let's jump straight into some tips for designing.
There are a lot of sites that will tell you about how to choose an inductor core. While they are helpful, if you already have an idea about things, but if you're completely new to hardware designing they can be incredibly confusing, and frankly a waste of time.
1. First of all, decide the value of inductance that you need. Take it as your nominal value. Next, decide the range of inductance that you will be okay with. Designing your own inductor, especially if you're new to the game like I am, getting the perfect value is too perfect a coincidence to occur.
The requirement of nominal value and the range of inductance will come in handy later on.
2. You can choose a variety of shapes for your inductor core like toroidal, EI, EE etc. What I learnt that making a toroid is risky business. This is because, in the toroidal shape, the wire turns will be closely packed along the inner diameter of the toroid, and will have spaces between the turns along the outside. This space can introduce stray capacitance. But don't let this bog you down. If you're ready to experiment, don't hesitate to make your toroidal inductor and share your observations on it.
3. Since you're designing the circuit, you already know what voltage value you're using. This is known as the DC Bias. You will also know the value the current that is going to flow in the circuit and through the inductor. You can use this information (as stated in multiple sites) and make a preliminary choice of core shape.
4. Once you have done this, choose the kind of core that you want. Make a list of cores designs you're okay with. Eg. EE65-13 (That's what I have used) etc. Once you have done this, visit the website you will be buying the core from, or the shop you're going to purchase it from. Look at the available choices and take one that is one or two sizes smaller. This is because you can make multiple layers of turns but making an incomplete layer of turns wouldn't be the ideal case.
There are a lot of sites that will tell you about how to choose an inductor core. While they are helpful, if you already have an idea about things, but if you're completely new to hardware designing they can be incredibly confusing, and frankly a waste of time.
1. First of all, decide the value of inductance that you need. Take it as your nominal value. Next, decide the range of inductance that you will be okay with. Designing your own inductor, especially if you're new to the game like I am, getting the perfect value is too perfect a coincidence to occur.
The requirement of nominal value and the range of inductance will come in handy later on.
2. You can choose a variety of shapes for your inductor core like toroidal, EI, EE etc. What I learnt that making a toroid is risky business. This is because, in the toroidal shape, the wire turns will be closely packed along the inner diameter of the toroid, and will have spaces between the turns along the outside. This space can introduce stray capacitance. But don't let this bog you down. If you're ready to experiment, don't hesitate to make your toroidal inductor and share your observations on it.
3. Since you're designing the circuit, you already know what voltage value you're using. This is known as the DC Bias. You will also know the value the current that is going to flow in the circuit and through the inductor. You can use this information (as stated in multiple sites) and make a preliminary choice of core shape.
4. Once you have done this, choose the kind of core that you want. Make a list of cores designs you're okay with. Eg. EE65-13 (That's what I have used) etc. Once you have done this, visit the website you will be buying the core from, or the shop you're going to purchase it from. Look at the available choices and take one that is one or two sizes smaller. This is because you can make multiple layers of turns but making an incomplete layer of turns wouldn't be the ideal case.
