Thanks B.L.E.
Buthat is why I am puzzled.
I see no “loop” It appears to be like a letter a E (set on its points).
Unless the rocking armature touches the middle pole.
(I suppose it could pivot against it.)
I’ll have to remove the glass bowl and look closely.
Thank you.
The lower bar doesn’t have to be in physical contact with the E to be part of the magnetic circuit. Anyone remember using iron filings on a piece of paper to visualize the magnetic lines.
B.L.E is essentially correct about the Focult or eddy currents in the washers except that they are in effect for both a rising and falling magnetic field. Think of each washer as a shorted, single turn, secondary transformer winding. As the magnetic field in the center core increases or decreases a current is induced in the washer. The current creates its own magnetic field that opposes the field in the core. This has the effect of slowing the rise and extending the fall of the center core’s field strength.
I would recommend a bit of caution if you decide to add coils on top of the coil. If shorted the current could be quite high, if open the voltage could be very high.
Thanks, M.
The center pole DOES extend below the bakelite cover terminating into a metal block which almostouches the rocking armature. It appears 0.5 mm from touching.
I assumed that if not physically touching, flux conductivity would be inefficient.
The center pole block spreads right and left almostouching the right and left coil pole blocks. All are the same width as the rocking armature.
When I gethis finished, I will measure theffect of adding copper coils - made from #12AWG Romex wire I retained for scrap recycle.
I can justwistheir ends to shorthem.
From the Lionel “mee-mool” light (Railroad crossing signal) I removed one of the little light bulbs.
Powered by a bag phone cell phone charger (12-VDC 400MA) the relay operates withouthe bulb filament even glowing! (Snap is too loud which is why I added the lightbulb in series.)
The washers have a tendency to jump whenever a magnetic field is applied to the column:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=Pl7KyVIJ1iE
An interesting demonstration of Lenz’s law using glass and aluminum tubes and two bar magnets:
Adding a bar (from another such relay) spanning the top three cores SLOWS the flash rate.
Connecting a NE-2 neon tester across the coils reveals a brief glow from the collapsing field voltage spike from the LEFT electrode, then from the RIGHT.
(Stillooking for a bare NE-2 around here.)