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I've seen Litz wire used on a ferrite rod radio antenna. Just curious if anybody uses it and if it gives much better performance?
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Hi.Originally posted by Mike(Mont) View Post
Litz gives better Q. If the lrl needs hight Q then you must make coil with litz wire.
I have 2 lrls that use litz at coils and work better with it.Geo -
a photo.......Attached FilesGeoComment
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Wish I knew more about electronics. Why do you need a high Q and why don't you always have it? Is it more useful at higher frequencies. Thanks.Comment
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Hahaha .....Originally posted by Mike(Mont) View Post
Mike, wish i knew better English so to explain you....
Q is the quality factor of a coil.
If we need a "thin" bandwith must use high Q, else must use medium or low Q.
Q depended of the resistance and capacitance of the coil. I think that you will find everything about it at google..GeoComment
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Thanks Geo. I think I understand. Narrow bandwidth means sharper tuning.Comment
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Yes ......
with few words higher Q.. better signal and lower noise.GeoComment
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Seems like every coil should use litz. I bought some 330/46. I didn't want to cut it up until I knew what I am doing first. Going to build an air core loop. Thanks for your help!Comment
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Built a new coil today using litz wire. It's difficult to compare it to 26ga. Magnet wire because the insulation makes it a larger diameter which means a lower mH inductance. So it is larger and that means more power for a loop antenna. So I just need to use it for a while and see if I like it better. Definitely much more expensive so the question is if it is worth ten or twenty times the cost. I'm not convinced yet.Comment
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Back to the drawing board...again! I made this receiver coil all one layer of windings. I guess because the coil is wider it gives a weaker, wider response, not the sharp focus. So I plan to rebuild it with the windings all in a tight bunch more like a cable instead of a ribbon. And like another one of my favorite sayings, "It all looks good on paper."
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See how much I know about it--I rewound the loop antenna in smaller diameter, shorter, and multi-layer and the inductance was almost the same. I was expecting the inductance to be much higher. I used the same length of wire. The coil is not as powerful but it has a nice sharp focus when pointing at the target. This thing is working pretty good now but I still need to get it out in the field for some real hunting, and that's at least a couple months away.It hits a half ounce of silver at about 75 feet on the lowest power setting. The neighbors have a large brass pipe fitting and it pulls to that at first, but after a few minutes it moves to the target. So yeah, it likes big copper. I found with too much power it is hard to ignore it. So I guess I like the litz wire now.
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If at first you don't succeed...you're probably about average.
If all else fails...read the instructions.
Nothing is as easy as it first appears.
You can probably fill in the next line--
It's back to the drawing board...again!
Actually I am making some progress and I am confident I am on the right track. The latest coil is a bit weak so I am going to change the former a little bigger diameter and rewind it. I could leave it as is but like in the movie "Arthur" when the bartender asked "Haven't you had enough?" and Arthur (an alcoholic) replied "I want MORE than enough!"
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Built the bigger diameter coil and got more power from it. Still needs some fine tuning but it's really close to where I want. I'm going to try to figure out a different coil former to make it easier to wind. But it's working and Life Is Good!Comment
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Sometimes I hate myself. I guess I have an obsession disorder. I just can't stop and be happy with the project as it is. Maybe it's more like a cancer that won't stop growing. Someday I just have to say "Enough is enough!" but I can't do it so yeah, it's an illness. So I went out today searching for new coil former. Of course I had no luck at the hardware store."We don't have anything like that." is their standard response. I don't give up THAT easy. I walked all the aisles and found some fishing line on a spool. It wasn't the right size spool but it gave me the idea to go to a sporting goods store that sells fishing gear. Sure enough I found a really nice-sized spool. I guess my subconscious would not let me rest until I found this one. It's just a matter of winding it now. The old spool I'm using now works just fine but I had to add some filler on the inside to get the larger diameter and that made it difficult to wind smoothly and just more work overall and not as nice a coil--uneven windings. So now this one is just what I wanted. Life is really good.
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Well, I'm holding my breath. The receiver coil is a little more mH than I had planned, but at least indoors it seems to work. So tomorrow I'll get it outside and see what happens in the yard. Right now it has good power and sharp tuning. So it's "If it ain't broken, don't fix it." Maybe I can hold to that but even if I do there is no guarantee my illness is cured.
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