MTFCA Forum

Can anyone point me to an accessible article or webpage on how to build a magnet charger? I have a number of items that need a charge and it would be a good winter project.

Here is older thread with good info.

Have built a simple reverse coil wire wrap, 2 coil charger that the horseshoe magnet slips into. Wire was sourced from a 20amp circuit Romex cable, about 4 layers wrapped over a support tube to fashion the hollow coils about 5” long.

Used 10amp 12v Battery Charger for power source. 10 or so quick flashes provided enough energy absorbed to allow a single magnet pull 4+ lbs. up and hold.


Click on link:

https://www.mtfca.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=26511

I did some experiments for myself and found the following solution. I got the best charge with a coil made of a thick power cable. I supplied these with a DC welding system and charged the magnets. I now use a larger welding system than in the picture.
The magnets immediately lift about 11 pounds, which is a lot.

It takes some patience. The cable gets warm and needs a break every now and then.

There are certainly other solutions. I think a device made of strong rare earth magnets would be interesting.

https://www.gasenginemagazine.com/equip ... z22amzram/

I charged my magnets using number 12 house wiring and a car battery. The individual insulated strands were stripped out of the Romes covering. 21 turns on each side of the coil. One side of the magnet has black wire, the other side has white wire in order to keep track of polatity. Used a 12 volt car battery to give it a quick flash. I tried 18 volts and all it did was melt the end of the wire and it didn't improve the strength of the magnet strength. The results have been very good. The engine starts easily on magneto when hand cranking.
I would post a picture, but don't know how. Again, maybe Tim wrenn can assist.

Art M wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 18, 2024 7:26 pm

I charged my magnets using number 12 house wiring and a car battery. The individual insulated strands were stripped out of the Romes covering. 21 turns on each side of the coil. One side of the magnet has black wire, the other side has white wire in order to keep track of polatity. Used a 12 volt car battery to give it a quick flash. I tried 18 volts and all it did was melt the end of the wire and it didn't improve the strength of the magnet strength. The results have been very good. The engine starts easily on magneto when hand cranking.
I would post a picture, but don't know how. Again, maybe Tim wrenn can assist.

And indeed I will!!

Magneto charging with rear earth magnets, I've used this for tractors and Hit and Miss magnetos and it works quite well, assume it would work for a T magnet.
The author claims "The bare bones rare earth charger, as shown in Figures 5, 6 and 7, produced a field of 1110mT (1.11 Tesla), easily outperforming every homebuilt charger that the author has measured over the years. It does not outperform the commercial Weidenhoff Model 818 charger."

https://www.gasenginemagazine.com/equip ... z22amzram/

Thank you all for the information, I think I found what Im looking for. Id buy a charger if anyone has one for sale, otherwise next week Ill start ordering some parts. Im thinking of doing a wound coil unit and trying the earth magnets as a comparison.

Magnetism is simply amazing, hard to wrap my head around how it actually work. One of those things in life that is so common, yet almost nearly no one has a real grasp on its actual function.

They sometimes pop up on eBay, expect to pay around $300.00 for a nice one.

I built mine up many years ago from plans by the fellow named Gingery - does a great job !

Paperman wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 19, 2024 6:50 am

Thank you all for the information, I think I found what Im looking for. Id buy a charger if anyone has one for sale, otherwise next week Ill start ordering some parts. Im thinking of doing a wound coil unit and trying the earth magnets as a comparison.

Magnetism is simply amazing, hard to wrap my head around how it actually work. One of those things in life that is so common, yet almost nearly no one has a real grasp on its actual function.

Low budget charger
Posted on October 31, 2017 by Royce Peterson
Recharging the Model T Ford Magneto https://modeltfordfix.com/recharging-th ... d-magneto/
some of the details ---

Art M wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 18, 2024 7:26 pm

I charged my magnets using number 12 house wiring and a car battery. The individual insulated strands were stripped out of the Romes covering. 21 turns on each side of the coil. One side of the magnet has black wire, the other side has white wire in order to keep track of polatity. Used a 12 volt car battery to give it a quick flash. I tried 18 volts and all it did was melt the end of the wire and it didn't improve the strength of the magnet strength. The results have been very good. The engine starts easily on magneto when hand cranking.
I would post a picture, but don't know how. Again, maybe Tim wrenn can assist.

Okay here's two pics from Art!

Geee Art,
That is a dangerous way to flash your mag coils, have you ever seen or been near an under load or being charged battery when a naked spark has ignited the acid gasses put out from the battery ? My magnetiser would on the end of a set heavy duty jumper leads with my safety glasses on. ....n

Poppie wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 20, 2024 4:32 am

Geee Art,
That is a dangerous way to flash your mag coils, have you ever seen or been near an under load or being charged battery when a naked spark has ignited the acid gasses put out from the battery ? My magnetiser would on the end of a set heavy duty jumper leads with my safety glasses on. ....n

I was just going to say the same thing. Sparks at or near terminals of lead acid batteries make me nervous.

Your right about the dangers of gas generation. I have a friend whose car battery exploded sometime while using a battery charger.
When charging by my method jumper cables should be used.

Driving a model T in todays traffic is an inherently dangerous undertaking, sparking on your battery only mildly ups the odds, we're all living on the edge

Kaiser wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 20, 2024 10:28 am

Driving a model T in todays traffic is an inherently dangerous undertaking, sparking on your battery only mildly ups the odds, we're all living on the edge

And it's getting worse! I drive a good 3K miles a year which just increases my odds of something happening...I'm not so sure how much longer I'll keep up with this driving hobby as I'm not too fond of the thought of road rash or eating pavement from a crash due to inattentive impatient distracted idiots out there.

I won't give children a ride on the road, parking lots are ok. Now that i think about this subject, I shouldn't take any adult who is supporting dependent children. Basement children don't count.

Art Mirtes

I will drive anywhere except the freeway, with or without children. Life is too short not to enjoy it. I live in a suburb of 39000K people. They get rides on the Speedster, too.

Here is mine I didn’t make it. Got it from Hank when he quit the T game.

Dan Hatch wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 24, 2024 4:09 pm

Here is mine
I didn’t make it. Got it from Hank when he quit the T game.

And just when you think you have seen everything at Uncle Hank's Cabin,.....Thats cool and as expected in great condition!

bmklawt wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 18, 2024 8:15 pm

Magneto charging with rear earth magnets, I've used this for tractors and Hit and Miss magnetos and it works quite well, assume it would work for a T magnet.
The author claims "The bare bones rare earth charger, as shown in Figures 5, 6 and 7, produced a field of 1110mT (1.11 Tesla), easily outperforming every homebuilt charger that the author has measured over the years. It does not outperform the commercial Weidenhoff Model 818 charger."

https://www.gasenginemagazine.com/equip ... z22amzram/

Horsefeathers.
Ive tested it to the detail on my YouTube channel.
Not only will it reduce the charge in a known charge magnet it will give a very poor charge on a dead magnet
Works but poorly.

The March /April 2021 Vintage Ford vol 56#2 had an article regardng building the Gingery magnet charger that Steve showed above.

Here is a link to a Forum article by Eric Hylen. There is a link in the article to the Gingery plans.
https://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/1 ... 1270093578

I still like my method of charging magneto magnets, with thr exception of being too close to the battery. I recommend using jumper cables between the battery and the charging coils.
The coils are easy to wind. The required material is easy obtained and is very affordable. Pictured are shown above in a January 19 posting.

My car starts easily on the magneto when cranking by hand.

Art Mirtes

 
Here is a sketch of how to wind the coils on the charging electromagnet.
 

Here is a photo of the American Bosch Model T magnet recharger I had. The critical issue fully saturating the magnets. Ford recommended a 5000 Ampere/Turn recharger
When we applied 24 volts DC to the device in the photo and measured the ampere/turns it was over 11,000 A/T per electromagnet leg.
Ron Patterson

I have an American Bosch Magnet Charger too!

This came out of an old Ford garage in Maine about 40 years ago.

Well since everybody seem to be showing theirs I might as well also. I charged my magnets after first demagnetizing them it seemed to work much better that way. Got em all charged up and are in my newly rebuilt engine and running super. I used a 36volt golf cart battery charger for juice. Jim

I’m enjoying seeing all the different chargers out there as well. Here is the charger I built, each coil ended up with 1700 turns. I’m running this off 120v AC with a 25Amp rectifier so coils have 120 DC on them, takes a few seconds to reach peak and measured she is pulling 6.3 amps.

According to plan the coils were to have 7.5 amps peak x 1600 turns=12000 amp turns however I measured 6.3 amps with 1700 turns so mine measured 10,710 amp turns. So still should be plenty.

I do measure the pull on each magnet, there can be a little challenging since the contact surface is not flat. I bent a strip of steel to try to make best contact, then hang a digital meter and pull until the magnet breaks. I typically see them saturate at around 8-10lbs but they will settle to 6-8 lbs.

Anyone else measuring the pull on the magnets? Would be interested to see what everyone else is getting.

David Woods
Williamston T Works

Here’s my mag charger that I just bought. Haven’t used it yet, looks like it should work fine.

Jim, this is one I made, and it works with a 12 Volt battery.

I was told I should not have used plastic coated wire and should have used wire coated with a non-conduct metal.

If I give three quick zaps with the magnet like you are showing, then flipped it over for three more saps, and then stood it up for three more zaps, the magnet worked fine in an engine.

I still have another set of the irons, if anyone wants to try their luck.

This photo was one of mine.

The book "How to Build a Magneto Magnetizer," by David J. Gingery is out of print, but available on Amazon by a download for about $4.00

This may just be a rabbit hole but once seen something about using a diode in the supply line of a growler to charge magnets. I suppose you
could do the with a magnaflux yoke but that's a $600+piece of equipment you are fooling with not $40 swap meet growler. Any truth to that??
Craig.