Pennsylvania & Ohio rr conway yard posted:...
Reason for the DC I couldn't get enough of a cold even drop the magnet even up close on the workbench...
I tried reading this several times and still not sure what you are saying - perhaps a typo in here?
Did you try the same AC supply used in the video?
As pointed out above, there are many types of steel which are better/worse for use in an electromagnet. I'm coming up empty with a practical method to confirm your particular material is suitable. I was thinking maybe a small magnet brougt near your unpowered coil core vs. near a Lionel coil core and somehow confirming the magnetic attraction is comparable - very touchy-feely to say the least. I have magnetic field strength probe which measures how strong a field is so I can compare different materials, different amounts of voltage, etc.. but that's why I'm saying practical.
In my opinion, 300 turns brings you in the ballpark but it sounds like you're not even close. Note that simply adding more turns works for and against. Without trying to confuse matters with too much math, but what you're after is the so-called Amp-Turns product... or # of Amps times # of Turns. It's this multiplication that determines how hard the coil pulls. Double the Amps doubles the pull. Double the Turns doubles the pull. Double the Amps but halve the Turns and it stays the same.
Point being, if you double the turns to 600, you are at least doubling the length of wire you need. This increases the resistance of the coil so for the same applied voltage, the current drops in half. So the final Amp-Turns product actually remains the same and you're no better off! It can be worse than that since windings further from the center take more wire to make 1 turn...in other words it might take even more than double the wire to double the turns. So the Amp-Turns product may actually decrease by adding turns. Very confusing indeed.
Can your DC supply provide suitable current at more than 12V? All things being equal, double the voltage doubles the current which doubles the magnetic pull.
