Telegraph-ic
[info]ironroster
May 6th, 21:39
Engineering Class
My son said that he wanted to do an engineering project during his morning break (we home school). So we googled “how to build your own telegraph,” and set to work. We had everything we needed except the 22 – 30 gauge wire for the electromagnets. I was able to find some at home depot, but they only had 22 g. I bout 50 feet of wire with 2 insulated strands.
Here is the link to the instructions: http://chss.montclair.edu/~pererat/perbuild.htm
Materials List:
4 iron nails
4 strips of ferrous metal (we used left over drip guard form the shed project).
Handful of small screws
scrap board 2″ thickness
50 feet 22 gauge wire (had to buy this Lowes/Home Depot)
2 9V batteries (still need to buy these…I borowed one from our smoke detector for the proto type)
Hammer
screw driver
Drill
circular saw
wire snips
pliers
sheet metal shears
sand paper
rubber bands (your sisters scrunchies will work in a pinch)
work gloves (sheet metal can give a nasty cut. I also wore them to pick up the dead rat in my scrap wood pile).
Optional:
Rivet Gun
soldering iron
Vise
DIY battery (instructions in The Dangerous Book for Boys)
mosquito repellant (if you live in the southern part of Texas and want to avoid avian flu and/or spending more time swatting than innivoting)
90 pound Yellow Lab/Golden Retreiver mix (along for moral support)
Modifications:
The only big mod. we have made so far is to use a 9 v battery instead of the recommended AA’s.
We used about 25 feet of wire to wrap the nails. We used some scrap drip guard (steel) from a shed I built recently for the strips that “tap” out the code. The metal strips did not conduct too well, so we are also setting it up so that the bare wires touch when the operator clicks out the dots and dashes.
OK, so we made more than one mod. the metal strip tends to stick to the electromagnet so I taped a piece of paper to the strip.
I will post project pictures some time.
I think we can get it working in both directions by lunch tomorrow.
