hello everyone, I've spent countless hours and a ton of money on trying to get this work. What I am making is a electromagnet with a decent amount of strength, but mine doesn't work at ALL.
I am using copper megnetic wire and have tried both 9V AND AA. I've included pictures of both my coil and my type of wire, If there is anything you think I'm doing wrong I would LOVE to know, Thank you all!

 

What is the resistance of the magnet coil you wound?

What is the purpose of the magnet? For better strength to pick up items you need horseshoe shaped poles.

 

The strength of an electromagnet depends on the current flow through coil. More current means more magnetic force. The effect of the core is different story. Actually I can not guess how much magnetic force you need. But I can say that regular batteries can not supply too much current -at least for a long time-.

If you tell that what you want to do with the magnet or particularly how much magnetic force you expect, may be you can get more help.

 

What is the resistance of the magnet coil you wound?

What is the purpose of the magnet? For better strength to pick up items you need horseshoe shaped poles.

I doesn't have to even be that strong, just be able to hold a generally small metal ball on an angle, I am not aware of the resistance, is there anything I can do?

 

The strength of an electromagnet depends on the current flow through coil. More current means more magnetic force. The effect of the core is different story. Actually I can not guess how much magnetic force you need. But I can say that regular batteries can not supply too much current -at least for a long time-.

If you tell that what you want to do with the magnet or particularly how much magnetic force you expect, may be you can get more help.

I just want to pick up a small metal ball, but right now it has NO magnetic strength, is there anything I can do?

 

What's the small metal ball made from?

 

Is the metal ball made up of ferromagnetic material? Actually, you can make a electromagnet by using a 20~23 AWG wire for coil and a ferrite rod used in radio receivers as core. 150-200 turns will do the job.

You can also connect an adjustable power supply and check the results against the current flowing through coil.

By this way you can see how much current you need to hold your ball and select appropriate battery for this current.

 

What's the small metal ball made from?

Iron, it is ferromagnetic

 

A 9V will not work. Try using say four to six AAs in series, and use a smaller piexe of metal like 1" long and try getting there as much as possible. I think the red wire would be the best for it. Do you have a multimeter?

 

I know im picking up 4 A batteries, is that good, and I'll have a multimeter later today, anything i should look for?

 

You should check the resistance of the magnet, and then measure the current when you turn it on, better use the 10A setting.

 

All your coils should "work" if the wire is continuous and unbroken. You can check their DC resistance with your multimeter.

BTW, there's no need to spend a lot on a meter. If you have a Harbor Freight nearby and watch for a coupon, they often have a Centech model for <$5 or even free.

How WELL the coils work as magnets depends on the number of turns times the current passing through the coil. Your small batteries were probably not able to drive much current. A large battery (car battery, for instance) can drive a large current but that might well burn your wire, so there is a sweet spot. One approach is to use fine wire and many turns, so that the resistance of the coil itself prevents too high a current from the battery you want to use. A 3-loop fat wire would carry gobs of amps and still not make much of a field. A 12v battery applied to 100Ω coil will pass only 120mA of current, which may be OK for the wire. (There are tables of properties you can refer to. You're not the first to do this!)

The core helps direct the field lines to where you want, to pick up items for instance. It needs to be permeable to magnetism, i.e. iron.

 

In my experience D-type batteries tended to work a lot better than AAs.

 

Example: # 28 wire, 15.4 ft./Ω. Assume I D cell, alk. 1.5V & 100mA = 15 Ω, or 231 ft. A 1 in. section of small pipe, 3/8 in. dia.with 1 in fender washers glued & screwed for end plates. After all 231 ft. are wound on add pole pieces, multi layers of steel can or short strips of 1/16 to 1/8 to fit ball .