Testing Inductors, and Inductor Theory

Alright, so, you've got an inductor. You know it

makes a magnetic field, but beyond that, so
what!? Well I'll tell you what...
Oh noes, teh math!1
No, not really- the worst thing I have is a tinge of
differential calculus. Hey wait, come back here,
it's a lot easier than you think! The fundamental
inductor equation is:
V = L * dI/dt
If you're much familiar with capacitors, you'll
note the striking resemblance to the capacitor
equation, I = C * dV/dt. Indeed, the capacitor and
inductor are mirror images of each other (not
opposites, for reasons I'll get to later).
How to apply this equation? Well, when V and L
are relatively constant, you can change dees to
deltas and use it to find how much current rises in
some period of time, when you apply a voltage. If
you feel like solving differential equations, you
can do all sorts of stuff, too.

Take an inductor, ground one end and apply a

square wave to the loose end. If this is what
voltage looks like, this is what current will look

like. Where for a capacitor you charge it with a

constant current to get a voltage slope, when you
charge an inductor with a constant voltage, you
get a current slope.
Note that, when voltage reverses, current stays
put. It starts moving, but it doesn't change
position. Compare to a resistor, where current is
always in the direction of voltage. This can cause
trouble for circuits not designed to handle
reverse

currents,

such

as

audio

amplifiers.

Actually, the average audio amplifier, probably

using an emitter follower output, wouldn't handle
it too badly, but as flyback current decays, the
amp has to "catch" it in time as the current flow
reverses polarity. I have an example of this from
my induction heater drive transformer:

If you check the page I originally posted this

image on, you'll see I didn't know what the bumps
were after the transitions. It turns out the
inductor equation describes it perfectly:

When voltage rises, finite primary inductance causes a dI/dt.

When voltage falls to zero, primary current holds constant (no change -dI/dt = 0). (Remember, an inductor holds its charge at 0V terminal
voltage, just as a capacitor holds its charge (i.e., dV/dt = 0) at 0A
terminal current!)

When voltage goes negative, current remains positive for a moment. The
class C emitter follower driving this is conducting through the NPN
transistor (at a relatively large cost of power, since it has full supply
voltage across it).

As "flyback" current decays, less current flows through the NPN.

Gradually, the PNP is turned on instead. At this point, the reverse of
the cycle starts.
The crunchy part about this is, to turn on
MOSFETs I need a quick burst of dV/dt. When
the driver circuit starts a pulse, the forward
transistor might conduct briefly due to the
capacitance, but then as the voltage comes to a
stop, the flyback current takes over and the
opposite transistor is needed. Bipolar transistors
take time to shut off, so this could create a
situation where shoot-through occurs, seriously
blasting the dissipation. The original circuit I
built, using TIP31 output transistors, almost
certainly suffered from this, as well as general
slowness of the transistors.
Testing
Let's say you have an inductor laying around, and
you want to know what value it is. You can
estimate current rating by the wire gauge (if you
can see it) and you can find DC resistance with an
ohmmeter. Together you can estimate how much
copper wire is on the thing, and if you can see the
geometry, even calculate a ballpark inductance.

But that's not accurate, and all bets are off if a

core is used.

Here's what I use to measure inductors. You'll

need a floating signal generator or 'scope since
they

have

20V

or

so

between

grounds.

Alternately, you could use a current transformer

instead of the resistor, but that's perhaps
another web page. Anyway, when the MOSFET is
switched on (remember to drive it with around
+10V / 0V square wave, and start with a low duty
cycle in case things want to burn!), voltage
appears on the inductor and current rises blah
blah. Magnetic field is proportional to current.
Magnetic materials can only help out so much, so
if there is a ferrite core, you can test saturation
current by measuring at what current the
inductance starts to increase. This is labeled
Isat on the diagram. You may want to check
voltages in the circuit, power supply sag for
instance, so you know exactly how much voltage is
on the inductor. Since you know voltage, peak
current and what time it took to reach that

current, you can use V = L * I/t, er, L = V *

t/I to find inductance.
You can also find inductance from the falling
(flyback) curve (which is actually rising, because
the voltage *was* negative, but you know what I
mean), but voltage is usually more variable so I
prefer to take it from the front slope. A note: it
helps to have an extra source of current for the
flyback load. That way, inductor current falls to
zero. As shown, current won't actually go to zero
-- duty cycle mostly determines flyback voltage
and current will be continuous, which can make
ugly displays.

Here's

passable

equivalent

circuit.

The

capacitor C represents the parasitic capacitance

between every turn. Resistor is the DC resistance.
You could add a series RC to represent loss at HF,
but I don't know that that would be accurate. L
of course represents inductance. Although this is
a parallel resonant circuit, it looks very inductive
for low frequencies and impedances, which is the
point. However, when you turn off the transistor,
the impedance goes through the roof, and you can
observe the ringing at the end of the cycle. In
fact, since you calculated inductance from the
first half of the cycle, you can use this
opportunity to measure the capacitance of the
inductor. The ringing will proceed around the
resonant frequency, which can be measured by
counting divs, and used to calculate C = 1 /

(4*2*L*F2).

Just don't

forget to

subtract

MOSFET drain capacitance!

Winding Tips
When winding your own coils, it helps to know
what you're winding. For single layer solenoids, I
use COIL.EXE, written by Brian Beezley, which is
very accurate, from small coils to large and across
the frequency spectrum. For larger or stockier
inductances, though, I need a ferrite core, so
what I do is put down say 20 turns of 18AWG on
an ungapped core picked from my drawer and hook
it up to this circuit. I determine inductance and,
if resistance is low enough, saturation current as
well. (Remember, the DCR of the inductor causes
a voltage drop inside the wire itself which
subtracts from the pure inductance's voltage).
Let's say I found 50uH. Since inductance is
proportional to turns squared, I divide inductance
by square of the turns (400 in this case) to find
my core does 125nH/T2. That means one turn
would be 125nH, two would be 0.5uH, 200 turns
would be 5mH, and so on. Likewise, the magnetic
field corresponds to the total rate of electrons
spinning around the core, or amp-turns. If
saturation happens at 5A, I have 5*20 = 100AT
saturation on this core. The maximum energy
storage is E = *L*I2 (compare to the equation
for a capacitor's stored energy, or Newtonian
kinetic energy for that matter!), or 0.625mJ. If I
find this is insufficient for my application, I
might add paper or cardboard gaps to the core,
measure again, and if it's still no good despite a
huge gap, I'll just look for a different core (or

come up with some creative combinations!). When

you're doing this, remember inductance drops off
roughly in proportion to the increase in amp-turns.
Since amps are squared and L is linear, you can
hold more energy with a greater gap, but since
turns are higher for the same inductance, you
need bigger wire for the same resistive loss.
Pretty quickly you're fighting a losing battle as
you discover you have pounds of wire wrapped
around this poor little core that's gapped to
nothingness. ;-)
Differential Equations!
HTML is probably going to
suck at this, but meh. Let's
say you connect an inductor L
in series with a resistor R, and
connect this to a power supply
V. What happens? Well, first of all let's start
with
VR +

basics.
VL =

Kirchoff
so

VR =

says:
V

VL

That is, the voltage across the resistor and

inductor respectively sum to the supply voltage,
and:
IR =

IL =

I,

I being the current in the loop, being that the

circuit

is

only

one

loop.

By Ohm's law, VR = I * R, and by the inductor

equation,

VL =

dI/dt.

So, I*R = V - L*dI/dt or dividing by R, I = V/R L/R

dI/dt.

(Note that I'm using the asterisk to indicate

multiplication, and strategically placed spaces to
group fractions and coefficients. Hopefully, this

will

remain

clear!)

What kind of function is that? Well let's break it

down

to

its

fundamental

form.

Let: C = V/R, and = -L/R. Now it looks like:

I

*dI/dt

C,

that is to say, I equals the time derivative I,

times a constant. I need a function where, when I
take the derivative of it, I get itself times a
constant. Remember way back in calculus class
that d/dx * ek*x = k*ek*x, and it should be realized
that this is eerily similar to the current situation
(ha! ha!). So on a hunch, I'm going to let I = e*t.
Thus, dI/dt = * e*t = * I. Substituting,
e*t =

2*e*t +

...This is where I get stuck... I have yet to take

differential equations. It does yield the familiar
RL decay equation, I = V/R * e-t*R/L.

LC

Circuit
Likewise, you can hook up an inductor
and capacitor and get a differential
equation.
For the capacitor, I = C*dV/dt, and
for

the

inductor,

L*dI/dt.

If I take the derivative of the C equation,

dI/dt = C*d2V/dt2, which can be substituted into
the

equation:

V = L*C*d2V/dt2. (Note that I haven't used

Kirchoff's rules, other than calling the dI/dt's
equal. V should actually be negative!) The function
that fits this equation is a trig function, simple, so
that the second derivative equals the opposite of

the function. Sine and cosine work, and for

convienience I'll pick cosine. Something like V = Vi *
cos(*t), where L and C determine ( = 1 / L*C),
as L and R determine above. So that, at t = 0, V =
Vi, which C is charged to before the switch is
closed. The fun thing about this is you get a
repeating

function...funky.

This

implies,

nay,

describes resonance, significantly important for

selecting frequencies and such.

Of course, if you include a resistor, either in

series or in parallel, the oscillation decays.
Everything real has resistance, so it's important
and inescapable. But since I suck at differential
equations, I'll leave it to other people to calculate
it

and

present

differential

the

equations

transition
to

the

from

these

equations

of

reactance, and some creative and very useful ways

of using them.