Calculating the parameters to wind my own inductors

[nathanpc]

I'm playing around designing my own switchmode converters using standard inductors like this, but I want to play around with a bit more current than they are rated, so I decided to wind them my own using some torroidal cores I salvaged from old ATX power supplies. What I'm currently interested is how I can calculate the parameters necessary to wind them, things like the number of turns necessary to get a certain amount of inductance, and specially how much current it's rated at, since I'm pretty sure there are some magnetic limitations to this, not just the gauge of the wire.

[bktemp]

You can use this tool for all the calculations:
http://www.micrometals.com/software_index.html

[firewalker]

You could also have a look at the "Transformer-and-Inductor-Design-Handbook".

Alexander.

[nathanpc]

Thanks very much for the quick replies, but are there any other resources available to do this? The Micrometals calculator is extremely difficult to use if you don't know much about the parameters and the handbook is extremely complex and long if I just want to learn the basics to wind my own inductors, in the future I could read it to get a really good theory background.

[bktemp]

Iron powder cores are not the easiest to use because they have a soft saturation curve and quite high core losses. Therefore the tool really helps much selecting suitable material, size, wire gauge and number of turns.
Ferrite cores are probably much easier to calculate.