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Projects, Designs, and Technical Stuff / Re: Heated Ferrite == Useless Ferrite
« Last post by Buriedcode on Today at 05:32:11 pm »Regarding re-using old ferrites and disassembling them: I've had some success with solvents. Namely paint thinner/white spirit. The silicone/rubbery stuff is unaffected, but varnish and tape residue will dissolve in 24 hours. As for heat, I've used a hot air gun - the larger 2kW kind, on a low setting, far enough away so it doesn't melt the bobbin - but its very difficult to get it right, plus its a proper hassle handling the hot cores, so I quickly gave up that method.
The solvent has worked for all ferrites salvaged from ATX supplies, but more modern SMPS transformers - specifically the sammler ones - took a lot longer.
I got a joblot of small EFD20 ferrites off ebay years ago, and every so often I'll "pickle" a batch to separate them. I only have a few projects using those, but they worked as expected (had to change the airgap on a few, or completely remove the gap entirely), although I had to measure the core parameters to make sure they were in spec.
The solvent has worked for all ferrites salvaged from ATX supplies, but more modern SMPS transformers - specifically the sammler ones - took a lot longer.
I got a joblot of small EFD20 ferrites off ebay years ago, and every so often I'll "pickle" a batch to separate them. I only have a few projects using those, but they worked as expected (had to change the airgap on a few, or completely remove the gap entirely), although I had to measure the core parameters to make sure they were in spec.