Another option, assuming they are still available, would be one of those 
generators for phones. using just the armature and magnets, it should 
produce a good output. the one I have has what I am guessing to be about 
10000 turns of 1/2 hair thick wire.

As for the drawing, thanks for the complement. I figured it was a poor 
drawing. the magnets for it I found to be very powerful. sliding a 
screwdriver into the magnet slot and then pulling it out is with great 
difficulty. kind of makes you wonder though. how can they be this powerful, 
inside the drive, and not erase the data?

-Travis



>From: "meredith lamb" 
>Reply-To: psn-l@..............
>To: psn-l@..............
>Subject: Re: Interesting sensor pickup.
>Date: Thu, 03 May 2001 23:22:10 -0700
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>From larry_cochrane@.............. Thu May 03 22:34:28 2001
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>
>Hi Travis,
>
>Your drawing looks excellent to me....it totally conveys the
>communication of the item description...the most important aspect.
>You must be a computer artist?
>
>I'am sure the approach has been checked on before in the PSN
>past emails.  I've not heard of much success or satisfaction in
>that kind of physical adoption....the coil preferably needs more
>wire wraps than it has.....the more wire....the more the signal
>it can generate, to the amplifier and etc.  It was nice to hear
>though, of someone doing some experimenting with available
>materials.  Another item that "might" yield a coil, is perhaps
>some of these rechargeable items like toothbrushes etc.
>Adopting any particular coil to a magnet that will accomodate
>it is also sometimes kind of a challenge.....let alone all the other
>parts of a home brew seismo.....but it can be fun to try.
>
>Take care,
>
>Meredith Lamb
>
>
>Travis Farmer wrote:
>
> > On my Lehman sensor I have been using a homemade coil that provided 
>moderate
> > output. I seem to have stumbled across something that works even better.
> > >From an old (dead) hard drive,  I pulled the head positioning component 
>and
> > gave it a try. I drew up a (bad) picture of the piece I am talking 
>about. It
> > can be viewed at http://home.midmaine.com/~cgf/graphics/hd_sensor.jpg .
> > I rigged up a linkage to the seismo and gave it a slow 1"/sec swing. I 
>got
> > an output of 0.026 V. the coil has a DC resistance of 18.1 Ohms.
> >
> > Anybody else tried a setup like this?
> >
> > -Travis
> >
>
>
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