Looking for help getting an electromagnet power supply

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m a home hobbyist looking for

  1. An electromagnet capable of about 5000 gauss

And (here’s the complex part)

  1. A power supply for this magnet.

The power supply needs to produce a square wave, 40-60% duty cycle. I would also need to be able to easily control the Hz, in a range from roughly 1-100 Hz (or larger, that’s just a starting point).

Does such a thing exist off-the-shelf? Where can I buy it? I can solder components if it’s a lot cheaper to put it together myself. Thanks in advance.

2

Creating an adjustable duty cycle square wave is easy - you can use a 555 timer IC, or a microcontroller, or even the PC to do it.

The harder part is the power supply itself - how much current and voltage do you need? Once you have the power supply, you can modulate the output with a FET.

3

I’d like to output 5000 gauss for, say, 5-10 seconds at a time. I have no idea what kind of amps/volts that would require, though. I’m kind of a major noob with high voltage stuff, although I can troubleshoot low-voltage wiring okay.

4

You need to pick your electromagnet first.
Gauss is a measure of magnetic field strength - it doesn’t tell you over how large an area the field extends. So, you need to determine how large the magnet and gap needs to be, and then figure out how many windings and what current to run through it.

Here’s an example.

Can I ask what the application is?

5

The gap size doesn’t need to be large, that magnet you linked to would do nicely. The application is for magnetic separation of liquids, again, I’m just a hobbyist.

6

The power supply they recommend for that magnet is 100W, 0-3A, which is around 33V @ 3A.
Easy enough.

Wind your magnet, then come back…