2018-09-07 Q of an Inductor

from FB group Building Transistor Radios, 2018-09-07

Tom Miller
Say a capacitor or inductor has a Q of 100. The losses are about 1/100 of the energy in the component. In a tuned circuit the capacitor Q is usually much higher than this – it has lower losses, so the more important is the Q of the inductor.

The inductor’s copper wire has resistance so there is some loss in the resistance. If it has a core other than air, the losses in the core’s magnetic field add to the total. The core is made of small particles of material to reduce eddy currents, which reduces the losses. The copper wire losses can get higher because of skin effect, which is why Litz wire is used to reduce the skin effect.

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