[20 Sep]

I've more-or-less have the mental 3D model of the new Tetrinsic concept, but I'm not modelling any of it until I've first set up and simulated some coils. I've got at least 360 of these I need to either create or buy from a manufacturer in China (since the MOQ is likely high enough for one to take the order). I'd like to know the performance of both a foil and wire coil before I continue further. 

Ideally, I'd also like to simulate so that I can find the optimal location for the hall-effect sensors.

All this means that I need to find and learn how to use a new simulator, as Fusion 360 doesn't do this.

EMWorks 

The first thing I found was a webinar on linear motors:

It seems that the force exerted on the mover is what I ultimately want to find out.

The price of this software is "Contact Us" though.

FEMM

Looking into the free options, I found this forum post from 2010 that asked the community to pool together any finds on this kind of software. FEMM was mentioned, and it already looks like the kind of program I'm looking for.

They also seem to have a lot of tutorials. Hopefully, one of those is how to get force data.

Elmer FEM

I then found this resource that is a list of electromagnetic simulators. In addition to coils, it seems there are simulators for PCBs and antennas that are also in this list.

One program I found was Elmer, which seems more recent than FEMM, and I started watching this webinar:

This part is interesting because it shows that it can support the "stranded" and "foil" types of coils. It also sounds like this programs is rather large, so it's most likely going to take a while to learn how to use it.