Zero Force Motor Replication Project

[Yaro1776]

Hi Patrick,

Great suggestion from you to use half of the circuit for tuning purposes. Posting the two circuit schematics is helpful to everyone that has an interest in the ZFM.

By the way, the motor will self start when power is applied.

Thanks,
Yaro

[James McDonald]

Hi All --

Just to add to the information that was re-created from the pictures taken of the ZFM in July at the 2016 Energy Conference.
See the attached print diagrams of the schematic of the coils in the ZFM.

-- James

[min2oly]

Those circuits have capacitors on them, I see no capacitors on the pictures. They also show bridge rectifiers, the two components that are most likely diodes only have two legs, unless I am wrong, which I might be. They therefore cant be connected as shown in the diagrams, unless the transistors have diodes built in, that could be possible.

It might be easier to build your own control circuits, rather than trying to copy, it looks like a fairly standard single phase inverter circuit, if you use IGBT devices they are easier to trigger than NPN PNP transistor arangements and many come with diodes built in to protect them when used with motors. Bridge rectifier chips are also off the shelf components.

The arrangement of magnets on a motor can be done in many ways all producing different results, some practical some not, N-S-N-S, N-N-N-N, S-S-S-S, Edge on NS-NS-NS-NS-NS, the key thing is to provide a magnetic field of the correct polarity at the correct point in the rotation of the motor to produce a force to make it turn. To do that you need to know what polarity is passing by the end of your drive coil to apply the correct forces in the correct sequence. For N-S-N-S arrrangement you will need a single phase inverter style circuit to switch the polarity of the coil to drive the alternate magnets as shown in the cct diagrams above, with the N-N-N-N, S-S-S-S arrangements you may get away with just pulsing the coils at the right moment to flick the magnets as they pass. With the NS-NS-NS-NS-NS we are looking at edges and transients and it looks interesting to work out how it would work, possibly pulsing them will do the trick, but then a bridge circuit as in the single phase inverter cct would also do it.

The timing sequence is key with all the arrangements. None of them will self start, because there is nothing to energise the field, so they all will need a kick to get them moving. They then will run and if they are a little over unity then they might keep running.

The Magnetic fields may not immediately collapse when the magnet moves away from the coils, transient things happen in the real world, if you are into the idea of the ether then vortices in space will also still be moving and wont vanish straight away, the vortices may be following the movement of the rotor. The ether has inertia carries all known forces etc.

John always said so many FAIL because they do not replicate it, instead, they choose to make it THEIR way... good luck

[Yaro1776]

ZFM Proto Progress and New ZFM Information

Hello to All,

Yesterday was a day of progress on several fronts with an unexpected surprise.

The ZFM Proto was massaged with a new front bearing and the entire assembly put back together with patient care paid to the overall alignment of the assembly.

First the motor was wired such that only one reed switch was firing (as suggested by min2oly from experiences of others on the Window Motor thread) and then fired up. The alignment tweaking allowed the motor to rotate on one set of reeds to about 120 rpm with the existing firing angle duration of about 60 degrees. Excellent!

The ZFM was then wired for both reeds and fired up with same 24 volts and timing - holy moly! The ZFM accelerated to over a 1000 rpm (estimated) and hummed along for about 5 minutes. Progress. A video of the new performance will be completed in the next day or so and hopefully the new laser tach will have arrived by then.

Great start to the morning and later in the day an unexpected email was received from Dr. Peter Lindemann informing me that he is working on compiling and writing a report ZFM Theory and Operation that is intended to give the definitive design information to end all the rampant speculation on the ZFM. This is to be published in the near future upon completion - no date on this as yet. Peter, at this time and understandably, is very busy with multiple responsibilities and requested that certain critical ZFM information be posted on this thread.

The first was a bombshell - the ZFM rotor has an iron core and below is the original JB design schematic


Furthermore, the critical Neo magnets are 0.750 inch diameter by 0.375 inches thick.

Back to the drawing board - yes, but the testing on this existing ZFM Proto will continue to establish performance baselines.

So, a big thank you is in order for Dr. Peter and his commitment to honor and preserve John Bedini's work and legacy.

Yaro

[RS_]

never mind on what i wrote previously, i understand now, and that is a new development, that square iron core between the rotor magnets, was not discussed at the conference...... Is it Iron, or Steel? As Square Iron Rod might be hard to find. Where Square Steel Rod is fairly easy too find..... and I guess the rod is 0.75" sq.

[Gary Hammond]

Hi Yaro,

Thanks for the update!

I will be anxiously awaiting Peter's report! I've been wanting to build one of these myself, but haven't gotten to it yet. Maybe I'll wait to see what else Peter has to disclose before I start.

I didn't get a real close look at the ZFM at the conference with everyone else crowding around it after the demonstration. And then I neglected to check it out close up later, when it was on Tom's display table.

[min2oly]

Hi Yaro,
Thanks for continuing with this, John did mention in a previous post that the torroid had an iron core. I can't remember the thread...
Also, if you watch the vid with the blue wheel, it is only when he adds the iron that the phenomena shows itself.
I thought Peter mentioned that he used an iron pipe? Or maybe John mentioned that Peter used an iron pipe???

Hello to All,

Yesterday was a day of progress on several fronts with an unexpected surprise.

The ZFM Proto was massaged with a new front bearing and the entire assembly put back together with patient care paid to the overall alignment of the assembly.

First the motor was wired such that only one reed switch was firing (as suggested by min2oly from experiences of others on the Window Motor thread) and then fired up. The alignment tweaking allowed the motor to rotate on one set of reeds to about 120 rpm with the existing firing angle duration of about 60 degrees. Excellent!

The ZFM was then wired for both reeds and fired up with same 24 volts and timing - holy moly! The ZFM accelerated to over a 1000 rpm (estimated) and hummed along for about 5 minutes. Progress. A video of the new performance will be completed in the next day or so and hopefully the new laser tach will have arrived by then.

Great start to the morning and later in the day an unexpected email was received from Dr. Peter Lindemann informing me that he is working on compiling and writing a report ZFM Theory and Operation that is intended to give the definitive design information to end all the rampant speculation on the ZFM. This is to be published in the near future upon completion - no date on this as yet. Peter, at this time and understandably, is very busy with multiple responsibilities and requested that certain critical ZFM information be posted on this thread.

The first was a bombshell - the ZFM rotor has an iron core and below is the original JB design schematic
[ATTACH=CONFIG]5595[/ATTACH]

Furthermore, the critical Neo magnets are 0.750 inch diameter by 0.375 inches thick.

Back to the drawing board - yes, but the testing on this existing ZFM Proto will continue to establish performance baselines.

So, a big thank you is in order for Dr. Peter and his commitment to honor and preserve John Bedini's work and legacy.

Yaro

[Yaro1776]

Hello to all,

Based on the information that I have and the results of my feeble replication efforts here are a couple of observations:

1) My existing ZFM Proto uses a 2 1/2"D Aluminum rotor with four 3/4"D x 1/4"T Neos spaced 90 degrees apart. The starting torque on this machine is low and may be a function of the inadequate Neo size and the operating clearance gap of approximately 3/8" between the rotor and coils. This will be corrected.

2) Hard to locate pure iron stock - I do know that low carbon steels such as a 1018 mild steel (to be researched and verified) do not retain a magnetic field - for example I used two 1/8"T strips of mild steel from Ace hardware as an assembly retainer between the coils with short high strength steel bolts. The high carbon bolts became magnetized, whereas the low carbon strip stock did not. So, mild carbon steel is readily available and only a short 2" length is require for the rotor core. 2 1/2" bar stock can have the flats for the magnets milled onto it, bored to shaft size with a standard key and set screw for retention. The biggest issue is retaining the magnets at high revs - standard design issue to be resolved. The rotor core's material spec can be easily resolved.

3) There is no iron core in the demo's toroidal coils - perhaps one can visualize the entire assembly as a large coil with an mild steel - iron core that acts in a similar manner. Just speculation on my part and I prefer to leave this aspect to the pundits and experts - I prefer to just design it, build it and then test it, and then let the results speak for themselves.

This beats video games hands down!

Later and Happy Turkey,
Yaro

[Retep]

Just Dropping In

Hey Everybody,

To help out a little more on the rotor design of the model of John's ZFM that I built in 2002, here are a few images that I hope will help.

This first one is a close up photo of the rotor.




This second one is the same photo with all of the internal structures drawn over the photo, so you can compare the two visually.




Here's the side view drawing of the rotor structure I promised.




The coils in this motor are wound on a frame made from a section of 4" diameter black ABS sewer pipe. The coils act magnetically as having an AIR CORE. Don't confuse the design of this machine with other demonstrations John made of "single-sided" units.

Here is the schematic of the original circuit used when the unit was built in my shop in 2002. Many transistors with similar specifications will work.



Ron Cole always specified that the voltage at the base of the small PNP should be 1/2 of the supply voltage, or just slightly higher. Since the magnetic reeds really don't have any voltage drop across them during contact, the two resistors in that pathway should be the same. 2k or 2.2k both work fine. In versions of the circuit where a Hall Effect device is used, the lower resistor is usually shown as 1k to compensate for the additional voltage drop on the Hall.

Here is how the motor is timed. This image shows the position of the rotor when the coil is turned ON.



The coil turns OFF 45 degrees later when the leading edge of the rotor magnet reaches the end of the coil. This produces a timing sequence of 45* ON and 45* OFF, repeated 4 times per revolution. Under certain circumstances, the timing may be widened to 50* ON TIME, but the 45-45 timing is a good place to start replications and is very close to the timing produced by the magnetic reed commutator of the 2002 model.

Hope that helps,
Peter

[ZPDM]

Wow thread took off. As regards the core, I'm now saying RS_ was right in the first place!! If you are using a bipolar commutator and spinning at 5000+ RPMs it occurred to me there is no way an iron core coil will switch that fast, I'm not sure I'm an expert in all this but am I wrong? You would need to use an air core for that kind of RPMs. Running slower and not reversing the core it sure seems in my experiments to run better with a core. There has been talk of figure eight windings on the core, I don't see it on the machine at the conference I saw run like stink, so I don't suspect this is a big part of things. I'll order some parts tomorrow or over the week end and start on the Mark III, I suppose I am as curious as anyone as to what it will do. I wish John were here he just hints at so many things I gratefully thank Aaron because this week-end I intend to read all John's posts. Along those same lines anyone else notice the Window Machine and Newman's machine are the exact same except one use a physical commutator, that's how I see it.

[James McDonald]

Hello to all,

Based on the information that I have and the results of my feeble replication efforts here are a couple of observations:

1) My existing ZFM Proto uses a 2 1/2"D Aluminum rotor with four 3/4"D x 1/4"T Neos spaced 90 degrees apart. The starting torque on this machine is low and may be a function of the inadequate Neo size and the operating clearance gap of approximately 3/8" between the rotor and coils. This will be corrected.

2) Hard to locate pure iron stock - I do know that low carbon steels such as a 1018 mild steel (to be researched and verified) do not retain a magnetic field - for example I used two 1/8"T strips of mild steel from Ace hardware as an assembly retainer between the coils with short high strength steel bolts. The high carbon bolts became magnetized, whereas the low carbon strip stock did not. So, mild carbon steel is readily available and only a short 2" length is require for the rotor core. 2 1/2" bar stock can have the flats for the magnets milled onto it, bored to shaft size with a standard key and set screw for retention. The biggest issue is retaining the magnets at high revs - standard design issue to be resolved. The rotor core's material spec can be easily resolved.

3) There is no iron core in the demo's toroidal coils - perhaps one can visualize the entire assembly as a large coil with an mild steel - iron core that acts in a similar manner. Just speculation on my part and I prefer to leave this aspect to the pundits and experts - I prefer to just design it, build it and then test it, and then let the results speak for themselves.

This beats video games hands down!

Later and Happy Turkey,
Yaro

Hi All --

I am adding the circuit schematic as drawn from the ZFM demo pictures from the 2016 Energy Conference. I was told that John Bedini changed the transistor types used and some of the resistor values. Other information is also documented on the schematic as to the Power Audio transistors we used in our ZFM drive circuit.

See the attached zip file of a print .XPS file type that can be viewed with a XPS viewer or can be directly printed on your printer.




-- James

[min2oly]

Hi Peter,
Thank you so much for sharing.
This is more than enough info for anyone to replicate of course anymore would be icing on the cake.

I have one question . Is there anything John or you would change?

Thanks again for everything you've been doing over the years and continue to do.
Sincerely - Patrick A.

Hey Everybody,

To help out a little more on the rotor design of the model of John's ZFM that I built in 2002, here are a few images that I hope will help.

This first one is a close up photo of the rotor.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]5598[/ATTACH]


This second one is the same photo with all of the internal structures drawn over the photo, so you can compare the two visually.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]5599[/ATTACH]


I'll post a side view drawing of the rotor structure here sometime soon.

The coils in this motor are wound on a frame made from a section of 4" diameter black ABS sewer pipe. The coils act magnetically as having an AIR CORE. Don't confuse the design of this machine with other demonstrations John made of "single-sided" units.

In the meantime, here is the schematic of the original circuit used when the unit was built in my shop in 2002.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]5602[/ATTACH]

Ron Cole always specified that the voltage at the base of the small PNP should be 1/2 of the supply voltage. Since the magnetic reeds really don't have any voltage drop across them during contact, the two resistors in that pathway should be the same. In versions of the circuit where a Hall Effect device is used, the lower resistor should be adjusted to compensate for the voltage drop on the Hall.

Hope that helps,
Peter

[Retep]

You're Welcome

Hi Patrick,

This is where people should start, so I wouldn't change a thing. This design worked better than any model John ever built of the concept. That is why I gave him this model! John never told me how the motor works. It took me 10 years to understand what it was doing and why. There is just a lot going on in this motor that is extremely counter-intuitive. John and I were about to build a larger model, capable of 30,000 rpm. Obviously, that is not going to happen now, nor is it something that hobbyists should attempt. Besides the iron cube, shaft, and 4 magnets, the rotor was made of 7 pieces of machined acrylic and 12 brass machine screws. It was perfectly balanced and the machine had no vibration even when the rotor was turning at 11,000 rpm. Even this is well beyond most replication level builds. In 2002, building this rotor required precision machining. Today, the plastic pieces of the rotor may be able to be 3D printed, but a design for that is yet to be seen. In the meantime, lower speed replications can start teaching you what the motor does. In the end, the machine is the teacher, not me or John. That's why John always said, "build it and let it run."

Peter

Hi Peter,
Thank you so much for sharing.
This is more than enough info for anyone to replicate of course anymore would be icing on the cake.

I have one question . Is there anything John or you would change?

Thanks again for everything you've been doing over the years and continue to do.
Sincerely - Patrick A.

[Faraday88]

Hi Patrick,

This is where people should start, so I wouldn't change a thing. This design worked better than any model John ever built of the concept. That is why I gave him this model! John never told me how the motor works. It took me 10 years to understand what it was doing and why. There is just a lot going on in this motor that is extremely counter-intuitive. John and I were about to build a larger model, capable of 30,000 rpm. Obviously, that is not going to happen now, nor is it something that hobbyists should attempt. Besides the iron cube, shaft, and 4 magnets, the rotor was made of 7 pieces of machined acrylic and 12 brass machine screws. It was perfectly balanced and the machine had no vibration even when the rotor was turning at 11,000 rpm. Even this is well beyond most replication level builds. In 2002, building this rotor required precision machining. Today, the plastic pieces of the rotor may be able to be 3D printed, but a design for that is yet to be seen. In the meantime, lower speed replications can start teaching you what the motor does. In the end, the machine is the teacher, not me or John. That's why John always said, "build it and let it run."

Peter

Hi Peter,
Long time no see...!!! welcome back to the forum..
Rgds,
Faraday88.

[Retep]

Just added Side View of Rotor

Hey Everybody,

I just added the side view drawing of the rotor to Post #88. There is good information on this thread for winding the coils and building the magnetic reed commutator, but there is still some speculations as to the exact timing of the machine. I'll put one more diagram up at Post #88 soon that explains the timing, so just look for it there. Then I'll wait for some replications.

Best regards,
Peter