Bedini current difference between run and charge battery

[BobZilla]

Hi John,

Yea I'm with you on that. AS ironic as it can be I just blew my relay! Not sure what happened but I came in the room to check on things, arduino was still running so it was not a power problem there. I glanced at my volt meter I had across the caps and it was buried, a 50v meter at that. I switched off the machine and touched the relay, very hot, caps were quite warm too. So I grabbed a gator clip and a 100 ohm 2 watt resistor to drain those caps. Oh well this kind of thing happens but it is funny we were just talking about "what if".

I was lucky because there was no damage to my bedini machine, it seems the aurduino is ok too but the relay had cooked. I had run this thing for days at a time in the past but I don't know, something went wrong. Blahh, oh well. My machine is much more efficient without the cap dump circuit anyway.

Sorry guys I was going to take a video and show but now the dumper is busted and I am not in a big hurry to fix it.

[Dieselship]

Bob, Sorry to hear about your event.. At least your machine is safe. I also had a "thermal event" a few months back when I used Arduino with a Voltage Divider circuit. I was trying to check the voltage on the charge battery in an older Bedini machine that I build sometime back. I used a wrong gauged wire that caught fire and melted - I was able to read the voltage into Arduino later on. But the numbers are very unreliable as a single value. I had to take the average list of readings to make a decision. It was still pretty unreliable at the end. I had used a relay to momentarily cut off the battery from the circuit before reading the value into Arduino, using the voltage divider circuit. All those decisions I was making from the Arduino. My thought was, if I get a voltage reading into Arduino, I can make decisions to stop the charge as I need. I could also make other useful decisions from Arduino. Then, I don't have to worry much about having an overcharging situation. Back then I tried it on a battery. I need to try it on a cap and see if it gives me a more stable reading.

Also Bob I had a question on the efficiency of the machine that you have. I am just trying to figure out and compare and see what all I need to do to make my machine efficient and working reasonably well. You begin with, if you put an ammeter or a clamp meter on you positive or negative wire of your machine, what current reading do you get ? I was interested in knowing the readings for both the charge battery and the run battery. I am trying to compare the readings of an efficient machine that you have v/s what I am getting at this moment.. I appreciate your help..

[BobZilla]

Diesel,
I know what you are getting at but I'm telling you that the current on the back end is not a good indicator as too how well things are working. It is more important to get your spike optimum. Many people use an O-scope to see, I do not have one. I have just learned to tune from the sound of the coil, a timing light and a lot of trial and error. With that said generally if you were to put an amp meter on both ends you are going to see about half the current on the back as you see in the front. This will vary from one machine to the next and from one tuning to the next but ballpark it's about half.

The machine I am currently working with is not typical. It is a four coil setup 16 transistors total. I will be expanding that out to 8 coils with 32 transistors soon. Have you looked through my post about this machine? If not you can go look in the intermediate section for my post and see some video's and charts from some runs. This machine has two different wheels that I change out for different running conditions. One is a normal mono pole like most people run and the other is a super pole which mean sharp north magnets. I have found that the superpole runs best with 24v input while the normal pole runs better on 12v input.

[Dieselship]

Thanks Bob as always. I checked some of the pictures of your design. Looks nice ! It's shape some how reminds me of the old Marconi Radio - I like your wiring design inside the unit. Looks neat. What's that software you are using on your xps system ?

I bought a new Clamp Meter that has a separate setting for DC current. All these days I was using a clamp meter that was rated for AC current I think. I had a cheap one from lowes that I got sometime back. The box did say it measures DC current, but I am not sure now. This new clamp meter is giving me totally different readings on my machine, that currently has just one 8 filer spool in it. The primary run red wire shows 8.6 amps at the DC amp position of the meter. And the red wire on the charge battery is showing around 10.2 amps. It is showing reverse than what you said above. Also reverse of what my old clamp meter shows which used to show in milliamperes. I am not yet sure what is going on. I am still shopping for an analog ammeter. Found a nice site where they are selling some,in case anyone is interested. http://www.weschler.com

Thanks for your advice on the currently v/s voltage question. I am using a 12v deep cycle battery on the primary run side and a 12v capacitor bank on the charge side. Its actually a 16v bank, but I am only using around 12-13v max charge for now. I noticed that it is charging nicely. I see a sub digit change every 10 sec. I still need to add more coil spools to the system.

[BobZilla]

Those charts are produced by software that came with my digital multimeter from Radio Shack. Unfortunately they do not have them for sale on the site, I think Radio Shack may be going out of business soon, I have seen three semi-local stores that I know of close up.

Another choice if you are looking to chart on a computer is the west mountain CBA. This device can actually do charge monitoring and perform discharge tests at whatever current you set so that you can see your actual capacity on your battery.
http://www.westmountainradio.com/cba.php

Your current seems way high too me but then again your machine is not the usual build so it's hard to say what it should run at. It does explain why that smaller battery dropped down so low, you were probably pulling on it with like a C1 rate.

One thing to keep in mind is that capacitors are hungry beasts, not at all like a battery. They will suck in as much current as they can as quick as they can, same goes in reverse meaning they can discharge almost immediately if given the chance. You may want to experiment with batteries on both the front and the back until you get a little better feel for how the machine wants to operate. Caps have an ever changing impedance as they charge which is very hard to tune too. Anyway it's your experiment so do what you like and have fun ;-)

[Dieselship]

Bob, Thanks for the information on the CBA software. What I heard is that all the Radioshack stores are not closing. Sprint is going to takeover part of the store and have their own display inside the store. Hope they don't take out the electronic components....

I see your point on the capacitors. I use ultracapacitors to create the bank. In my experience, it behaves like a battery, once in the bank. They slow charge and slow discharge than usual. Ofcourse, not as slow as a battery, but better than what I expected. I have been putting them in the primary or charge position, or both. I am really impressed with them. I may not use them at the end in the charging position. But it is certainly teaching me a lot with the experiments that I have done.

On your comment on high current usage, I am still trying to find out what is going on.

[BobZilla]

Radio shacks in my area seem closed. The signs are removed and the windows painted. Maybe they are just remodeling but I don't think so. I hate to see them go but they got away from their roots anyway. When I was a kid and all through my teenage years I remember how the people there really knew their electronics and could tell you what you need for a project or where you may have messed up in your design. The last 15+ years it seems all they knew about was the latest phone. I remember spending about 15 minutes trying to explain to a guy there that I was looking for a stereo headset-jack and he kept trying to sell me a MONO. I said look, you see how it has one ring on it, that means it is single channel, he just could not understand, then he wanted to sell me a splitter to go along with the mono jack. Sure it's a small thing but for me it really drove home how bad things have gotten at that place. They just sell pre-packaged gizmo's and have no idea how anything works. I grew up going in that place and marveling at all the neat stuff, it is probably where I got my interest in the first place for circuits. Remember those crystal radio kits heh it was like magic the first time you saw one work.

Anyway, enough about Radio Shack. I have some super caps that I play with too. I have 2600 Farad 2.5v that I have hooked up in series. They are a lot of fun to play with for sure. The problem with them is how they discharge on a load. Unlike a battery which will pretty much hold it's voltage until it's almost depleted the super caps just steadily drop voltage as they go which makes it hard to find a practical load to run on them. Now if you are just takig a little off the top and then recharging they can be great but a load that needs to run for any time will have to be able to handle the variable voltage. I guess it all depends on what you use them for, something like a fan it would not matter to much as it would just slow down but running a Bedini machine with it does not work out too well over time. They are fun though.

[Dieselship]

Well, we all will have to rely on the internet stores for all our electronics. It has be that way for a while now. I guess that is the new reality. Stores like RadioShack cannot survive in this market. It's kind of sad.

Bob, Thanks for the advice on the ultracaps. I have been testing them with a similar behavior that you mentioned. I know they have a part in my system, but trying to figure out what role they should play. Mostly I have been taking a little of the top and it works well and charges right back when reversed.

Since I was waiting for some of my parts to come in for my system, I thought of doing a side experiment today. My goal of the experiment was to see the role of the generator coil in understanding the increase or decrease of the RPM. I was trying to see if the primary battery could be used more efficiently with the help of the generator coils. I have the following coils in the system in this experiment:

1) One 8 filer coil spool with the 8 transistors that runs the main Bedini system. It uses a 12v capacitor bank in the front and back. I could have used a battery at both ends, but the experiment was about the generator coils and not the main system. So it didn't matter. Let's call this coil1 for the sake of this conversation.

2) I added a bifiler coil spool that acts as a generator coil for now. I just connected the ends of both coils within the spool and made it into a single coil. Let's call this coil2. This coils was generating around 12v with the RPM that I had with the main system. I fed this energy via a bridge rectifier to charge a 50v 33k uF cap. Let's call it cap1. When I run the main bedini system, it charges the cap1 up to a max of 12-15v and stayed there. I connected this cap1 in a run battery position of another smaller bedini single transistor circuit. Let's call this bedini2.

3) I then added another bifiler coil spool to my main system. Let's call it as coil3. All the 3 spools that I added reside at the same level in the main system.The coil3 bifiler was connected as the trigger and run coil for the bedini2 circuit. So in essence, the energy generated from coil2 becomes the immediate source for bedini2 using the 50v cap1. The bedini2 had again a 50v 33k uF cap in its charging position that I used to cap dump to a battery using an SS relay and the Arduino. Let's call this cap2.

When I started the main bedini system, cap1 started filling up and it reached around 13v. I turned on the bedini2 circuit and saw the neon bulb light up. I immediately connected the cap2 to bedini2 and it started charging. it was real fun to watch that happen. As soon as I turn on the bedini2, cap1 drops to under 8v and stays steady. It increase and decreases a bit as I adjust the speed of the main system. In short, the coil3 was pulsed around the same time for bedini2 as the main system. They were hitting the same magnet circle at the same time. My hope was that the generator coil ie coil2 will run Bedini2 as an independent system and may increase the RPM. But it had the opposite effect. It lost some RPM. I am still trying to analyze why it lost. In my assumption it should have gained RPM since the sub system ie bedini2 was working and pushing coil3. I am going to play with this experiment some more. It was very exciting to see the sub bedini run within the main bedini that has its own source.

As soon as switched off the bedini2, the RPM gained the speed back. I am thinking what if I add another cap to cap1 in parallel. May be there is a contention between current usage vs current supply into cap1. I also want to put a voltage regular before I connect this cap1 to bedini2 and see how it behaves in the run position. I am going to play some more with this experiment and have some fun with it.

[BobZilla]

Diesel,
That sounds pretty cool. I think I may need to draw out what your describing to fully understand which I may do later. Off the top of my head though a few things come to mind. First because you are using caps on the front you will loose rpm, we already discussed that in the last post but the voltage drop is what I mean. I know you said though that when you disconnect that intermediate circuit you gain back some rpm so that is not totally responsible. You may want to play with the position of the coil, meaning slid it left or right to advance/retard it's field. Also make sure of your polarity. These circuits can be run in attraction or repulsion so I am thinking you could have your main in attraction and the intermediate in repulsion or the other way around.

At any rate these things take a lot of tinkering so keep at it and let us know how it goes.

[Dieselship]

Bob, I did some more tests today, but there is no difference. I checked the polarity, reversed connections etc, but the behavior is the same. I cannot say for certain, but the issue is with cap1 which gets fed from the generator coil (coil2) and is the source for bedini2. As an analogy, I am trying to pull water out from the well, and put water back into the well with the same bucket. Only one thing can happen at a time. There is some inbuild resistance created that may cause the generator coil, ie coil2 to behave like a magnet which slows the RPM. I am not certain about it, but I have a hunch this is what is happening. I even tried to put some additional diode to the bridge rectifier, in case there is some reverse flow.

I also changed the source of bedini2 to a battery to see if there is an issue with the basic circuit or polarity of the coil. Ie coil3. It works just fine. The RPM increased more than what the main bedini system was able to do when the battery was its source.

But with the cap1 as its source, I could measure the increase and decrease of the RPM as I switch On or Off the bedinit2 circuit. I don't think it is the caps on the front and back of the main system causing it, because they were working well after I shut bedini2 down. All these points to the issue with cap1.

Bob, I'll try to sketch a diagram of the circuit and post it over the weekend. I am also trying to use a voltage regular to see if that makes any difference.

Bob another unreleased question... For cap dump, I am trying replace arduino with some off the shelf timer circuit. I think using arduino is kind of waste for such a function. I was able to find some mechanical relay timer circuits on the net. But I was looking for a solid state timer circuit. Are you aware of any vendor who sells one ? Thanks..

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Have you or Dieselship tried a Cap-battery on the front end?? They appear to have both a small internal battery and 6 super caps. I'm thinking out loud here.... But, the caps would create an environment that absorbs the current and more readily have it available for the Bedini to draw/run from.

http://www.amazon.com/GRAVITY-600-BATTERY-CAPACITOR-GR-600BC/dp/B00EUFHYK0/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1432852825&sr=8-2&keywords=capacitor+battery

Charging mainly the caps in this type of battery, at the same time it's discharging to run the Bedini, may overcome the sluggishness and inefficiency of moving those heavy, lead ions around while charging and drawing a primary lead-acid battery. I want to test (and hear your experience) to see if the input current will compensate, or be more than needed, under the demand of an 8 Tranny board/8 winding coil. If output of the generator coil is borderline or generates more than needed, charging with the low-drag gen output could be run thru a MPPT solar regulator. This MPPT idea could both provide higher charge current, and regulate/protect the Cap-battery from overcharge. This design could lead to a self-running capability, with no primary battery swapping needed.

Since the low-drag gen is doing the charging, full output of the 8 Tranny Board is available for max rejuvenating/max charging with cap/comparator circuit.

Experience/Comments/suggestions??

[Dieselship]

Hi jd_zinke,
I have never tried with this type of a cap/battery at the front end. But it will be interesting to see the results. I use large Maxwell 16v cap bank with overcharge protection circuit all the time. It works well for me and behaves somewhat like a battery. Still in an experimental stage. I have thought of adding a large fast charging/discharging to the back and front of the bank to create a similar effect as you mentioned above. It's in my list to do. I wanted to check the behavior of using fast acting caps combined with slow release caps.

This guy on YouTube has something similar. I am not sure it will work since it may cause lenzing which he is not talking about. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NoLbphJkxMM

Though, I am not sure if you could use that cap/battery you mentioned for charging and discharging at the same time. The net effect may be a gain or loss of charge to the unit as a whole. Both may not be possible.

Thanks

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CAPS Experiments

Hi jd_zinke,
I have never tried with this type of a cap/battery at the front end. But it will be interesting to see the results. I use large Maxwell 16v cap bank with overcharge protection circuit all the time. It works well for me and behaves somewhat like a battery. Still in an experimental stage. I have thought of adding a large fast charging/discharging to the back and front of the bank to create a similar effect as you mentioned above. It's in my list to do. I wanted to check the behavior of using fast acting caps combined with slow release caps.

This guy on YouTube has something similar. I am not sure it will work since it may cause lenzing which he is not talking about. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NoLbphJkxMM

Though, I am not sure if you could use that cap/battery you mentioned for charging and discharging at the same time. The net effect may be a gain or loss of charge to the unit as a whole. Both may not be possible.

Thanks

THANKS TO YOU, DIESELSHIP!
I watched the clip you referenced and became even more motivated! I built the TeslagenX 8 tranny board as the base to expand my knowledge. It's a great, high-quality design/kit, with clear, well written assembly and coil hook-up instructions. Their 8 winding + trigger coil is also very well made. I mounted the board in a 5x7 frame with small fillers on each end to close the open spaces. The theme that this energizer is built around, is one of the 1800s vintage apparatus motif. It has a 26" fan-spoke wheel and 18 ceramic magnets mounted as a floor/console model, with gauges on a panel at the top. (Will send a pic when it's up and running)

I appreciate the support Teslagenx offers for their products, to ensure the best results. I'm awaiting a SPDT switch and a 3amp diode, for the Advanced Bedini model's Common-ground feature, from a local dealer. Once the model is running, I'll finish twisting and winding the generator coil, to start the Cap/run-battery experiments.

Stay in touch,
J.D.