My Mode 3 - In action

[Brian McNece]

A little update!
I tried increasing the on time of the arduino in steps till i got to 80000 microseconds on, every second, to no avail. So i set aside the coils i was using and tried the microwave primaries, i had three of them in series, 1.4 ohms total. Still wasn't getting the neon to flash, i started checking voltages with my volt meter (it is like the one bob uses in his videos, hooked to software on the computer) i am getting 40 volt pulses across the switch terminals without the switch even being on. I am wondering if my ssr may not be working properly. I am going to watch bobs video again and verify i have it wired up properly then i may try a different ssr. I also tried reversing the wires on the ssr, the neon would light up when i would turn the switch off. I don't know if it makes a difference but i do not have a fuse in place.

[BobZilla]

A little update!
I tried increasing the on time of the arduino in steps till i got to 80000 microseconds on, every second, to no avail. So i set aside the coils i was using and tried the microwave primaries, i had three of them in series, 1.4 ohms total. Still wasn't getting the neon to flash, i started checking voltages with my volt meter (it is like the one bob uses in his videos, hooked to software on the computer) i am getting 40 volt pulses across the switch terminals without the switch even being on. I am wondering if my ssr may not be working properly. I am going to watch bobs video again and verify i have it wired up properly then i may try a different ssr. I also tried reversing the wires on the ssr, the neon would light up when i would turn the switch off. I don't know if it makes a difference but i do not have a fuse in place.

I'm not sure what to make of what your describing. You should test the SSR with just a normal load like a little light bulb or something. Also make sure of the voltage required on the trigger side of the SSR, keeping in mind that the aurduino can only give 5v so if it requires more you could have problems. Also make sure you have a DC SSR, they make AC versions which would not work the same at all on a DC connection. You do have the diode on the end of the coil to feed your charge pos right?

Anyway I hope you get it working, not much else I can do.

[Faraday88]

Hi Faraday,
This was specifically to help Brian who is having trouble with his experiment. I don't want to confuse the situation by adding more complexity, besides it's just a switch. What I wanted to drive home for Brian is that the coil must be loaded properly to get the field collapse. Brian hopefully you understood what I was showing but to say it plainly again here, if you have a coil with a lot of resistance then you will need a longer on time to load the coil. The sketch I am using works very well for my coil but that is because it is roughly tuned for that coil. This is the same reason why Mr Bedini specifies what the coil length should be and what gauge on the beginners type monopole build, because he already calculated what would give the correct coil loading for that machine. It's not that there is a magic number when it comes to a coil size, you just need to understand what is happening and then you can design anything around the principals at work.

On a side note I do find a point where a coil can have just too much resistance to work very well. You can always get it to fire but then the frequency becomes the issue, if you have to spend to long loading it then you cannot get it going fast enough to charge very well. Gennerally speaking I think anywhere between 1 to 5 ohms is workable but closer to 3 is best. I am talking about for a SS build like what we are dealing with here. For a regular wheel it's more like 1.2 ohm. See with this setup we are not using resistors and manipulating the base amplitude, this is more raw direct on the coil so we use a bit more resistance in the coil itself.

Hey Bob!!
Sure man you are right as always!! no doubt on your teaching skills..yes the fundamantals have to be well borne in mind if one is to get a hold of the entire stuff.. i just chimed in to prompt for an application where the solid-state relay might as well be used... please carry on..its all yours!!
Rgds,
Faraday88.

[Brian McNece]

I think i am getting closer to having it work, i wound a coil for it, approx 135' of 20 gauge wire. I only had a few minutes to mess with it this evening after getting the coil done, however i saw enough to realize that the coil that i had been using just wasn't going to work. Also, i need to play with the arduino program to get it where it should be. I will post some more after i get it working properly. I may even try posting a short video if i can.
Thanks again Bob

[Brian McNece]

Bob
I am wondering if maybe there is something unique about the crydom SSR. I have 2 different 25 amp DC SSR's and neither of them give the effect of what I see on your video. So today I was working with it and decided to try just a plain old automotive relay, the neon started flashing all over the place. So I set it up so the arduino would trigger the automotive relay at about 9.58 hertz (Iworked my way up to 9.58) hooked a battery to the charge side and woo-hoo it charged the battery from 12.58 to 15.50 in about 30 minutes (originally it was charging but not too fast, i put some transformer leaves in the core of the coil, that's when it started charging real good). My coil warms up in that time frame, I may have to wind another coil and make it longer this time. The coil is a bifilar coil, I had the windings in series to get the best charging for least draw on primary.
Looking forward to more videos Bob
Now I am going to work on the cap dump, I am waiting for some more arduinos to come, I may see if I can find a SSR like the one you have. I am hoping the SSR's that I have will at least work for the cap dump.

[BobZilla]

Bob
I am wondering if maybe there is something unique about the crydom SSR. I have 2 different 25 amp DC SSR's and neither of them give the effect of what I see on your video. So today I was working with it and decided to try just a plain old automotive relay, the neon started flashing all over the place. So I set it up so the arduino would trigger the automotive relay at about 9.58 hertz (Iworked my way up to 9.58) hooked a battery to the charge side and woo-hoo it charged the battery from 12.58 to 15.50 in about 30 minutes (originally it was charging but not too fast, i put some transformer leaves in the core of the coil, that's when it started charging real good). My coil warms up in that time frame, I may have to wind another coil and make it longer this time. The coil is a bifilar coil, I had the windings in series to get the best charging for least draw on primary.
Looking forward to more videos Bob
Now I am going to work on the cap dump, I am waiting for some more arduinos to come, I may see if I can find a SSR like the one you have. I am hoping the SSR's that I have will at least work for the cap dump.

Hi Brian,
Nothing special really about the crydom,, other than as I already mentioned when I was making suggestions to you that you need to check what voltage and your SSR requires. If it is one that takes more than 5v then the aurduino will not trigger it. Remember I said test switching a light bulb or something to see if the relay was triggering properly.

Anyway you seem to be making some progress so that's great! As you tinker more and more you will figure out how to tune better. As for alternative relays I mentioned these early in this thread, they are 4 amp so if you parallel them you can make a stronger switch. I have six of them on my mechanical wheel, there is video in that thread.

http://www.energyscienceforum.com/sh...ll=1#post25912

It's late and I gotta run, sorry if the message seem short, just need to sleep.

[Brian McNece]

Hi Brian,
Nothing special really about the crydom,, other than as I already mentioned when I was making suggestions to you that you need to check what voltage and your SSR requires. If it is one that takes more than 5v then the aurduino will not trigger it. Remember I said test switching a light bulb or something to see if the relay was triggering properly.

Anyway you seem to be making some progress so that's great! As you tinker more and more you will figure out how to tune better. As for alternative relays I mentioned these early in this thread, they are 4 amp so if you parallel them you can make a stronger switch. I have six of them on my mechanical wheel, there is video in that thread.

http://www.energyscienceforum.com/sh...ll=1#post25912

It's late and I gotta run, sorry if the message seem short, just need to sleep.

Thank you for your reply Bob
The SSR's both trigger with the arduino, When i said about the crydom being unique, i was thinking maybe the internal makeup may be different than the ones I have. I had actually ordered a few of Those ssr's you mentioned in the previous post, they just haven't got here yet. I found a couple of the surplus crydom's online last night, i will be able to compare to see if it is my setup or the ssr's. Have a nice Easter.

[BobZilla]

It is very possible that there is some difference between the one you have and the one I use. There are fet based SSR' and SCR based for example. What exactly are you using again, maybe if I can get info on it I could understand what the problem may be. At any rate thoe cheap ones work and the crydom's work, and crydom makes smaller ones down to 5 amp which I have also used but the cheap ones from china have held up great so far in my wheel.

I don't want to re-open a can of worms here but RS and I had a pretty strong debate awhile back about using SSR's. He felt that they would not work, specifically he was talking about an internal flyback diode. Perhaps the problem you are experiencing is what he was talking about. Also does it work at very low speed, I'm thinking that you may be trying to exceed the switching speed of your particular SSR. It's hard to say from a remote position what could be the problem.

[Brian McNece]

It is very possible that there is some difference between the one you have and the one I use. There are fet based SSR' and SCR based for example. What exactly are you using again, maybe if I can get info on it I could understand what the problem may be. At any rate thoe cheap ones work and the crydom's work, and crydom makes smaller ones down to 5 amp which I have also used but the cheap ones from china have held up great so far in my wheel.

I don't want to re-open a can of worms here but RS and I had a pretty strong debate awhile back about using SSR's. He felt that they would not work, specifically he was talking about an internal flyback diode. Perhaps the problem you are experiencing is what he was talking about. Also does it work at very low speed, I'm thinking that you may be trying to exceed the switching speed of your particular SSR. It's hard to say from a remote position what could be the problem.

Bob
I finally received the little 4 amp relays you mentioned earlier on, i put two of them in parallel and the setup worked just like it should. I could not find data sheets on the other relays that i purchased. However i did order some of the crydom's d1d40, ( they actually sent me d1d40z) they will work when the chg neg is parallel with run neg. i think it may have something to do with "z" designation, it signifies an internal voltage suppression device. They are sending me the correct ones, i'm feeling confident now that i can get this to work. I have the capacitors on order, that could take a while.
My setup is laid out pretty much like Bob shows in his videos, coil is a bifilar 20 ga and 23 ga. The arduino is running at 9.5 hertz, run battery is a 76 ah agm wheelchair battery (approx 16 yrs old) started @ 12.81. (Pause) i forgot to mention i also have a welding rod core in the coil that extends higher than the coil iself, on the core i have two small pancake motor coils in series hooked up to a voltage multiplier circuit, output is then looped back to the run battery. ( resume) the charge battery is two 2.9ah agm security light batteries ( roughly same age) starting voltage was 12.23. I ran the setup for about 2 hrs and 15 min. And in that time i was able to charge batt 1 to 15.33 and batt 2 charged to 13.56. Setup is drawing about 200-250 milliamps, kinda hard to be sure do to the pulsing. The run battery sat at 12.73-12.74 during the entire time, this morning i checked the battery voltages, they are: run batt 12.81 Batt 1 is 12.89, Batt 2 is 12.71. I will try to post some pics or a video at some point.
Thanks again Bob for your willingness to share your work and findings, i appreciate it, i am looking forward to more videos.

[BobZilla]

Brian that's great man! I'm happy that you have been able to take some of what I have said and make it work for yourself. You should make a video if it is possible for you. The more of us who show this stuff in action the more we help spread the knowledge for others. Some people are visual learners and some have to read all about things and study diagrams so talking about it and showing it reaches the largest crowd.

Brian did you see the video I posted in my LifePO4 thread just recently? You would probably like that one, it uses the same charger and dumper as we have been talking about here but the dump was just normal, not dancing.

Link:
http://www.energyscienceforum.com/sh...ll=1#post26618

[Brian McNece]

Brian that's great man! I'm happy that you have been able to take some of what I have said and make it work for yourself. You should make a video if it is possible for you. The more of us who show this stuff in action the more we help spread the knowledge for others. Some people are visual learners and some have to read all about things and study diagrams so talking about it and showing it reaches the largest crowd.

Brian did you see the video I posted in my LifePO4 thread just recently? You would probably like that one, it uses the same charger and dumper as we have been talking about here but the dump was just normal, not dancing.

Link:
http://www.energyscienceforum.com/sh...ll=1#post26618

I'll watch it tonight after work.
I do want to try a video of the setup working.

[Brian McNece]

Here is a video of my "replication" i need to tidy it up but at this point i am just pleased to have it working. It took about 1 1/2 hrs to charge from 12.54v to 15.48v. Both batteries are 2.9 ah the one with bedini on top was conditioned with an energizer that my son and i built for his science fair project years ago, it normally rests around 13v. Tonight when i started it was at 12.78, when the switch was turned on it dropped to 12.46 and stayed there the whole time, occasionally bouncing to 12.47. When the run was finished it returned to 12.73 within 15 minutes.

[BobZilla]

Here is a video of my "replication" i need to tidy it up but at this point i am just pleased to have it working. It took about 1 1/2 hrs to charge from 12.54v to 15.48v. Both batteries are 2.9 ah the one with bedini on top was conditioned with an energizer that my son and i built for his science fair project years ago, it normally rests around 13v. Tonight when i started it was at 12.78, when the switch was turned on it dropped to 12.46 and stayed there the whole time, occasionally bouncing to 12.47. When the run was finished it returned to 12.73 within 15 minutes.

Brian that's great man, thanks for sharing!

One thing I notice is on your charge negative you look like you are doing a common ground setup right? Typically I will put a diode between the chg neg and Pri neg if i'm doing common ground. What I actually do is put a double throw switch there so that I can switch from mode one to common ground quite easily.

All you need to do that is get a double throw switch ok, run the charge neg line from your terminal block into the MIDDLE pole of the switch. Now take the top pole of the switch and run an extension over to the chg pos. Run another extension from the bottom pole over to a diode (black side) then from the top side (stripe) to the Pri neg. When you want to run mode one flip the switch up, common ground put it down.

Anyway that's great work you have already, I am just suggesting an addition that I run on mine. One reason you would want to do it is because in common ground you really can only have two batteries of the same voltage because of the common ground (otherwise the higher voltage will force itself on to the smaller voltage with a lot of current). If you want to work with dis-similar voltages you can use mode one say like having 24 on one side and 12 on the other or whatever. It is also just worth studying the effects of each way.

I like your back pop setup but you should be aware that that usually results in messing up the primary. Mr. Bedini did this in his early machines but later said not to do it because the constant chg/discharge action destroys the battery. He said it was better just to take the energy and put it to another battery charging it only and not taking a load at the same time. With that said I still see people running similar concepts like the 3 batt tesla switch for example. I don't know but it's worth mentioning.

[Brian McNece]

Brian that's great man, thanks for sharing!

One thing I notice is on your charge negative you look like you are doing a common ground setup right? Typically I will put a diode between the chg neg and Pri neg if i'm doing common ground. What I actually do is put a double throw switch there so that I can switch from mode one to common ground quite easily

All you need to do that is get a double throw switch ok, run the charge neg line from your terminal block into the MIDDLE pole of the switch. Now take the top pole of the switch and run an extension over to the chg pos. Run another extension from the bottom pole over to a diode (black side) then from the top side (stripe) to the Pri neg. When you want to run mode one flip the switch up, common ground put it down.


(Response) good observation, i had it that way because of your video, after you mentioned it i looked and i actually have my + and - reversed from your video, i must have done that when i drew it out. Patrick made a suggestion on a you tube comment about just making another setup instead of changing anything on this one to see if I can replicate the results. I think i am going to try that before doing anything to change my current setup.


Anyway that's great work you have already, I am just suggesting an addition that I run on mine. One reason you would want to do it is because in common ground you really can only have two batteries of the same voltage because of the common ground (otherwise the higher voltage will force itself on to the smaller voltage with a lot of current). If you want to work with dis-similar voltages you can use mode one say like having 24 on one side and 12 on the other or whatever. It is also just worth studying the effects of each way.



I like your back pop setup but you should be aware that that usually results in messing up the primary. Mr. Bedini did this in his early machines but later said not to do it because the constant chg/discharge action destroys the battery. He said it was better just to take the energy and put it to another battery charging it only and not taking a load at the same time. With that said I still see people running similar concepts like the 3 batt tesla switch for example. I don't know but it's worth mentioning.

The back pop idea was a sort of a test to see what would happen, i have a large 10 farad capacitor that i would like to see if i can get this to run off of at some point in time.
When I build the next setup I am going to put the switch in place, i just wanted to see it work, i really got a littlle frustrated with the other relays. On a side note, i checked the voltage on my primary this morning before heading to work and it was at 12.78v, i checked again this afternoon upon getting home and it was still 12.78v. I am glad you shared this info Bob, this setup charged the battery in less than 2 hours, my wheeled ssg draws about 145ma and it take probably 12-20 hrs to charge it up like that. I am excited to see what it can do on larger batteries.
As i am typing i am thinking about your response and i am wondering if maybe the charge battery was pushing back on the primary. Something worth more testing.
One other thing i wanted to mention is the amp draw went down when putting the core in the coil.

[Brian McNece]

Bob
Quick question, the solid state and cap dump you have been sharing about, would you be able to switch primary and charge batteries back and forth without harm, if you wanted to. I know john B didn't recommend it with the sg, I wasn't sure about the solid state version, or the cap dump.