What's the best cap dump circuit?

[Carlos Galvis]

Hello all, i'm building my 2nd SG, and i want to add the cap dump, and i saw there are many versions of it out there, but i read someone that said that we should stick with John B.'s solution... any of you know if this is the one he's talking about? is it the most updated one? cheers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd2172V0w_Q

Carlos

[Prinsloo]

I think a concept animation by MAllen7424

Hi Carlos

Nope this is not the JB (CPD), I don't know of/haven’t seen anyone that built this successfully, this was I think a concept animation by MAllen7424, (and seems to be a self charger iow charging the primary and the secondary at the same time) his site with very interesting info:-

Free Energy?-- Fact or Fiction? -Animations by MAllen7424

(at the bottom of the page some where)

The Gurus on the SSG (here) might give you more info on this


Theunis

[hobbyrobotik]

Hi Carlos & all,

working this w.e. on my bedini sg it was necessary to solder another cap dump. I found the very simple schematic in the good old Bedini/Bearden book with
a SCR and neon, but i needed to lower the voltage. So i had a simple idea and i soldered some LEDs in series and parallel to the neon - It works very good.

Here is the schematic, if you're intrested in a quick and easy solution.

have fun

Dieter

[Carlos Galvis]

hobbyrobotic, thanks for the reply! ill sure try this... what about the switching mechanism? do you use a timing wheel?

carlos

[Prinsloo]

Hi Carlos & all,

working this w.e. on my bedini sg it was necessary to solder another cap dump. I found the very simple schematic in the good old Bedini/Bearden book with
a SCR and neon, but i needed to lower the voltage. So i had a simple idea and i soldered some LEDs in series and parallel to the neon - It works very good.

Here is the schematic, if you're intrested in a quick and easy solution.[ATTACH=CONFIG]1514[/ATTACH]

have fun

Dieter

Hi Carlos

Referring to the circuit that "hobbyrobotik" posted above, the cap get step charged from the HV spike from the SSG via a bridge rectifier that will raise the voltage on the cap, until the breakdown voltage of the neon is reached (± 90v) which in turn will fire the SCR and bump the cap's charge into the battery on the right. Your cap need to be rated ±150 v for a safety margin.

Does this make sense to you?

Theunis

[Ron Chase]

Three Cap Dumps

Hi Carlos

Referring to the circuit that "hobbyrobotik" posted above, the cap get step charged from the HV spike from the SSG via a bridge rectifier that will raise the voltage on the cap, until the breakdown voltage of the neon is reached (± 90v) which in turn will fire the SCR and bump the cap's charge into the battery on the right. Your cap need to be rated ±150 v for a safety margin.

Does this make sense to you?

Theunis

These three cap dumps can be modified for different uses.

Enjoy,

Ron

[Carlos Galvis]

Hi Carlos

Referring to the circuit that "hobbyrobotik" posted above, the cap get step charged from the HV spike from the SSG via a bridge rectifier that will raise the voltage on the cap, until the breakdown voltage of the neon is reached (± 90v) which in turn will fire the SCR and bump the cap's charge into the battery on the right. Your cap need to be rated ±150 v for a safety margin.

Does this make sense to you?

Theunis

yes it does! thank you very much for your help. cheers
carlos

[Carlos Galvis]

These three cap dumps can be modified for different uses.

Enjoy,

Ron

thanks ron, wow, looks like ther's lots of ways to do this, what has been your experience working with these setups?

carlos

[hobbyrobotik]

Hi Theunis, Carlos and all

thanks for your explanation, but its not complete. the LEDs with 3V each lowers the discharge Voltage to your own desires. The
neon is only for protection if one on the LEDs will die. So if you want to dump pulses with a 30V pulse, take 6 LEDs (18V) because
you have the battery in series in the circuit (18V + 12V = 30V) Thats it !

Dieter

Hi Carlos

Referring to the circuit that "hobbyrobotik" posted above, the cap get step charged from the HV spike from the SSG via a bridge rectifier that will raise the voltage on the cap, until the breakdown voltage of the neon is reached (± 90v) which in turn will fire the SCR and bump the cap's charge into the battery on the right. Your cap need to be rated ±150 v for a safety margin.

Does this make sense to you?

Theunis

[Prinsloo]

neon in place as a safety precaution

Hi Theunis, Carlos and all

thanks for your explanation, but its not complete. the LEDs with 3V each lowers the discharge Voltage to your own desires. The
neon is only for protection if one on the LEDs will die. So if you want to dump pulses with a 30V pulse, take 6 LEDs (18V) because
you have the battery in series in the circuit (18V + 12V = 30V) Thats it !

Dieter

Thanks hobbyrobotik for further explanation, (I did not want to steal your thunder on this one ),

one then should be able to use a Zener diode as well?

Good idea to keep the neon in place as a safety precaution.

Theunis

[Ron Chase]

Cap Dump Use

thanks ron, wow, looks like ther's lots of ways to do this, what has been your experience working with these setups?

carlos

Hi Carlos,

Yes there are several ways to dump capacitors.

I have used all three versions of cap dump on a 5 foot diameter Bedini Ferris Wheel motor energizer I built after the 2010 Energy Conference. I found all three to be effective in charging a 36V battery bank. For 12V and 24V systems the same schemes will work but with different sizes of capacitors to match the coils and primary voltages used and some considerations for firing the neon bulb and heatsinking where needed. On the 5 foot wheel I prefer the SSR cap dump developed by John Bedini. It's elegant, simple and effective which should surprise no one. His designs are always brilliant.

Here are a couple pictures of cap dumps. One using the neon lamp and the other using the solid state relay.

Ron

[Ren]

Hi Ron,

I managed to get the comparator circuit you posted on EF working the other day, with a few changes (thanks John K). I like the way it charges! I read somewhere JB said it could also be used for Cap discharge into motor coils as well, I can see some interesting possibilities with this.

I have briefly tried the single transistor/mosfet/SSR method where there is no apparent triggering, that is the base/gate is not connected. I couldnt seem to get that one to work however. Is it part sensitive. I think it was Mike K who posted a number of transistors he tried that worked.

You say you prefer the SSR cap dump developed by JB, is that the comparator circuit? Or the second one on your previous post? Or something different again?


Regards

Shan

[vallentin]

Hi Ron,
I managed to get the comparator circuit you posted on EF working the other day with a few changes (thanks John K), .

Hi, Ren
Did I miss something here?

[Ron Chase]

Hi Shan,

"I managed to get the comparator circuit you posted on EF working the other day, with a few changes (thanks John K). I like the way it charges! I read somewhere JB said it could also be used for Cap discharge into motor coils as well, I can see some interesting possibilities with this."

Glad to hear you have the comparator circuit working. I also modified my comparator circuit with changes from John K's circuit. He's a good man! Can you post your latest schematic? I'd like to compare it to my latest version. Cap discharge into coils sounds interesting. Thanks.

"I have briefly tried the single transistor/mosfet/SSR method where there is no apparent triggering, that is the base/gate is not connected. I couldnt seem to get that one to work however. Is it part sensitive. I think it was Mike K who posted a number of transistors he tried that worked."

It may be part sensitive in regards to system voltage. What voltage is your sytem using? I am running 36V on the 5 foot wheel and the IRFP Power Mosfet and Magnecraft solid state relay both work well. I think of them as passive switching devices in that as you mentioned there is no trigger signal applied to the gates. Functionally they see a higher voltage potential at the negative side of the dump cap than at the negative post of the battery bank and instantly switch on when a certain differential voltage level is reached. Why this happens is open to speculation. Can you direct me to Mike K's post about transistors he sucessfully tested? Thanks.

"You say you prefer the SSR cap dump developed by JB, is that the comparator circuit? Or the second one on your previous post? Or something different again?"

Its not the comparator circuit, thats completely different. I think the comparator circuit was mainly used with lower voltage systems but can work with 36V systems. The SSR cap dump by John B. is the second circuit in my previous post. It only uses one passive switching device as I mentioned above. I like the solid state relay package because its easy to mount and connect wires to. It also runs absolutely cool to the touch as does asingle IRFP mosfet. I think they dump all of the energy spike to the battery bank and don't waste any energy as heat as occurs with actively switched devices as you can see in the first circuit of the Three Cap Dump Methods from my previous post. Actively switched devices definitely require heat sinking.

Best Regards, Ron

[Ren]

Hi Shan,

"I managed to get the comparator circuit you posted on EF working the other day, with a few changes (thanks John K). I like the way it charges! I read somewhere JB said it could also be used for Cap discharge into motor coils as well, I can see some interesting possibilities with this."

Glad to hear you have the comparator circuit working. I also modified my comparator circuit with changes from John K's circuit. He's a good man! Can you post your latest schematic? I'd like to compare it to my latest version. Cap discharge into coils sounds interesting. Thanks.

"I have briefly tried the single transistor/mosfet/SSR method where there is no apparent triggering, that is the base/gate is not connected. I couldnt seem to get that one to work however. Is it part sensitive. I think it was Mike K who posted a number of transistors he tried that worked."

It may be part sensitive in regards to system voltage. What voltage is your sytem using? I am running 36V on the 5 foot wheel and the IRFP Power Mosfet and Magnecraft solid state relay both work well. I think of them as passive switching devices in that as you mentioned there is no trigger signal applied to the gates. Functionally they see a higher voltage potential at the negative side of the dump cap than at the negative post of the battery bank and instantly switch on when a certain differential voltage level is reached. Why this happens is open to speculation. Can you direct me to Mike K's post about transistors he sucessfully tested? Thanks.

"You say you prefer the SSR cap dump developed by JB, is that the comparator circuit? Or the second one on your previous post? Or something different again?"

Its not the comparator circuit, thats completely different. I think the comparator circuit was mainly used with lower voltage systems but can work with 36V systems. The SSR cap dump by John B. is the second circuit in my previous post. It only uses one passive switching device as I mentioned above. I like the solid state relay package because its easy to mount and connect wires to. It also runs absolutely cool to the touch as does asingle IRFP mosfet. I think they dump all of the energy spike to the battery bank and don't waste any energy as heat as occurs with actively switched devices as you can see in the first circuit of the Three Cap Dump Methods from my previous post. Actively switched devices definitely require heat sinking.

Best Regards, Ron

Hi Ron,

Ive attached your schematic below, along with a pic of the monopole Im testing with. My "artsy" computer is down at the moment, the one I do image manipulation on. And your schematic is so neat and pretty I'm hesitant to stain it with my changes

So I'll just mention my additions, which John K helped me with.

First, my cap charger is a 3 coil monopole, each coil has 6 x 0.9mm power strands. Input is 12v @ 1 amp, though I have tested it up to 120v @ 1 amp with a variac. Capacitance is 22,000uF on front and back, 75vdc electrolytic. @ 12 watts input the output capacitor dumps just faster than once a second @ approx 22v. Of course this can be tailored with the adjustment of the 25k pot, but John K suggested around 18v for gels and around 24v for lab's. So far working quite well. And there is alot of improvements that could be made with the coils and circuit.

The changes to your schematic are as follows:

D7 is changed to 1N4733 (5.1v Zener). Couldnt get it to work on 12v input with the 15v zener there.

JK suggested C1, 1uF ceramic and C2 2.2uF electrolytic. I used a green cap for C1, couldnt get a ceramic locally.

JK also suggested a 0.47 uF cap over pins 2/3 of the LM741, I have yet to place that there though.

I have a socket installed for the h11d1, but got that far and realized I could just use the output of the 741 to pulse my SSR directly, since it is optically coupled inside the SSR I saw no need for double isolation. So pins 1 and 2 of the h11d1 now connect to my HFS33a (32v, 100A SSR) which I had lying around.

Omitted the Power LED and subsequent 47k resistor once I had it working. Also have a switch to bypass the pulse LED. On a previous build (Tesla Switch) I was using an Arduino to switch the SSR's and I found that with an LED inplace the SSR didnt switch on correctly. Removing that LED fixed the problem and the SSR switched much better. Wasnt sure if by chance it was doing the same thing, so have the option to switch that LED on or bypass it. Doesnt appear to make much difference however.

Id still like to build the full schematic with the FETs however as this relay is very limited in voltage, it just happened to be what I had laying around. If I try some cap discharges with this circuit into motor coils then it will have to be rated much higher.

BTW, I love that wooden Ferris wheel you made. So oldschool and super cool. I cant look at old wagon wheels the same way now!

Regards

Shan





PS: I cant seem to find the post by Mike K, I seem to remember reading it on the old Yahoo group just before it closed down. There were a number of NPN transistors from memory that he tested. I'll keep looking.
Comparator Circuit 12-1-11[1] copy.pdf