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Question...my generator coil is hooked up to an LED strip. The lights pulse with each magnet pass. Is there a way to even this out so that the lights get an uninterrupted power supply? How would I wire that up?
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Second question...has anyone tried charging up an alum battery with the generator coil? I'm curious if a genny coil would charge one all the way up during an SG run, and then I could just swap two alum primary batteries in and out to charge up batteries on the back end indefinitely....Comment
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You could put a full bridge on the coil or you could hook a diode to one lead coming off of it, then feed that to a supply capacitor. You want something large enough to steady out the supply. The idea is that the cap is going to be supplied DC and store enough up to supply the LEDs a steady drink while the back end is being fed from the coil.Question...my generator coil is hooked up to an LED strip. The lights pulse with each magnet pass. Is there a way to even this out so that the lights get an uninterrupted power supply? How would I wire that up?
This very much depends on the size of battery you have in mind, the output from the coil and how much time you want to take to charge it. I was charging my homemade lead-zinc cells with a genny no problem, they loved it.Second question...has anyone tried charging up an alum battery with the generator coil? I'm curious if a genny coil would charge one all the way up during an SG run, and then I could just swap two alum primary batteries in and out to charge up batteries on the back end indefinitely....Comment
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Thanks Bob! I am going to try both suggestions. I'm going to convert one of those lawn/tractor batteries I'm using as a primary to an alum battery and start charging with that. If I can get good results, I will duplicate with another and then try to charge them with my gen coil. I will post my results probably next month as it will take some time to accumulate everything and get it going.
Thanks again man!Comment
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Branch,
What voltage is that LED panel designed to run on? I'm not sure if it is a bunch in series or banks for 12v or what. I want to caution you not to drive them too high with a cap, you could burn them up. If they are supposed to get 12v you could hang a voltage regulator off the cap to keep from over doing it, same with the bridge rectifier.
What is happening from the coil out is this, you have an AC wave from the coil in raw form. Since LED's are diodes that is why you were getting the blinking effect, they only let half of the wave through, kind of like a pulsed DC.
If you use the bridge you will be utilizing both halves of the AC wave to make a DC. If you just put one diode you are using half of the wave coming off the coil, same as the LED's are already doing but you want to use that diode because you do not want to feed the raw AC into the cap.
However you fill the cap (single diode or bridge) you can then send it off to the LED's and they should stop blinking because the cap will continue supplying with it''s storage. What I am getting at is to be carfull about the voltage you send them and you may need a regulator between the cap and the LED's so you do not over drive them.
Anyway I hope that helps.Comment
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It's designed for 12V. I will look into either using a bridge or regulating the voltage coming off the cap. I definitely want to do something so the light isn't giving me a seizure in here haha.
Do you run the same kind of circuit when you are charging your alum battery?
Originally posted by BobZilla View PostComment
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Measure what voltage comes off the bridge if you use one and if it is too high use a regulator. LED's can be a little forgiving but not much. I just don't want you to mess up that nice panel under my advice.
If you want to put the effort and cash into it I think the best thing would be to use a bridge, connect the output of that to a cap and a regulator coming off the cap to hook to the panel. You can get all the stuff at radio shack for probably 7 - 10 bucks. It will waste a little energy using these extra components but not much and in my opinion it's worth it to feed that panel what it wants to see (12v).
If later you decide to try charging an Alum battery you should remove the regulator but keep the cap and the bridge so that you will have a DC feed. Depending on the voltage coming off the bridge you may want to put a dumping circuit of some kind on it but you may not have to, will just have to play around and see.
What I was referring to is very different from a conversion. These are cells I made with lead and Zinc wires in a pvc pipe, but I mentioned it because they are alum cells. It would not be a good comparison but yes I have charged eight of my cells in series from a genny coil. While they are connected and charging I have got them up to 20v or so and bubbling away.Do you run the same kind of circuit when you are charging your alum battery?Comment
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Ok I ripped all the magnets off my wheel, sanded off the glue from the rim, reattached them facing NORTH out, and secured with super glue and strapping tape. I also have wired my coil correctly now, so that the outer strand coming out of the center of my coil is going to the "bottom" labeled connectors on my 4TEK board.
I have also re-tuned and am getting a nice, single pulse again on my o-scope. I am going to record a video of what I am doing to tune, just to see if I am missing anything.
Running a couple charging charts on the CBA too to see if my situation has improved.Comment
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How I tune my SG
Here is a short vid showing how I tune my SG. Tom or John, please let me know if I am missing anything.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGpMqIiLMjUComment
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Hi Branch,
Looks pretty good. Now decrease the resistance a tiny bit at at a time and see if the RPMs increases. Wait until the RPMs stabilize before decreasing any more. Keep doing this until you see the RPMs drop a little. When you see the RPMs drop you've gone too far so back up a little. Then switch the machine off until it stops and then start it up again and note the RPM.
Once you're happy that the base resistance is tuned, adjust the coil gap either up or down to get more RPM if you can. You may have to re-tune the base resistance each time you change the coil gap. This may take a few hours to get it just right.
Make sure you start off with a fully charged primary and note that the RPM will naturally increase as the charge battery is being charged.
John K.
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Ok I am working on that this evening. Thanks very, very much John.
Originally posted by John_Koorn View PostComment
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Ok here's a question...I will do my best to explain what I'm asking...bear with me...
When I hook my coil up into this 4TEK board....I know that either end of the trigger winding is from the same wire...because there is only one. But there are 4 power windings. I currently have the power windings in their respective top/bottom slots...but they aren't necessarily matched up. So one wire connected to "bottom" on the 1st circuit, could be connected to the "top" of circuit 3...and so forth. Do these wires need to be matched up to their respective circuits?
BranchLast edited by Branch Gordon; 11-22-2013, 06:42 PM.Comment
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I went ahead and matched them up (in reference to my post above). It made about a 30 ohm difference in my tuning...so apparently having those wires matched up affected something in the circuit...hopefully in a good way!
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I am running a couple of cycles and charting to see if my charging has improved. I will post my results here in a few days.Comment
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I read through the instructions that came with my kit, and noticed a few things that I need to change. My coil has 23 gauge trigger and 20 gauge power windings.
I still have the fuse in, so I need to remove that. The 220ohm resistors i soldered in need to be removed and i need to put the 470 ohm resistor back in. The instructions also say I should have a 1k pot instead of a 250ohm pot.
Making more changes.
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