ZFM Advanced Explorations

[Yaro1776]

If you where to imagine a larger ZFM how would it look? larger rotor and coil with more poles? maybe multiple rotor and coils?

The ZFM design should be scaleable to a larger rotor diameter. The question about multiple coils/poles becomes a bit more complex if one is to use the original Bedini concept. Going to 6 poles changes the rotor magnet Neos to opposing polarities similar to Ron Coles work - remaining true to the Bedini magnet/coil config would require an 8 pole rotor.

From last year, the initial trials of the Ron Cole opposing polarity rotor Neos using a 2 pole rotor (N-S config) demonstrated somewhat different operational characteristics. In essence, a simplified experiment of his 6 pole design. This experiment will be run again this fall for a more thorough look at the opposing polarity design.

The timing and duty cycle of the coil energized period are critical.

So is there a tangible difference between both approaches? To be determined.

BTW all your pictures documenting your build in one folder is a nice touch. I do have a number of other ongoing projects that are occupying my attention, so any replies on topic may be somewhat delayed and as time permits.

Keep up the good work Joseph,

[Joster]

Hi Yaro,

As I wait for the components to arrive from Digikey to build the Bipolar Switch, I got to thinking about how I will mount the devices to a heatsink. I don't plan on the transistors getting very hot but want the safe guard there incase something happens. Anyway, from looking at Peter's ZFM build, the transistors seem like they are just glued to the heatsink somehow. I'm not sure how exactly they are attached but am wondering if anyone here has any insight into that.

Also, regarding the circuit construction, I see that the leads of all components are as short as possible and everything is soldered together with no PCB. Would it really be that bad to design a PCB with large trace width and minimal trace length? I mean, with EasyEDA its so easy to do. I will likely try both but wanted to bounce this off the forum aswell.

Lastly, referencing my model ZFM, what would be the best direction to go in as far as adding a generator on the shaft? Should I just print myself a small axial generator? Or wait till my next larger build and try a dc motor or car alternator?

Thanks for your help.

-J

[Yaro1776]

Hey Joster,

The original YZFM BP switch used a 1/4" thick Aluminum plate with a thermal glue for the transistors and subsequently James McDonald designed a PCB for the ZFM. He had a quantity of them built and still has them on hand. I will touch base with him if you are interested in a ready made one. I have been using this BP board for the YZFM experiments and the heat sinks work! Better yet, try the contact Link below:

james.mcdonald@teslaenergytech.com

As far as driving a gen or whatever with the ZFM, well get the puppy running and see how much power your build will develop and then take it from there.

[Joster]

great thanks! I will reach out to James.

[James McDonald]

great thanks! I will reach out to James.

Hi Joster --

The above pictures are coils I wound for my ZFM and the measurements I took from them. The other picture is the two rotors I had built of which
one of them still has round N52 magnets on it but they were 1/2 inch thick. The other rotor was modified later on and 1 7/8 inch by 1 inch by 1/2 inch N52
block magnets were added. I hope your build goes well because the more people doing these experiments the more data we will have as to what works
best.

Good Luck and have Fun with this ZFM build.

-- James

[Joster]

Wow! Thanks James! Really cool to see the coil impedance measurements. Would you happen to have a pic of the Bedini-Cole Switch PCB you designed up for Yaro? Attached is the design I'm working on. Wondering if having a double layer pcb will have a negative effect on anything...

[James McDonald]

Hi Joster --

See the attached picture of the PCB board.

-- James

[Joster]

This is great thanks so much! I have a few questions:

1. What are J3 and J4 for?
2. What are D1 and D2 for?
3. My pcb design is 2 layer. Should I try and do it all on one layer as you have it here?
4. Trace width? should the traces not be wider? at least for the coil connections to facilitate a low impedance path to extract the radiant energy? You likely know better than I as I haven't done much pcb design so I'm just confirming.

Thanks again,

Joster

[James McDonald]

This is great thanks so much! I have a few questions:

1. What are J3 and J4 for?
2. What are D1 and D2 for?
3. My pcb design is 2 layer. Should I try and do it all on one layer as you have it here?
4. Trace width? should the traces not be wider? at least for the coil connections to facilitate a low impedance path to extract the radiant energy? You likely know better than I as I haven't done much pcb design so I'm just confirming.

Thanks again,

Joster

Hi Joster --

Sorry for the delay in me answering your questions but I only check this forum once a week now
or just on the weekends. It is good to ask questions here due to we are also teaching others and
hopefully others will take an interest and build there own ZFM also. I myself started out using a
cheap PCB design software package called DipTrace but I now use Altium Designer 19.

"1. What are J3 and J4 for?"

On the original design there were 4 coils. So J1 through J4 are for a 4 coil ZFM.
I myself only used two coils and put jumper wires on the ones I did not use since
all 4 coils were connected in series with each other. So for a two coil ZFM design
you would use J1 for coil 1, J2 would have a Jumper wire, J3 would have a Jumper
wire, and J4 would be for coil 2.

J1 through J4 were for coil inputs.
J5 and J6 were for Timing Reed switch inputs.
J7 was for if you wanted to relocate the power On / Off switch somewhere away from the PCB.
J8 was the external Power input to the PCA.


"2. What are D1 and D2 for?"

I had told you that in the pictures I sent some of the parts were not soldered to the PCB
yet. D1 and D2 are important to trouble shooting the design. They are LED's. Before you
even apply power to the ZFM you can see these LED's light up just by spinning the rotor
by hand. When they light up without power applied it tells you the coils are wired to the
PCB correctly and the reed switches are wired up correctly and not broken. They are also
an indicator if a transistor happens to go bad you can tell which 2 of the 4 are not working.
The LED's are help in adjusting the timing on the ZFM. If the timing is off you can see it in
how bright the LED's are.

"3. My pcb design is 2 layer. Should I try and do it all on one layer as you have it here?"

My PCB is a 2 layer also. You should use your 2 layer PCB. It makes soldering much easier.
What you would do is, try to get every hole that would go to the bottom layer to have a part
pin going through that hole.

"4. Trace width? should the traces not be wider?

Depending on how big your PCB is and the way the parts are laid out on it I made my traces
as wide as the connector pins and part pins they would attach to and in between power busses
were all made as thick as possible without causing shorts.

"5. at least for the coil connections to facilitate a low impedance path to extract the radiant energy?"

For my ZFM design the coils were wound with 18 gauge wire and I used 450 feet for each side to
get the coil resistance to be around 3 ohms. This made a 6 ohm coil when put in series. The
transistors being used are used to pulsing current through the coils and since they are Audio
Transistors they are used to driving speakers from 4 to 8 ohms. The little bit of impedance on the
PCB will not have any effect on the whole circuit operation.

I am not sure if you saw the below video I made in front of my townhome this summer but the
link is below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sDcE_xCZS4


-- James

[Yaro1776]

YZFM Done Deal

Greetings to all,

This post will close out the YZFM explorations for the 4 pole rotor configuration of the ZFM. The last recent experiments verified the May 2019 test results and increased the load on the motor up to 1.0 kg. The results are as follows:

5504 RPM at 60.14v and 1.80A with 0.49 ft lb load: eff. 29.29%
5063 RPM at 60.78v and 2.20A with 0.55 ft lb load: eff. 24.65%
10800 RPM at 60.0v and 1.02 A at 0 load

The loading was at the limit of the torque testing apparatus - need a new arrangement for higher loads. The left coil on the YZFM was overheating? while the right coil was at a comfortable touch temperature.

To flesh out the testing the power supply was changed from the linear transformer PS to three LAB's at 36 volts nominal just to cover all bases. Results are as follows:

4075 RPM at 36.80v and 1.59A with 0.36 ft lb load: eff. 29.91%
7480 RPM at 37.17v and 0.66A with 0 load

All the above data falls into the range of the prior testing. The only outlier is the high left coil temperature. So this test concludes the testing for this configuration over a nearly three year span. The information gained from this effort will now be applied to the next version.

Please note that Dr. Peter Lindemann did mention to me and in a forum post that the 4 pole ZFM air core coil arc should really be reduced to about 80 degrees instead of existing 90 degrees of the YZFM. I have had the sense for a time that this build has been somewhat restrained by other factors. Dr. Lindemann never explained the why of the 80 degrees - another puzzle that I will attempt to clarify by a simple demonstration in the future in the new thread for the next version's build. This may be a very important point.

BTW, when the YZFM was torn down it was discovered that that left air core coil (the one that overheated at high load) had some internal shorting issues. Unknown when it was actually damaged since there have been a number of relatively violent Neo failures in the past two years.

Happy Fall,

[Aaron Murakami]

Thanks for the update Yaro!

Do you know what kind of insulation is on your magnet wire?

[Yaro1776]

Wire is from Essex - #20 amber colored, Insulation Base coat - modified polyester; Overcoat - modified amide-imide rated for 220C temp. The characteristics of the motor have changed with time - it has been shipped cross country twice and experienced three Neo failures (one without the safety tape) at speeds over 8000 RPM.

Coil is quadfilar so it may be that one or two strands may be suspect/intermittent, beyond that I have no clue. I am not inclined to re-wrap/repair the suspect coil at this time.

[Joster]

All sounds great! check this out....

[Aaron Murakami]

Wire is from Essex - #20 amber colored, Insulation Base coat - modified polyester; Overcoat - modified amide-imide rated for 220C temp. The characteristics of the motor have changed with time - it has been shipped cross country twice and experienced three Neo failures (one without the safety tape) at speeds over 8000 RPM.

Coil is quadfilar so it may be that one or two strands may be suspect/intermittent, beyond that I have no clue. I am not inclined to re-wrap/repair the suspect coil at this time.

That insulation is a bit beefier than what I've been using so it must have taken quite a beating: https://temcoindustrial.com/23-awg-c...l-gpmr200.html for mwo hv coils.

Those coils are 1 layer and we put 10 coatings of super corona dope on top so they can hold up to quite a bit! That stuff will hold back about 3500 volts per mil without even baking it - baked is about 4000 volts per mil or more. It dries like a glass coating - anyway, in case you ever want to go that far with the coils, that's the stuff to use.

[James McDonald]

All sounds great! check this out....

Hi Joster --

That is a very nice looking setup you are working on. Tell me how you are going to connect the four wire? Series??? Parallel??? or Combo of
both series and parallel?

-- James