An energy harvesting project

[JulesP]

Ok thanks, the hunt is on.

[Gary Hammond]

Hi Julian,

Hi Gary,

I suppose fluid-filled but tamper-proof (sealed) would be ok, so long as it doesn't need topping up through loss of water over time.

Would you say then that the CCA/Ah value is the most indicative of low IR and more important than the Ah capacity - so best if I compare a range of batteries to find a ratio of at least 20A/Ah, even if it results in a 40Ah or larger battery?

Julian

Most car starter batteries I've seen in the US for the past 20 years don't give a reliable AH rating, only the CCA rating. Some dual purpose marine batteries still give both ratings. But to answer your question, the 20 to 1 ratio of CCA to AH would be a pretty reliable guide.

The battery link you posted (post # 138) is about the same physical size as our U1L lawn and garden batteries. I used to have a 2006 Ford Expedition with a 4.6L v8 engine. Here's a link to the flooded batteries still available for it. Notice that only the CCA ratings are given. Most of my vehicles use batteries near this size range, and when I replace them I keep the old ones to use with the SSG. https://www.interstatebatteries.com/...explorer-v846l And here's a link to the U1 batteries available locally. https://www.farmking.com/category/di...tegory?id=3042

Some of our flooded maintenance-free batteries can be opened up to add water, but the AGM ones are usually sealed.

Gary Hammond,

PS : I see that the Interstate battery link shows 7 batteries available for the vehicle listed. 5 of them are flooded and give no AH rating. But the last 2 listed are AGM and DO give an AH rating. These figure out close to a 11.8/1 ratio for one battery and 11/1 for the other.

[JulesP]

Hi Gary,

I suppose fluid-filled but tamper-proof (sealed) would be ok, so long as it doesn't need topping up through loss of water over time.

Would you say then that the CCA/Ah value is the most indicative of low IR and more important than the Ah capacity - so best if I compare a range of batteries to find a ratio of at least 20A/Ah, even if it results in a 40Ah or larger battery?

Julian

[Gary Hammond]

Hi Julian,

So I should be aiming for a fluid-filled battery or are the AGMs or SLAs equally as good? I have a 17Ah AGM mobility battery, that I have done many tests on, but its IR is not as low as I would like.

I didn't realize it would be difficult to find flooded lead acid starter batteries in the UK. We still have them readily available in the US.

The battery in the link you provided is only a 300 CCA which is pretty low for also being rated at 35AH. Our U1 and U1L lawn tractor batteries are rated from 270 to 335 CCA and will only deliver from 11 to 13 AH when tested on the CBA analyzer. These are what I started with and also what I showed on my home page that gave me the 1.25 COP.

I've also gotten nearly as good results with 12AH AGMs but I prefer the flooded type because I think they have the lowest internal resistance. The deep cycle batteries will work, but I get better results with flooded starter batteries on my particular machine.

Gary Hammond,

[JulesP]

Hi Gary,

Clearly, I was given poor advice by another who was adamant that the larger deep-cycle batteries would give the best results.

So I should be aiming for a fluid-filled battery or are the AGMs or SLAs equally as good? I have a 17Ah AGM mobility battery, that I have done many tests on, but its IR is not as low as I would like.

Here is a typical 35Ah sealed one:
https://www.eurocarparts.com/p/lion-...AOVjBdo1wlPhF3 w-Do3ey2GriojrIEx_XdUe0TD9DN40BPMlTmn7N1iiersaAmd3EA Lw_wcB

It's not easy to find fluid-filled ones these days, except perhaps in small motorcycle batteries for example.

Perhaps my 110Ah battery can serve as a REAC, a 3rd battery, although many say that depleted and sulfated batteries work best here.

Decision, decisions

Julian

[Gary Hammond]

Hi Julian,

Your CoP of 1.25 you got with 13Ah batteries and I’m led to believe that using bigger deep cycle batteries encourages even better results and I’m trying a 110Ah deep cycle one which is being slowly conditioned.

It seems counterintuitive, but deep cycle batteries are probably not the best way to go. They will work with this technology, but not as well as an equivalent AH car starter battery. I bought four 105AH deep cycles 5 years ago to experiment with thinking they would give better results than they did. I used them in a battery swapping arrangement, and this year two of them developed shorted cells due to not being fully recharged each cycle. Here's a link to a video I posted of them when they were still fairly new. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ld6MEEzxUnM

Deep cycle batteries are designed to produce low current over a long period of time and able to withstand being deeply discharged each cycle. Automotive starter batteries, however, are designed to produce high current for very short time duration. This means that the starter batteries have a much lower internal resistance than an equivalent sized deep cycle and is more suited to this technology, which doesn't need deep discharging and can produce charging to 15.3 volts or higher each cycle. These machines give best results when working near the middle and top of the charging cycle voltage ramp.

With my machine I tend to get the best results overall with car batteries in the 500 to 700 CCA range. At 20 CCA/AH this converts to the 25 to 35 AH range. Here's a link to a chart about this. http://www.teslagenx.com/reference/c20.html

Gary Hammond,

[JulesP]

Thanks Gary,

I’m drawing about 0.2A per winding so my draw is typical it seems. I will try putting my four recovery coils in series to push the coil resistance to around 70 Ohms while leaving the 4+1 winding main coil the same.

Your CoP of 1.25 you got with 13Ah batteries and I’m led to believe that using bigger deep cycle batteries encourages even better results and I’m trying a 110Ah deep cycle one which is being slowly conditioned.

I will also try a REAC setup in due course but there is also the option of real time mixing of HV spikes and cap dump pulses so plenty to be going on with.

Still very puzzling why my charging voltage will not go above around 13V; cf Rodolphe’s 15V with my own PCB design. So I need to use a sub-optimal charging reference point but that’s not too serious.

I’ve added an old radio broadcast to my site (No 8 in the list) at: https://www.kerrowenergetics.org.uk/video-links

Julian

[Gary Hammond]

Hi Julian,

I also wanted to ask for your suggestions on reducing the supply current in an SSG/SG-type device.

I'm not sure how to respond to this. ........................My main experience has been only with the SSG as presented in the three handbooks. I tried to copy John Bedini's build as closely as I could. The coil spool, welding rod core, seven 130 feet strands of #20 wire and one 130 feet of #23 wire twisted together (litzed) and wound evenly around the spool was used. The 21 magnets were evenly spaced around a 26" steel bicycle front wheel fitted with precision ball bearings without seals. The basic circuit on the Teslagenx board with matched components was used with one trigger coil input and seven power winding inputs. Here's a link to the board. http://www.teslagenx.com/kits/tx-sg8.html?category=kits The kit had a 12ohm resistor for the common trigger input and 470ohm resistors on each individual trigger input to the 7 MJL21194 transistors used.

Tuning consisted of balancing the wheel and lubricating the bearings for a maximum run-down time which was 13 minutes for my wheel (with coil removed) and then adjusting the air gap between magnets and coil core for fastest running with least current draw. This worked out to .354" on my machine. I later switched out the 12ohm input resistor with a 100ohm pot so I could experiment with input resistance and air gap settings. Turns out I got the best results with the original set up. I found that any added resistance anywhere in the circuit reduced the results. This includes thru meters, switches, connections. and wiring.

The rule of thumb for these machines is .250 amps current draw per power winding. So with 7 windings mine should draw 1.75 amps which is very close to what it draws in common ground ( aka generator) mode where it gives around 1.25 COP in AHs using 13AH flooded batteries. And In radiant mode it draws 1.25 amps giving around .6 COP in AHs using the same batteries. With cap discharge it gives around .8 to .9 COP.

What I found is that I can change both the RPM and current draw by changing either or both the trigger input resistance and the air gap. But I get best charging with the original settings. So, for any given machine there is a best combination of variables. And current draw can be either too great or too little for best results.

I've also been experimenting with an older machine I built that uses 5 power windings and hall effect switching of MJL21194 transistors. It will not get above .9COP and draws 1.25 amps in generator mode. I'm in the process of changing it out to SiC FETs. I tried driving all the windings in parallel with one FET and it drew way too much current and blew out the FET. Then I hooked all the windings in series and drove it with one FET. That drew too little current and gave poor results. Next I want to try driving each winding with it's own FET and see what that does.

If I wanted to include such an adjustment would a simple pot in series with each channel be suitable to take the total supply current down from around 0.9A to around 0.25-0.5A, or perhaps elsewhere in the circuit to affect all channels equally?

My concern is that dropping nearly half an amp at around 12V means dissipating 6W so does that mean that the only sensible way to drop the current is to reduce the coil voltage? This can be done with my Buck Converter but that has other consequences.

I think that driving each recovery coil with it's own separate transistor would lower the total current and they could all be tuned by a common pot and matched branch resistors. Another approach would be to put the coils in series instead of in parallel or maybe a combination of parallel pairs in series. Adding a pot in series with each coil would waste a lot of power whereas adding a transistor to each coil would control the current without a lot of heat loss. Either of these approaches would have the effect of lowering the voltage applied across each coil.

Gary Hammond,

[JulesP]

Thanks, Gary,

I will build a 'sniffer' coil and see what it reveals.

I also wanted to ask for your suggestions on reducing the supply current in an SSG/SG-type device.

Results I have observed indicate that the supply current is one of the primary factors in CoP and that in my going from a bifilar coil with my SSG to a four-winding main coil in my SG (v5) device, the current is up by a factor of 4 but the pulse effect on the battery is not.

So I am looking to turn down the supply current a bit to find the optimum balance. Of course, the trigger circuit has its own pot to tune the trigger timing, and some have used this pot to adjust the supply current (which would surely change the optimum timing setting for running), but there is normally no such equivalent pot for adjusting the coil current.

If I wanted to include such an adjustment would a simple pot in series with each channel be suitable to take the total supply current down from around 0.9A to around 0.25-0.5A, or perhaps elsewhere in the circuit to affect all channels equally?

My concern is that dropping nearly half an amp at around 12V means dissipating 6W so does that mean that the only sensible way to drop the current is to reduce the coil voltage? This can be done with my Buck Converter but that has other consequences.

So I’m just asking what is the best method to reduce the total supply current, which in my case is made up of my 4 recovery coils in parallel (being switched by one transistor) and the 4 windings in the main coil each with their own switched channel.

Julian

[Gary Hammond]

Hi Julian,

Thanks Gary, I will explore how to make one.

Does the magnetic field being in the opposite direction imply a magnetic field is being drawn in to the wire rather than radiating out as normal?

Julian

No. I think it means that current is flowing in the opposite direction. From the run battery the supply current (electron flow) is traveling from negative to positive. And the battery being charged has electron current flowing into the negative terminal and out of the positive terminal. A current direction reversal is necessary to charge a battery. Of course, with this system there is high voltage spikes and very little current doing the work of recharging the receiving battery.

All the leads have both an electric field and an associated magnetic field around each wire. I think the "sniffer coil" produces a voltage when the magnetic field cuts across the windings. This voltage can then be displayed on the o-scope. It is very interesting to use the "sniffer coil" at various places around the machine while it is running and watch the traces on the scope.

Gary Hammond,

[JulesP]

Thanks Gary, I will explore how to make one.

Does the magnetic field being in the opposite direction imply a magnetic field is being drawn in to the wire rather than radiating out as normal?

Julian

[Gary Hammond]

Hi Julian,

SNIFFER COIL
Would a simple inductor serve the purpose? I have a bag of various inductors as here:

Making a sniffer coil is really very simple. I doubt that most commercially made inductors would work for this. Here's a link to a post where Rodolphe and I were discussing this with a photo and explanation showing what I use. https://www.energyscienceforum.com/forum/alternative-energy/john-bedini/bedini-sg-official-monopole-forum/bedini-monopole-3-beginners/400-complete-bedini-sg-book?p=72541#post72541

Measurements on leads:

Gary’s use of a sniffer coil is a good idea and why I have tried using a clamp meter on the input and output leads. Of course, this does not give me the scope detail but with its Hall sensor and coils it does detect the magnetic fields. The strange thing is that the clamp meter on the input leads reads a current of say 0.6A while the meter on the output cable reads -0.2A!

This implies the magnetic field is in the opposite orientation or has a changed direction. If you changed the orientation that you put the clamp meter on the input cable it makes no difference as the detector is reversible, I think, so the negative reading indicates something else. Magnetic energy entering the wire instead of radiating out as normal?

I would like to build a ‘sniffer’ coil for a more detailed picture of events so any details would be appreciated.

I've found that clamp meters being digital don't give accurate results. And yes, the magnetic fields around the input and output leads are opposite orientation from each other.

Gary Hammond,

[JulesP]

Hi Rodolphe,

CONDITIONING
Perhaps I should consider getting a TeslaGenx charger as a reference device to do some output tests on and to charge up my supply battery instead of using a regular hot charger or waiting many hours using my system. Which model would suit for charging up my 110Ah deep cycle battery, and smaller ones when required? But I could only really afford the TX-2A12.

Would such a charger take a battery up to 15V like my SSG and v5(SG) are supposed to do?

SNIFFER COIL
Would a simple inductor serve the purpose? I have a bag of various inductors as here:



LOW INPUT CURRENTS
If I could throttle the input current that would be useful but so far the only control I have is to increase the trigger coil adjustment resistance, and so make that circuit operate less efficiently, or to disconnect some of the MC windings, e.g. four down to two.

CONSISTENT OU
They are probably cautious of revealing some ‘secret sauce’

J

[pearldragon]

Hi Julian

I still intend to respond a bit more elaborate at your post #126 and #129. But here are some things I wanted to respond immediately to:

#126 CONDITIONING
If you’d have a TeslaGenX charger I’d recommend you to charge with that one only.
If you have a new battery, the normal ‘breaking in’ (or one that has been on the shelf for a while) you can do till 14.4V with a normal charger in absence of a Radiant charger… then at least you know that the battery is accepting voltages to 14.4V and if none of your machines can get it to at least that level, then there I would start looking. But again, if you can do away with a normal charger: better; it was just a suggestion how to do some checking with the tools you have.

#129 Discharging:I only discussed with him how I explained it to you, which he mentions in #118. But there are more ways that lead to Rome (or Overunity ).

#129 Measurements on leads / Sniffer coil:
From post #216 onwards on this thread Gary and I discuss the sniffer coil:
https://www.energyscienceforum.com/f...?t=399&page=22
If you’ve more questions let me know, but it’s basically buying a small spool of coper, put it 90@ orientated to your wire and hook the spool of copper up to your scope.

#129 Low Input Currents:
If I look at the first image of your graph there, it looks exactly like my graphs. To me it just seems you would need to let it run for waaaaay longer… that dimple you see, it is the same in my graphs, only after that the voltage starts rising slowly again.

#129 Consistent OU:

There are a lot of ways and parameters to change with cap dump systems, you probably know more about them then me. I tried to contact TeslaGenX a couple of times already to, although I’ve talked extensively with them in the past also via Skype, at the moment no response….

Best regards.
Rodolphe

[JulesP]

Hi Rodolphe,

Taking each issue in turn:

Using a PSU:

Yes, I agree that it can’t deliver current in the same way as a battery and also can’t be used in SG mode but I’m not using one to get the best results but rather for convenience. When I’m looking for the best performance then I will use a supply battery.

For a battery supply to receive some radiant assist then the system will need to be in SG mode but that doesn’t appear to give the best results, generator or common earth seem to. As with most other areas, suck it and see.

Interesting note that current measurements should be spot checks and not continuous. This does then require one to be around the test area a whole ot more.


Battery Setup:

Gary offers some useful advice on how to set up the batteries for a test run. Starting with both batteries fully charged and only being able to use radiant charging can take quite a while and so far I’m never sure when full charge has been reached as I have not been able to take a battery to 15.2V. The c20 rate seems low but workable although I’m inclined towards a c10 or C15 rate.


Battery Swapping:

Useful confirmation that swapping of the supply and charging batteries is ok and that it is using a hot charger that undoes the conditioning process and is to be avoided.


Measurements on leads:

Gary’s use of a sniffer coil is a good idea and why I have tried using a clamp meter on the input and output leads. Of course, this does not give me the scope detail but with its Hall sensor and coils it does detect the magnetic fields. The strange thing is that the clamp meter on the input leads reads a current of say 0.6A while the meter on the output cable reads -0.2A!

This implies the magnetic field is in the opposite orientation or has a changed direction. If you changed the orientation that you put the clamp meter on the input cable it makes no difference as the detector is reversible, I think, so the negative reading indicates something else. Magnetic energy entering the wire instead of radiating out as normal?

I would like to build a ‘sniffer’ coil for a more detailed picture of events so any details would be appreciated.


Discharging:

Gary also proposes using time as the main factor with the CBA and that is how I work. Using a voltage is too vague and imprecise for an accurate Ah or energy calculation. Voltage is a consequence of the chemical state and you can't readily measure that; but you can measure the energy or Ah in and out.


Extra battery:

I wondered the same that if the parallel REAC type battery is always being charged then it will reach full charge. But then if it has a large capacity and also when it reverse charges up the newly swapped battery, perhaps these keep it from reaching full charge. Also, it perhaps can start in its role from being nearly depleted. I will be trying out a REAC in the near future.


Low Input Currents:

A figure of 0.25A for input current is about what I found with the BD1 and any higher and it erodes the CoP value since the denominator is increasing in the CoP energy calculation.

This is seemingly a problem with the v5 I am testing which has four windings in its MC. The current is four times higher but the charging effect is not up by the same factor. Maybe using a REAC will improve matters.

Here are some V5 charging graphs, the upper with HV from the 4 winding MC and the lower from the cap dump unit.







After doing most of my tests with a small 7Ah AGM battery, I am now starting with a 110Ah deep cycle battery. Everything takes a lot longer though!



Voltage Grounding:

When the spikes meet the low impedance environment of the battery then they are effectively earthed so you won’t measure the spikes at that location. However, their impact on the electrode and electrolyte has not ceased and is having repercussions within the electrochemistry. This can result in the ‘over-potentialising’ that has been spoken of.


Consistent OU:

It may be that the TeslaGenx charger is indeed doing something that your SG is not able to do but whether it is the cap dump system is not clear. I have used a cap dump system and it gives nice-looking graphs with lots of spikes on it but the CoP is not really any better. So what is different about one cap dump from another?

The answer is probably the mix of voltage and charge delivered in a particular pulsed format. While PL's demo cart may have no ‘secret sauce’ I reckon the waveforms delivered for best results are indeed a very carefully chosen arrangement of impulses that have specific effects. That is IP and so is not shared widely. That’s the way of the world.

We each need to find our own ‘secret sauce’. If I find it then I will indeed share it so long as I’m not infringing someone else's ‘secret sauce’.

Julian