The Ultimate Cap Dump

[John_Koorn]

Thanks John,

That clears up a few things, JB is very ingenious when it comes solving problems.

Ahhhh yes, the C.I.H. :-)

Just for clarification on JB's Comparator... the main things that it is doing are:

1. making sure the capacitor you have dumps @ X voltage above the charge battery, and we are able to set X and/or it comes w/ set X value?

2. makes sure to dump the whole cap, that is, it places the cap in parallel w/ the charge battery?

3. and, it shuts off until the cap fills up again?

am I leaving anything out?

Thank you for helping out on this.
Sincerely,
Patrick A.

Hi Patrick,

I don't think you left anything out, but just to clarify:

1. Yes, you can set X
2. Yes, places the cap in parallel with the charge battery.
3. Yes, but does not bring the cap voltage down to the battery voltage before it shuts off.

There is a very good reason for #3 that is explained very well by Peter in the Bedini SG - The Complete Intermediate Handbook

Also, the device you use to switch the cap dump is very important.

Hope this gives you a few more clues.

John K.

[min2oly]

Hi Patrick,

I don't think you left anything out, but just to clarify:

1. Yes, you can set X
2. Yes, places the cap in parallel with the charge battery.
3. Yes, but does not bring the cap voltage down to the battery voltage before it shuts off.

There is a very good reason for #3 that is explained very well by Peter in the Bedini SG - The Complete Intermediate Handbook

Also, the device you use to switch the cap dump is very important.

Hope this gives you a few more clues.

John K.

Hi John,
Thanks again :-)
Isn't one reason mostly that there is not enough time for the cap to go completely down to the battery voltage...

There will be some "voltage bouncing" (ringing) in the battery and also might be good if the battery keeps seeing the high voltage so it helps to self charge. This is partly why the size of cap you use depends on the load.
Just my thoughts... grain of salt.
Kind Regards,
Patrick

[John_Koorn]

Hi John,
Thanks again :-)
Isn't one reason mostly that there is not enough time for the cap to go completely down to the battery voltage...

There will be some "voltage bouncing" (ringing) in the battery and also might be good if the battery keeps seeing the high voltage so it helps to self charge. This is partly why the size of cap you use depends on the load.
Just my thoughts... grain of salt.
Kind Regards,
Patrick

Hi Patrick,

No, the comparator can be configured to switch off (stop the cap dumping) at a certain voltage (X - Y, where Y is configurable but always >Z. Z is the battery voltage). I believe JB has it set this way for a reason. One of them Peter mentions in the Bedini SG - The Complete Intermediate Handbook

It's just my guess, but I believe JB just wants the battery to "see" a large current pulse at X and then switch it off at Y before the cap drops to Z. This gives the battery a kick up the pants with a large power pulse (I've measured almost 3kW pulses!) and you don't have to spend as much energy to get the cap charged back up to X

Easy as XYZ

John K.

[min2oly]

Hi Patrick,

No, the comparator can be configured to switch off (stop the cap dumping) at a certain voltage (X - Y, where Y is configurable but always >Z. Z is the battery voltage). I believe JB has it set this way for a reason. One of them Peter mentions in the Bedini SG - The Complete Intermediate Handbook

It's just my guess, but I believe JB just wants the battery to "see" a large current pulse at X and then switch it off at Y before the cap drops to Z. This gives the battery a kick up the pants with a large power pulse (I've measured almost 3kW pulses!) and you don't have to spend as much energy to get the cap charged back up to X

Easy as XYZ

John K.

Hi John,
I guess that's what I need to understand this stuff LOL.
My OU switch does all that as well. It'll be fun to try the FET's when they arrive.
I think I should be able to use the little bead toroid that I use with my NPN's. The NPN's get hot quick.
I hope JB's book is selling well, that's the 3rd plug in as many responses. Has anyone created a video trailer/review for it? What does it take to get Amazon to list it? Maybe you could make an agreement w/ Dadhav he gets a ton of hits
Hope you all have a fantastic weekend - sincerely,
Patrick A

[Ron Chase]

Hi Patrick,

Sorry you couldn't open the attachments. They are JPEG images so I don't know why they won't open. Almost any viewer will work. Is there a trick, I'm missing about uploading images to posts maybe?

The pictures are of a 30" diameter low RPM generator installed on the shaft of my 5' Ferris wheel and is the start of a re-gauging motor for my wheel. The coils are built and connected per John B's Ferris Wheel DVD. For now, I am using 4" X 7" X 1" C8 ceramics I scrounged from a large Ion Pump here at work arranged in a N-S-N-S, etc. pattern. Eventually, I will build a proper magnet rotor with Barium Ferrite magnets installed. That's another adventure.

What, I'm trying to do now is mimic the "re-gauging motor running in generator mode" function that John B. talks about in the DVD. The energy from this generator function is then added to the cap along with the big spike from the master and slave coils. The "trick is" how do you add two different sources of energy to one cap in a way that the two circuits don't interfere with each other? If anyone has a clue now would be a good time to jump in and enlighten us. I suspect we may learn the answer or at least get pointed in the right direction when Part 3, The Complete Advanced Handbook is released.

You are right about your 7 foot wheel wanting big coils. You will be amazed when you get them built and running on 36V.

Best Regards,

Ron

[min2oly]

Hi Patrick,

Sorry you couldn't open the attachments. They are JPEG images so I don't know why they won't open. Almost any viewer will work. Is there a trick, I'm missing about uploading images to posts maybe?

The pictures are of a 30" diameter low RPM generator installed on the shaft of my 5' Ferris wheel and is the start of a re-gauging motor for my wheel. The coils are built and connected per John B's Ferris Wheel DVD. For now, I am using 4" X 7" X 1" C8 ceramics I scrounged from a large Ion Pump here at work arranged in a N-S-N-S, etc. pattern. Eventually, I will build a proper magnet rotor with Barium Ferrite magnets installed. That's another adventure.

What, I'm trying to do now is mimic the "re-gauging motor running in generator mode" function that John B. talks about in the DVD. The energy from this generator function is then added to the cap along with the big spike from the master and slave coils. The "trick is" how do you add two different sources of energy to one cap in a way that the two circuits don't interfere with each other? If anyone has a clue now would be a good time to jump in and enlighten us. I suspect we may learn the answer or at least get pointed in the right direction when Part 3, The Complete Advanced Handbook is released.

You are right about your 7 foot wheel wanting big coils. You will be amazed when you get them built and running on 36V.

Best Regards,

Ron

Hi Ron,
They came through this time - VERY NICE!
I like your build, That's a fantastic wheel. I like where you have your cap located everything looks so clean.

I hear you on the mixing of the two. Rick employed a cap dump on the school boy, but it does not look like John is doing that w/ the Ferris Wheel. To me it looks like it's just going directly to the same cap.
I was playing w/ my window motor B kit, using a 7.5" wheel to drive it and using the window motor coils along w/ the Bedini Cole switch to charge a third battery. I can CAP dump it to the main charge battery, however, if I hook it directly it interferes w/ the main drive ckt, just like you are saying.
I was thinking it's just a different beast altogether, but if you are running into the same thing, perhaps I should play w/ it a bit more...maybe put the energies both to a cap, then dump to the main charge...
Do you have all those genny coils in series? how many winds, awg? volts?
Thanks for sharing those pictures, they are very inspiring.
Sincerely,
Patrick

If you haven't already seen it, here's the first vid I made just mess'n around with a small coil - lame clip leads etc... I just wanted to see it spin :-)

[Tom C]

OU switch?

Tom C

[John_Koorn]

Hi Mike,

I've only had success with SCRs on small setups, but I've only used small SCRs not the big guys you have.

John K.

[ZPDM]

Hi all,
I hope you’re all having fun experimenting with the "battery"/available power that exists between two negatives and are ready for step 2 of...

Quest for the ultimate cap dump.

One side note is that the SSR I have in my vid would only be recommended for very large builds as it does leak - can't see it on the scope but it does. This same type of circuit can be used w/ an SCR, or mosfet, or transistor or any other device that needs a little pulse to make it connect.

Where are the masters on this one? I would love to see this simplified even more.
-Kind Regards,
Patrick

ZPDM - I like where you are going with that, keep on it. Thanks for sharing!

I picked up a few 29 cent 600 watt transient voltage suppressor (avalanche) diodes will look to hook them up to a cap through a pot and see what I get. I may have lost some of the thread and I can't say I've ever seen an SCR but couldn't you run a varistor to an SCR and be able to get the SCR to discharge at whatever voltage you would like?

[min2oly]

I picked up a few 29 cent 600 watt transient voltage suppressor (avalanche) diodes will look to hook them up to a cap through a pot and see what I get. I may have lost some of the thread and I can't say I've ever seen an SCR but couldn't you run a varistor to an SCR and be able to get the SCR to discharge at whatever voltage you would like?

Keep plug'n away, I'm hoping to get this simplified :-)

[min2oly]

The Box

"Sup" people :-)
I hope your weekend found you well and rested. I was able to clear my mind a bit and get my head out of the clouds. Here is the conclusion I said I would post. I was really hoping one of the advanced thinkers here would have already posted a better solution. I gave it a month, but life happens right... I'm confidant someone will still share a simpler idea.
I like this one for many reasons. If you ask me anything and I'm sure many of those reasons will come out in my answers. In the mean time, thanks for listening to my ramblings -

[Catrinisin]

hey good info John K

I have scr parts that require a circuit driver that shorts out the main terminals to get a release for charging the next pulse.
I have many 700 amp SCR's[ATTACH=CONFIG]1768[/ATTACH]
The only way I can get these to let go or to keep them from latching is to let the voltage rise to the zener set voltage and upon firing briefly connect the power terminals across, so charging can reoccur.

I suppose I could dream up a 555 timer circuit to have some sort of cancel function at the end of a cycle.

This is the best I can do to explain what I see. This latest circuit i built is so hot that all of my old led cap dumps just LOCK RIGHT UP LIKE JUNK!!!

Mike

Hey Mike,

How much capacitance are you connecting to your SCR dump setup? I found issues with this when having too much capacitance. Lowering it down lets the dump happen with no issues that I can see. So I guess I am agreeing with John K here, it only seems to work o the smaller scale for me so far. I'm slightly bummed by this because I'm in the process of building a much larger energizer so I'm worried my SCR dump won't work with the larger machine....

-Chris

[knagtegl]

Did some playing with a SS SSG and cap pulsing with SCR with two 10 A/h batteries.
Used a Zener solution and works ok.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I10MIW1kAjk

Karel

[Catrinisin]

"Sup" people :-)
I hope your weekend found you well and rested. I was able to clear my mind a bit and get my head out of the clouds. Here is the conclusion I said I would post. I was really hoping one of the advanced thinkers here would have already posted a better solution. I gave it a month, but life happens right... I'm confidant someone will still share a simpler idea.
I like this one for many reasons. If you ask me anything and I'm sure many of those reasons will come out in my answers. In the mean time, thanks for listening to my ramblings -

Patrick,

Wow okay, thanks. I really like that it is voltage based and not timed based. I also like the reliability of it and the lack of issues such as the ones I have with my SCR setup. I am slightly confused as to exactly how this circuit measures the voltage difference? How do you dial it in accurately?

Thanks for this!! I think you are right, we can get this even more simplified. For me, I need to understand this one fully first before thinking outside your box here.

-Chris

[min2oly]

The Schematic

Thanks guys,
dialing the maximum voltage you want this to go is as easy as adjusting the two pots. Dialing the min/max simultaneously for a slow charger takes a bit more tuning w/ coil vs cap size and pots. So, as long as we are building big energizers, no worries about the minimum.
In the vid I said I would not provide schematic, for those of you reading this thread :-)...


I placed the LED and resistor on the wrong side of the SSR when I drew this up last year, just move them over or the SSR will have a difficult time switching.


I'll keep trying new things, in combination w/ ideas from those who have shared. As simple as this is, I think it can get even more simple. Keep the PM's coming, youtube is best - here is ok too, if you want me to test something.

-KR,
Patrick