The Ultimate Cap Dump

[John_Koorn]

I see why you want a voltage doubler. I tried a setup like that a while ago, but with using a PIC instead of a comparator to control the cap dump voltage.

What I found is that as the battery voltage raises, it doesn't really need to be hit with double the voltage. For example, when the battery gets to 15v you don't need to hit it with a 30v pulse. Lead acid batteries seem to prefer the difference in voltage to reduce as they charge, but also increase the pulse frequency.

This is exactly what the fixed reference voltage comparator does. I usually set my reference voltage at about 25v. When the battery starts to charge it gets a good 12 to 13v over the battery pulse about 7 pulses/second (depending on what I use as the input). Then during the middle part of the charge when the battery is at around 13.5v it's getting solid 11.5v pulses over the battery at about 10 pulses/sec. Then to finish charging at around 15v it gets about 10v over the battery pulses at around 14 pulses/sec.

The last part provides a good desulfation pulse train that doesn't heat the battery or over-gas it too much.

FETs work pretty well to dump the caps, just watch that they don't heat up too much. I use a 3" fan mounted on a heatsink for mine. A BJT transistor works fine in place of a gate driver. You should have no trouble adapting the 555/scr circuit to a FET. The IRFP260 is pretty robust and will handle a fair bit of power. I looked through the thread for a schematic but couldn't find what I was looking for. There's one by Ron Chase and another from RS_, maybe they will re-post it for you or someone else has better searching skills than me

John K.

[aln]

Yes, I found the same thing - and even blew the darn thing when I overloaded it (too big of a cap). Also, whenever there is heat, there are losses. I love this thing for my smaller 1 coil 4filer builds, it runs cool and I can see the effects.



Did you end up trying that AC cap on the mains Light Lenz charger? make sure and put it in a box or add some protection/fuse in that ckt. Safety first...

Pat,
Thought I would share this for the other novices (who, like me, might try something without understanding) as well.

So I went back to the books for a lesson.... Reactive capacitance as measured in ohms is inversely related to the capacity of an ac cap. So when I used a 270 uf cap on Pat's lite lenz generator instead of a 10uf as Patrick did I had a decrease in RC as measured on ohms.

Formula: Xc= 1/2(PI)FC
Xc is Reactive capacitance, PI is 3.1415..., F is frequency in hertz, C is capacity in Farad's.
So Patrick's worked out is: 1/2*3.14*60*.000010=265 ohms of resistance to the mains
Mine worked out: 1/2*3.14*60*.000270=<10 ohms of resistance in the ac circuit.

That explains why was having so many amps pumping through my version. This is common knowledge to most of you, but for some it may keep you from danger. Happy experimenting!

[hobbyrobotik]

Hi aln,

the formula is right if you have a AC - sinewave current, but not useful in pulsed DC circuits. Look for the DC-parameters and the Joules (energy) formulas for
charging and discharging caps.

Happy experimenting!

[RS_]

here is a 12V version of JB's comparator trigger cap pulser with the changes i described before.

this should help everybody do it at 12V.....

[aln]

Hi aln,

the formula is right if you have a AC - sinewave current, but not useful in pulsed DC circuits. Look for the DC-parameters and the Joules (energy) formulas for
charging and discharging caps.

Happy experimenting!

Hobby,
If you look at Patrick's "lite lenz free generator:" what it is, and what it does; you will see that if you take your power from a nsnsns configured wheel it is a sine wave. Also, Patrick has demonstrated in this thread, on video, of him using the mains (that is 120v, 60hz, alternating current here, U.S.) to a fwbr to power this instead of a rotor to rectify the ac to dc and charge up his "ultimate cap dump."

Thank you RS. That is on my to do list soon. Hope you've recovered well from your fire.

Aln

[min2oly]

Hi Al,
I did not have the maths on this, Thanks!
I learned from trial and error - discovered this a couple of years ago during the Romero Muller frenzy.
depending on the speed/freq. and coil size. you need to vary the cap to sneak off some energy w/ little to no drag on an air coil.
I guess I'm lucky I never hooked up a large cap to the mains. Although, I did have the gizmo in a box w/ a fuse on the switch and made sure to plug into a low amp breaker. Safety first...
Thanks again for the maths. I still think we can connect a larger cap to the mains if it is a high quality cap rated for that type of ab-use :-)
sincerely,
Patrick

Pat,
Thought I would share this for the other novices (who, like me, might try something without understanding) as well.

So I went back to the books for a lesson.... Reactive capacitance as measured in ohms is inversely related to the capacity of an ac cap. So when I used a 270 uf cap on Pat's lite lenz generator instead of a 10uf as Patrick did I had a decrease in RC as measured on ohms.

Formula: Xc= 1/2(PI)FC
Xc is Reactive capacitance, PI is 3.1415..., F is frequency in hertz, C is capacity in Farad's.
So Patrick's worked out is: 1/2*3.14*60*.000010=265 ohms of resistance to the mains
Mine worked out: 1/2*3.14*60*.000270=<10 ohms of resistance in the ac circuit.

That explains why was having so many amps pumping through my version. This is common knowledge to most of you, but for some it may keep you from danger. Happy experimenting!

[aln]

So lets do a little more math and see if it works out. Ohms Law I=V/R in dc circuits with constant temperature. Well, to see if it works I found a couple mini ac caps, .155uf and .445uf. So I put them into Patrick's little circuit and found Mr. Ohm is in the ball park. (who am I to tell if Georg Ohm is in the ball park) I know my caps aren't exactly what they say they are and the same goes for the voltage and frequency. (drop through the fwbr) So using formulas from above 1/2*3.14*60*0.000000155= 17113 ohms, 120v/17113= .0070 amps Well I got .0055 on my meter so that is somewhat close (meter could be off). Then the same for my other cap. 5961 ohms, .0201 amps (actual current with my mete was .0135 amps. They do not charge too fast. Now for Patricks 10uf. I think he mentioned 3 amps or .3 amps I can't remember without looking back so here is the math, 120/265=.453 amps. I'll have to check on the voltage drop across the diodes to get more accurate to the equation. Anyway, this could be simplified if my brain was working, I'm too lazy right now so will leave it up to a math wizard. Then you could size it to your needs 500ma to forever Al

[hobbyrobotik]

Hi Aln,
now I know what you're doing. Be very very careful, its a dangerous method. I had the similar idea, but the 230V~ in Germany are to hot for me and i am using
now a small 18V/10VA print transformer and a FWBR to my (70,000 uF) comparator circuit (similar RS's) pulsing 24V downto 16.5V. results in 1.5 pulses per second.
Power consumption (230V energy meter) 6W to 8W.

[aln]

Yes, be careful. I agree. I got some of the yellow caps in the mail today and measured their amperage off the mains, it was .365 amps. Redone math on the bigger cap because it was 179-232mfd, not 270. 1/2*3.14*60*.000232= 22.87, 120/22.87= 5.24 amps. Sounds like a good idea, but it was a 110 volt cap so I was exceeding the voltage, and it is 5 amps at roughly 114 volts, danger. In Germany, you might want a baby capacitor or find trouble. Lots of fun, easy to do, and inexpensive.

On another note, I had to buy a new ssr for my comparator (copy of patricks) as the Chinese one died. Got a Douglas Randall K12A and it is working great. Al

[aln]

Patrick,
So I noticed when I parallel another cap of the same size it double the current to battery. It is directly related. I parallelled 3 10uf caps and I got just over an amp (.365*3=1.095 amps) That moves the voltage. Is this just a standard current charge that will eventually sulfate the battery or is it radiant like? I am talking without cap dump. It is basically pulsed at 120 htz as the bottom of the sign wave is now on the top I would guess. It is like a standard charger that needs to be watched so you don't cook the battery, right? Al

[min2oly]

Patrick,
So I noticed when I parallel another cap of the same size it double the current to battery. It is directly related. I parallelled 3 10uf caps and I got just over an amp (.365*3=1.095 amps) That moves the voltage. Is this just a standard current charge that will eventually sulfate the battery or is it radiant like? I am talking without cap dump. It is basically pulsed at 120 htz as the bottom of the sign wave is now on the top I would guess. It is like a standard charger that needs to be watched so you don't cook the battery, right? Al

Hi Al,
my scope shows sharp cap dumps, similar to using a cap dump on the SSG.
In the vid I use a cap dump on top of that which allows an accumulated larger dump. I don't think this is extracting any radiant type of energy. It's doing other things though. I have no idea what LOL.
Cheers,
Patrick

[min2oly]

Ok, I thought I would share ONE of my many builds that allowed me to study this energizer in slow motion while making small adjustments and being able to measure the results very quickly.

This one build was hands down the most versatile and taught me the most about balance.

Anyone try Neg2Neg mode on this one?
We've been doing it for a couple years now...
Happy energizing,
Patrick

[aln]

Thanks Patrick, I watch all your videos to the end. I like your phrase above, "It does othere things. I have no idea what LOL." All smiles here. Al

[aln]

Ed Morbus,
here is a copy of the schematic for Patrick's comparitor cap dump. It is relatively easy to build, you can know that cause I built it and I am a very simple man . It isn't too clear so watch Patricks video to hear what size components he uses. Also flip the diode in the schematic I drew up. Aln

[Ed_Morbus]

Thank you Aln

Have you bigger schematics or sent to morbus34@hotmail.com