BobZilla's Custom Build

[Gary Hammond]

Hi Bob,

I think it would be a good idea to replace that switch with a snap action one that has no center off position. That's what I have on mine, and even then it will give one quick flash of the neons if I switch it while the wheel is running.

Safest thing is to not even touch the switch while the wheel is running. Yea, I know, Peter shows doing this in the video and I saw him do it in person at the conference. But with my machine, I do sometimes get a quick flash of the neons which can't be good for the transistors. So now I always disconnect the primary battery before throwing the switch. And if you have a capacitor across the primary it should be disconnected as well, so the stored charge won't blast the transistors while throwing the switch.

[min2oly]

You can make one of these with some copper if you can't find one at your local electronic store. Place it inline with the supply + right next to the NegNeg switch with a big red sign
"Stop! Think!"

Never switch on the fly unless you get to the point where you can "channel" spikey with your thoughts.
On the bright side, that sounds like a serious contender for a beefy cap dump! I'm not sure I would want to put just any battery on the end of that one.

Now you have tasked me with an experiment I must try myself. remove the branch resistors from a multi-filer multi-coil system, never tried that move. Is there an experiment you did that led you down that path?
KR - Patrick

[BobZilla]

Now you have tasked me with an experiment I must try myself. remove the branch resistors from a multi-filer multi-coil system, never tried that move. Is there an experiment you did that led you down that path?

Ok so wait a second, let me clarify because I don't think we are on the same page. When I said branch circuit what I meant was splitting the output diodes into branches, such as two batteries. Mr. Bedini made that video a few years ago showing it being done on a small coil and a 3055 type transistor but the principal is the same on larger setups. Instead of bussing all the diodes together towards the charge pos, splitting them to go to separate outputs. I built that old SS with the 200ft coil to work that way. Anyway that is what I meant when I was saying branch.

This machine has all the boards wired up in the standard fashion so yea there is a bit of branching at the base from the trigger but you know all the E and C are bussed which is why they all need matching unless I'm not thinking about it correctly. Patrick why wouldn't each of them need matching, I'm curious on your line of thought there?

So looking at how this machine is configured we have the boards all standard configuration and then the boards themselves have busses all the way around. So I have three main busses going all the way around, pri pos, pri neg, charge pos. Also the trigger is bussed before the input to each board with a big loop of 21AWG. The charge neg is feeding back to pri pos or pri neg through the big diode depending on the switch position.

You know that knife switch is funny you mention, I originally had purchased knife switches for the machine but I decided not to use them. The ones I got just looked like they may be a little dinky for the job so I went with some heavy duty toggles instead. I had thought how cool would that be to have like a Frankenstein's lab looking switch.

Gary your advice is sound for sure. I have to train myself for now to just not touch the darn thing. I may have to move it or replace it, I can just see someone flipping it "whats this do" ..

Thanks for all the input and comments guys. It reminds me of the older days when everyone was really active with exciting stuff to share and collaborating the efforts.

Well I'm off to try and get this thing fixed again...

[min2oly]

Hi Bobzilla,
All of this is IMHO :-)
So the output buss is the same however, you can have the output buss the same for two separate coils, move the coils so the magnets hit at different times, adjust the timing so the coils do not fire at the same time and the bus does not care... does the battery or cap care??? they might, so this kind of ties back to your surf'n-skipper doodad. will the cap charge faster with multiple pulses from the coils ie each of your 4 coils firing separately or will the cap/bat charge faster if they all fire at the exact same time. Either way you can control the timing of all four coils with a POT on each board that controls each set of transistors and find out pretty quickly for yourself.

Why are we matching then… matching in an individual coil is so the transistors fire at the exact same time and open/turn off at the exact same time. If not then the energy in the transformer/coil will backup from one wire, then hop over to the next so that it has to find its way out of the maze, maybe some of it will not even find its way out… end up as heat or some other phenomena, and the battery or cap will not be able to realize the full potential the magneto has to offer. There is some good reading on matching transistors right on the data sheet of many transistors.

Of course I’m no expert on this. Grain of salt and all that…
Patrick A.

Ok so wait a second, let me clarify because I don't think we are on the same page. When I said branch circuit what I meant was splitting the output diodes into branches, such as two batteries. Mr. Bedini made that video a few years ago showing it being done on a small coil and a 3055 type transistor but the principal is the same on larger setups. Instead of bussing all the diodes together towards the charge pos, splitting them to go to separate outputs. I built that old SS with the 200ft coil to work that way. Anyway that is what I meant when I was saying branch.

This machine has all the boards wired up in the standard fashion so yea there is a bit of branching at the base from the trigger but you know all the E and C are bussed which is why they all need matching unless I'm not thinking about it correctly. Patrick why wouldn't each of them need matching, I'm curious on your line of thought there?

So looking at how this machine is configured we have the boards all standard configuration and then the boards themselves have busses all the way around. So I have three main busses going all the way around, pri pos, pri neg, charge pos. Also the trigger is bussed before the input to each board with a big loop of 21AWG. The charge neg is feeding back to pri pos or pri neg through the big diode depending on the switch position.

You know that knife switch is funny you mention, I originally had purchased knife switches for the machine but I decided not to use them. The ones I got just looked like they may be a little dinky for the job so I went with some heavy duty toggles instead. I had thought how cool would that be to have like a Frankenstein's lab looking switch.

Gary your advice is sound for sure. I have to train myself for now to just not touch the darn thing. I may have to move it or replace it, I can just see someone flipping it "whats this do" ..

Thanks for all the input and comments guys. It reminds me of the older days when everyone was really active with exciting stuff to share and collaborating the efforts.

Well I'm off to try and get this thing fixed again...

[AlvaroHN]

Hi guys,

I think that the way to go is to fire all coils at the same time, with all matched transistors.

If you fire the coils at different times you are not taking advantage of the impedance matching, let's suppose that 1 coil is 0.1 ohms, if you have 10 and fire them all at the same time you would get 0.01 ohms, if you fire them at different times it would be just like firing 1 coil... only more times x second.

This is because of what I have read, sadly not from my own experience…. Yet…

my 2 cents

Alvaro

Hi Bobzilla,
All of this is IMHO :-)
So the output buss is the same however, you can have the output buss the same for two separate coils, move the coils so the magnets hit at different times, adjust the timing so the coils do not fire at the same time and the bus does not care... does the battery or cap care??? they might, so this kind of ties back to your surf'n-skipper doodad. will the cap charge faster with multiple pulses from the coils ie each of your 4 coils firing separately or will the cap/bat charge faster if they all fire at the exact same time. Either way you can control the timing of all four coils with a POT on each board that controls each set of transistors and find out pretty quickly for yourself.

Why are we matching then… matching in an individual coil is so the transistors fire at the exact same time and open/turn off at the exact same time. If not then the energy in the transformer/coil will backup from one wire, then hop over to the next so that it has to find its way out of the maze, maybe some of it will not even find its way out… end up as heat or some other phenomena, and the battery or cap will not be able to realize the full potential the magneto has to offer. There is some good reading on matching transistors right on the data sheet of many transistors.

Of course I’m no expert on this. Grain of salt and all that…
Patrick A.

[BobZilla]

Patrick thanks for expanding. I just read what you wrote and it is an interesting idea for sure. I willl have to sit and think about it a bit more, just banging out a quick response.

So the output buss is the same however, you can have the output buss the same for two separate coils, move the coils so the magnets hit at different times, adjust the timing so the coils do not fire at the same time and the bus does not care... does the battery or cap care???

In particular that part does not quite match up with my current setup because all of the slave coils are firing from a single trigger. On my machine the bottom coil is the only one with an active trigger which is extended all the way around. I need to get the thng fixed so I can show you a video and explain a bt more detail of how it is setup. But anyway to your point of moving the coils, I could do that and it would affect the pull power of the electromagnetic effect so retard or advance basically but no matter where I position them they will still be firing at the same time from that trigger.

This does however give me ideas on how I could run it as you are describing,, and your right it could be made to act sort of like the cap dancing method, awesome idea man.


Alvaro,
Welcome to the discussion. In it's current configuration that is what this machine is doing, all at once.

Those two boards are stumping me, not as easy as the first few times I was troubleshooting. I think I am going to have to take each transistor off the board to isolate the problem. I hate changing components too many times on a pcb, always that chance of messing up a trace or pulling the little ring out. I am hoping I can get this thing patched back up and that it was only me goofing with the switch which was causing the problem.

Good times,, thanks guys.

[AlvaroHN]

Alvaro,
Welcome to the discussion. In it's current configuration that is what this machine is doing, all at once.

Those two boards are stumping me, not as easy as the first few times I was troubleshooting. I think I am going to have to take each transistor off the board to isolate the problem. I hate changing components too many times on a pcb, always that chance of messing up a trace or pulling the little ring out. I am hoping I can get this thing patched back up and that it was only me goofing with the switch which was causing the problem.

Good times,, thanks guys.

thank you BobZilla, and good luck with the repairs!

best

Alvaro

[min2oly]

Hi guys,

I think that the way to go is to fire all coils at the same time, with all matched transistors.

If you fire the coils at different times you are not taking advantage of the impedance matching, let's suppose that 1 coil is 0.1 ohms, if you have 10 and fire them all at the same time you would get 0.01 ohms, if you fire them at different times it would be just like firing 1 coil... only more times x second.

This is because of what I have read, sadly not from my own experience…. Yet…

my 2 cents

Alvaro

Hi Alvaro,
Thanks for chiming in on this. I really want people to challeng my thinking on this as it means big $$'s to match 16 instead of 4 groups of 4.

So Alvaro with that line of thinking we should also have to match the exact length of wire with the exact same amount of twists otherwise spiky will be different. We would also have to count the exact same number of welding rods in each core for the same reason. I don't think even John has done this. If we go back and watch DVD 2 and look at the scope of his 10 coiler, we can see very clearly the timing of all the coils is not exactly precise nor are the spikes

My thinking goes beyond just talk. I have completed the runs and do not find a difference. I tested on a 3 coil machine each coil had 2 power windings. When I matched all 6 T's there was no difference then when I had only matched 3 different groups of 2. I was really hoping there would be...

Bob, U can change the timing of each of those coils separately and still only use one trigger.
KR - Patrick

[AlvaroHN]

Thank you Patrick for the welcome,

I don't know about welding rods exactly the same and wire and all. I guess the most important is to fire them all at the same time so the event really happens in a single impulse, all windings at the same time like if it where just 1.

At least that is what I have always read; the impedance matching, trying to be as close as possible to the primary battery impeance with the coils impedance. (all windings in parallel lower the impedance of the coils and putting batts in series as primary gets the batterys impedance higher. I have never done any experimentation about this all my builds at the moment has been basicly just 1 tranny.

best

Alvaro

[min2oly]

Thank you Patrick for the welcome,

I don't know about welding rods exactly the same and wire and all. I guess the most important is to fire them all at the same time so the event really happens in a single impulse, all windings at the same time like if it where just 1.


At least that is what I have always read; the impedance matching, trying to be as close as possible to the primary battery impeance with the coils impedance. (all windings in parallel lower the impedance of the coils and putting batts in series as primary gets the batterys impedance higher. I have never done any experimentation about this all my builds at the moment has been basicly just 1 tranny.

best

Alvaro

agreed, however this T matching would only be beneficial per-each coil. the next coil does not care if the transistors are matched to the first coil, only that they fire at the same time. One coils transistors firing at the same time as another coils transistors has nothing to do with whether or not all 16 transistors are matched.

I'm not doing a very good job of making a simple point i think.. maybe someone else can rephrase what I'm trying to say???? whether or not you agree with it :-)

Patrick A.

[BobZilla]

Patrick I have some more questions about what you are saying. Please don't take it like I am challenging it, I am just trying to understand your view. I have found that sometimes things people said did not make any sense to me until sometimes months or even years later when my own experience showed it to me in a way I could understand. Kind of like when you get a giggle from a joke someone told you a long time ago and you finally get if ya know what I mean.

SO first you say even with the single trigger I could fire at different times. I just don't get this statement. The magnet swings by the bottom coil inducing some current to the trigger which in turn opens the C & E on the transistors so with a single trigger how could it fire them at different times? Granted with different resistance on bases it could fire at different amplitudes but the timing seems cooked into the cake.

Now expanding on the same assumption I do not see an isolation between coils, meaning as your saying who cares between coils about matching, only need to match each coil. BUT from my perspective they are all firing at the same time and all of the C & E are parallel.

Magnet activates base and switches (trannies) all close at same time and coils all charge (short the pri), magnet leaves and they all spike because of the sudden collapse of the field,,, spike jumps out the rectifying diode because of reverse polarity. What am I missing as far as something that negates from board to board they wouldn't need matching (that is if perfect matching is what we are trying to do)? The way it's all wired up it could just as well be one giant coil and one giant board accept the magnetic field is all the way around the wheel which helps for spin.

[min2oly]

Patrick I have some more questions about what you are saying. Please don't take it like I am challenging it, I am just trying to understand your view. I have found that sometimes things people said did not make any sense to me until sometimes months or even years later when my own experience showed it to me in a way I could understand. Kind of like when you get a giggle from a joke someone told you a long time ago and you finally get if ya know what I mean.

SO first you say even with the single trigger I could fire at different times. I just don't get this statement. The magnet swings by the bottom coil inducing some current to the trigger which in turn opens the C & E on the transistors so with a single trigger how could it fire them at different times? Granted with different resistance on bases it could fire at different amplitudes but the timing seems cooked into the cake.

Now expanding on the same assumption I do not see an isolation between coils, meaning as your saying who cares between coils about matching, only need to match each coil. BUT from my perspective they are all firing at the same time and all of the C & E are parallel.

Magnet activates base and switches (trannies) all close at same time and coils all charge (short the pri), magnet leaves and they all spike because of the sudden collapse of the field,,, spike jumps out the rectifying diode because of reverse polarity. What am I missing as far as something that negates from board to board they wouldn't need matching (that is if perfect matching is what we are trying to do)? The way it's all wired up it could just as well be one giant coil and one giant board accept the magnetic field is all the way around the wheel which helps for spin.

The transformers are each isolated from one another by proximity and that's the big difference in addition...

Think about the impedance in the ckt, in the wires leading to each board, and the board itself. We are asking an awful lot when we match a couple of transistors, now to expect them to maintain that matched state through all the impedances we provide throughout the build is an awful lot.

Now has anyone gone to DVD2 to look at the scope as I note in an earlier post... there are ghost H waves jumping all over the place. Again, grain of salt. Looking for a master to jump in at this point.

And Bob, that could be you. If you have at least two coils with all eight of the transistors matched and maybe another coil where 4 transistors are matched but not with the other eight. Place all 3 coils on the machine put your cap dump on. tune as best you can. make a switch that cuts off the trigger to each coil, now you can swap the coils in and out on the fly and see how your cap dump performs. This is the experiment I did for many months and could not find a difference.

Honestly, I'm not here trying to convince anyone of anything. I've said my piece and if you have the $$'s to match all of them, I don't see any harm in it at all.

Bob, thanks for your kind opening paragraph.
Kind Regards - Patrick

[Tom C]

on coil matching and transistor matching..

if all your coils are firing at the same time, to a common bus, then having them all have the same output power and firing at the same time is very important. I am not good at explaining this but it has to do with the fact that we are pushing the spike out, and it wants to go everywhere. if one spike off one coil is more powerful than another it impedes the flow of the weaker coil. same as if the coils are not firing the same time, it can actually decrease rotation if the coils are not perfectly aligned. the non linear relationship of the pulse with itself when added to another pulse off another coil is pretty amazing.

you can change the arrangement so this is less of a factor by doing branch circuits on the output, each coil's output going to a single battery not to a common bus, still using a common negative. you can also use a non linear coil arrangement 5 coils/6 magnets which causes the trigger to precess around the coils, with each coil having its own trigger circuit, this allows you to make the machine run very fast, you can cause it to accelerate, I have seen a multi coil monopole run at over 5000 RPM using a precessional rotor.

you can also use one coil on a wheel and the other coils can be sitting on the bench they do not have to be on the monopole, it has different effects and you lose the harvest of the flip of the coil core, but it does work.



if you are building a multi coil machine with a common charge battery bus, then matching is very important. I had a long convo with Peter L. on this subject, he built the 10 coil with John.

Tom C

[min2oly]

on coil matching and transistor matching..

if all your coils are firing at the same time, to a common bus, then having them all have the same output power and firing at the same time is very important. I am not good at explaining this but it has to do with the fact that we are pushing the spike out, and it wants to go everywhere. if one spike off one coil is more powerful than another it impedes the flow of the weaker coil. same as if the coils are not firing the same time, it can actually decrease rotation if the coils are not perfectly aligned. the non linear relationship of the pulse with itself when added to another pulse off another coil is pretty amazing.

you can change the arrangement so this is less of a factor by doing branch circuits on the output, each coil's output going to a single battery not to a common bus, still using a common negative. you can also use a non linear coil arrangement 5 coils/6 magnets which causes the trigger to precess around the coils, with each coil having its own trigger circuit, this allows you to make the machine run very fast, you can cause it to accelerate, I have seen a multi coil monopole run at over 5000 RPM using a precessional rotor.

you can also use one coil on a wheel and the other coils can be sitting on the bench they do not have to be on the monopole, it has different effects and you lose the harvest of the flip of the coil core, but it does work.



if you are building a multi coil machine with a common charge battery bus, then matching is very important. I had a long convo with Peter L. on this subject, he built the 10 coil with John.

Tom C

Hi Tom,
Thanks for chiming in with the added explanation, I get it - I completely understand and respectfully and wholeheartedly disagree with Peter on this or perhaps I'm still being misunderstood... sorry my bench tells me I can have 3 coils that have different matched sets. And that I can have one coil producing a larger spike than another without effecting the charging one way or the other (perhaps this changes as we add even more coils up to 10? I have only had up to 4). the scope on Johns 10 coiler tells it all though. the spikes are all over the place in voltage and amplitude. In fact the only way you will get the same amplitude is if the coils themselves are matched and built to spec. Even then your coil placement has to be exact and your magnets better be matched which I have not heard anyone but Guy and myself talk about much.

I know we want that push and we want as many little hands pushing the "load" at exactly the same time So yes the timing wants to be the same, I have not said otherwise (there are other cheaper ways to control that as long as you have a dual trace scope - no problem) it does not matter if some of the little hands pushing have more strength than others (ie amplitude) as long as they all give a heave-ho and stop at the same time. The stop at the same time is key right.

there are other things going on in a single multifiler coil/transformer which are why we need matched transistors on that transformer to begin with.

separate note... I'd like to know why JB's scope on the 10 coiler has all those ghosting moving h waves if not timing off then what?

KR - Patrick A

[Tom C]

I think the ghosting on the 10 coil is more about the performance of the scope. on the 12 coil vid there is no ghosting, you can however see huge spikes occasionally, that is a matter of the speed of the spike and the sample rate of the scope. I have run my coils on my multi out of alignment, on the Rick F 10 coil the master trigger coil can be retarded or advanced a bit, for a bit more torque.

I think the ghosting on the 10 coil vid has more to do with the refresh rate of the shutter and the refresh rate of the screen on the scope he was using.... just my 2 cents.

we are dealing in micro seconds here, but if one transistor opens fully and another only opens 50 percent, the 50 percent one has less "distance" to go to close. bad analogy I know, but makes the inference. I have seen gain be so wide that one transistor is open fully the other is only open 30 percent for the same amount of current to the base. so in order to get them all open the same you need to either modify the base resistance of each set of matched transistors OR match the beta between all of them.

this is especially true as you add more slave coils. and you are right Patrick, matched magnets are important as they are what is actually inducing current in the trigger winding. my magnets sit in a box all together end to end sharing a common magnetic circuit, it helps to produce even gauss in the ceramics.