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36v....melted coils.....wow.

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  • #1

    36v....melted coils.....wow.

    Hey y'all.

    Well, wow. I decided to try running my little 6 pole at 36v last night....just for fun to see what would happen. Happen it did. Now, these are the 23awg coils that originally came with the 3 pm kit. I have not yet wound new coils.....I will have to now. Nothing like melting plastic to stink up your house and make you do the modifications you've been intending to do!

    Here's what happened. As soon as the RPM got up to where the trigger activated the transistors, ALL 3 neons lighted up super bright, and might have actually burned out. I'm pretty sure I fried the transistors. I immediately stopped the rotation and switched off the power. One of the coils literally melted itself off it's mount. The master coil got hot enough to distort, the third coil got slightly warm but just barely so. I was operating 36v on both the primary and secondary side, so I really did not expect such a show! I'm talking this thing was not operating for more than 2 seconds and all this energy was released with a vengeance! 10 minutes after the event, I could still hear my batteries bubbling just a bit. They had not been used for 5 days. No charging or discharging for 5 days. They were bubbling after 2 seconds of this treatment. Wow. I was only using 3 of my six circuits and coils, because the last time I ran the unit I was running at 12v. At least I still have those other 3 left. They were not activated at the time.

    Just wow. I have a new respect for this stuff.....and a healthy fear too. Be careful out there y'all !!

    -Woody
    "It's not a mutiny if the commander is leading it!" - Wally Schirra, Commander Apollo 7
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  • #2
    This happened to me at 24 volts a year ago and I was running all 6 coils. I was TOLD 24 volts was the max input I could use. The 3PM kit works but NOT as it should. Wait for John to show us what "fix" he comes up with. It should be more than worth the wait.

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    • #3
      I feel for you Woody,
      I did the same thing with this setup when I ran it with 12 volts instead of 6:


      It got to 20,000 RPM before the meltdown. The good news, those little coils do not take long to wind - hope your transistors are ok...
      Kind Regards,
      Patrick

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      • #4
        Originally posted by John H View Post
        This happened to me at 24 volts a year ago and I was running all 6 coils. I was TOLD 24 volts was the max input I could use. The 3PM kit works but NOT as it should. Wait for John to show us what "fix" he comes up with. It should be more than worth the wait.

        Hey John,

        I've been running mine at 24v quite a bit on all 6 coils with pretty good results, especially after I switched out the neo magnets with the SmCo magnets. Since the coil cores were not being saturated by the neos, I was getting much better charging with the SmCo equipped rotor. That being said, I agree that the unit is no where near where it needs to be and I look forward to John's recommendations for bringing it up to par. Tom C. mentioned in another thread that going up to 36v entails some extensive changes including different coils because of needed changes in induction. I think I'll content myself to stay at 24v for a while till I understand this stuff better!!

        -Woody
        "It's not a mutiny if the commander is leading it!" - Wally Schirra, Commander Apollo 7

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        • #5
          Patrick,

          Ok, so you had a meltdown with a change from 6v to 12v, John had a meltdown with a change from 12v to 24v, and I had a meltdown with a change from 24v to 36v. All of our systems were running fine at the lower voltage, and then had catastrophic failures. I wonder what the failures were a result of? Inadequate diode protection maybe? I know I was using the 1n4007 and 1n4001 diodes in my system along with MJL21194 transistors and 220 ohm base resistors on the circuits. My pot on the trigger was set pretty low, so maybe that was a contributor too. I should have cranked that up before I started it. May have given me enough time to see the power involved before it got out of hand. Oh well. If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research!! He, he.

          -Woody
          "It's not a mutiny if the commander is leading it!" - Wally Schirra, Commander Apollo 7

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          • #6
            I should clarify a bit :-)
            I was using mje13009g transistors x 24
            2watt 220 ohms to the base
            3 coils - each was a 9 filer
            32awg wire with a hall for the trigger
            each strand was about 45 feet

            I believe the reason for MY melt down was that I had left the trigger resistance full open and did not realize it until I was measuring the speed. At 6 volts, full open was no problem, at 12 volts that was too much current for 24 strands of wire in "parallel". I have since and continue to run it at 12 volts with the proper resistance and no heat. So for my situation it seems it was the base resistance. Some day I might even get those neo's out of there...
            Kind Regards,
            Patrick

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