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Hi All,
I decided it might be beneficial to post my "experimenter’s journal" here, for the benefit of those wishing to attempt their first build, but have little thought about how to go about journalling it. This by no means is the only "correct" way of going about your own experiments. It is just a quick guide to how you "could" go about your build, and consequent experimentation for your first "getting your feet wet" build. This was posted on the old yahoo forum years ago...this is the first half of it:
Here are some photos of that build, more to come in the second half, best regards:
James
I decided it might be beneficial to post my "experimenter’s journal" here, for the benefit of those wishing to attempt their first build, but have little thought about how to go about journalling it. This by no means is the only "correct" way of going about your own experiments. It is just a quick guide to how you "could" go about your build, and consequent experimentation for your first "getting your feet wet" build. This was posted on the old yahoo forum years ago...this is the first half of it:
Experimenter's Journal
This project has been approached with re-purposing in mind. Much of what went into this project, for economic reasons as well as my belief that one should live as lightly on the land as possible, were salvaged items—being a good steward of what one is inherently in charge of goes a long way toward “right living.” The windings were taken from recycled TV degauss coils, the frame was used-re purposed particle board, the rotor was from my son's defunct mountain bike (has a few bends), and as much as could be re-used or recycled, was utilized in this project.
Preliminaries
First, I drew plans for the project (for reference purposes). Along side, I posted prints from the project manual, as well as other helpful photos. Then, after obtaining a suitable rotor (my son's 23.5 inch bike wheel), I began assembling resources...scrap wood, harvested degauss coils, threaded bar stock, etc...as well as, what equipment I had on hand to begin...saber saw, drill, hand tools, etc. Per my plan, I built the frame with the future possibility of including a small flux generator, possibly made from small round magnets glued to a CD with matching coils on another CD (don't know yet) as a load in mind. I pulled the old worn-out bearings and races out of the wheel and substituted sealed bearing units (if I did it over, I would have used regular bike hub bearings). I placed 16 ceramic magnets, per-spec, evenly onto the wheel with super glue, and wrapped the magnets on with stranded packing tape. I ordered electronic parts, and contemplated how to facilitate using the degauss coils I harvested for my bifiler. In the mean time, I built spools by taking 3/4” PVC pipe, cutting it into 4” pieces, obtained 3 1/2” PVC pipe plugs, and hole-sawed 3/4” holes, and glued them together—cups facing outward so that the actual coils would be 3.5 inches tall.. I ended up building a coil unwinder/wire straightener out of PVC (see photos uploaded to the group project files), and proceeded to fill some of the spools with different sized magnet wire from the degauss coils. I went on-line and found a site identifying wire sizes by its thickness, and used that to identify my wire sizes. Once my electronic components arrived, I assembled my first circuit. I used tinned perf-board, but decided to start over with plain perf-board, since it produced a cleaner product. I chose to use the MJL21194 transistor, since it is generally “beefier.” I wound my first coil and attached the coil wires (one wire was more difficult for reasons I will describe later). I found a “Skynet” (yup thats right, “Skynet”...hahaha...”I'll be back”...hahaha!) 12 volt power supply with three-plus amps of output at a yard sale and brought it home. I tested it and found it to produce a consistent 12.25 volts, and had enough amperage to run the wheel.
First Runs
I had an old riding lawnmower battery I wanted to restore, so I hooked it all up and spun the wheel. I hooked up a $50 craigslist oscilloscope and my craftsman multimeter, and watched it attempt to charge that old battery. It had only .5 volts to start, but charged (took a long time) up to 13.2. It settled back down to less than 12 volts after charging, and if left for a couple day, would loose considerable voltage. After several attempts, I decided to toss it, since it presented evidence of at least one shorted cell. Also, I noted that the wire I had trouble soldering onto the circuit, was continually coming loose. I took a closer look and found it was made of aluminum. I gunny-sacked the first coil and wound another after closely examining wire types.
Second Attempt
I purchased a cheap lawnmower battery, since I needed one anyway, and hooked it up with my new configuration. It didn't take long to charge it beyond 16 volts, but then again, it was already charged by conventional means. It took forever to discharge it. I decided I needed it for my lawnmower project more than this project, so I purchased a 5 amp/hour sealed lead/acid battery to do my testing with. I chose to run the battery at 80% its amp/hour rating and for this reason have documented it as if it were a 4 amp/hour battery.
Third Time is a Charm
I hooked up the smaller battery and spun the wheel. It began performing per spec. I did not have a panel ammeter, so I guessed at what setting the potentiometer should be set at and began “conditioning” the battery—thinking that I could do that while waiting for my newly ordered meter to arrive. Interestingly, I found that it seemed (I determined this largely by intuition) to run best (or what I thought was best, tuning-wise) just off of full steam. I discharged the battery (intuitively again) by hooking up a 200ma 12 volt lamp that draws .180 ma.. I later decided to add a small laptop computer fan to aid in discharging. After several runs (charge/discharge), I would approximate 5-7 at most, I decided to run the wheel with the battery, hooking a large 1 ohm resister on the charge side. I watched the multimeter more closely, in case it started doing something I didn't want it to do (like burn my circuit up). TALK ABOUT CRAZY! The batter voltage started somewhere near 13.38 volts, and began rising. It continued gaining voltage for a couple hours, topping off at 14.22 volts. It stayed there for a while and gradually began going down. I stopped it at 12.2 volts. I ran another charge cycle. My son showed up that next day, and I described what happened—hooking it up the way I ran it before, and it did it again! I decided to unhook it and run the regular discharge protocol...it did it again...and, AGAIN...AND AGIAN!
Ammeter Arrived!
Then my multimeter died—its battery ran totally out of power. I replaced the 9 volt battery in my multimeter and found that my test battery was WAY below what the meter had read prior to dying. The ammeter I had ordered, finally arrived. I ran a tuning session on my wheel and discovered that I had instinctively been setting the wheel at its sweet spot...”huh...go figure” I thought. I ran a charge session...It took a LONG time to charge to above 15.5 volts due to my previously relying on faulty voltage information from my dying multimeter.. I then ran a discharge session...it discharged normally to 12.25 volts. I feel that I can assume that the strange behavior I was making note of, prior to my changing the multimeter's battery, was simply an anomaly caused by the failing 9 volt battery. I am making my final “conditioning” charge run. We will see if the anomaly reappears, though I am almost certain that it was the low multimeter's readout at fault, and therefore I doubt it will. I am anxious to start my 20 charge/discharge cycle runs and see what happens. I am also contemplating how I want to proceed, since I have limited resources and wish to end up with a large energizer, 8 coil units or more, with 96 to over 100 circuits powering it.
First Set of 5 Charge/Discharge Cycles
With these first 5 runs, my goal is to attempt to consistently run the charge up to 14.5 volts on the battery, and then discharge it using a 200 ma 12 volt lamp (it actually pulls 180 ma), pulling it down to 12.25 volts (note: the power supply runs at 12.25 volts, as stated above). HOWEVER, determining when to stop the charging process at precisely 14.5 volts (or anywhere near that) has been very difficult, as it seems to take the majority of time charging the battery to 13.5-13.8 volts, and then within minutes, it's way beyond 15 volts. Setting alarms has not helped me yet, but it appears that that it takes approximately 20 hours to reach the target voltage, so I am confident that the process is happening correctly. I am determined to get a handle on this (stopping at 14.5 volts instead of letting it go past that) over the next 5 charge/discharge cycles. So far, more than not, it appears that it takes approximately .2-.235Amps to run the system (depending on whether I measure with an analog meter or a digital meter) and the battery takes about .07 amps charging. The system COP seems to hover between .30-.40, while the battery COP seems to hover near 1.2..which is great! This tells me that something is making the battery behave at an efficiency rating greater than 1 COP, even though the machine has a lower efficiency rating, somewhat near what one would expect a conventional system to function at...interesting...The “h” waves on the oscilloscope seem to show consistent 200 volt spikes. I have it tuned to run at approximately 200 RPM (depending on time of day, solar activity, etc???), and I tuned it so that the “h” waves have just stabilized from double strikes into single, with the potentiometer set at the sweet spot of approximately .2-.235 amps.(again, depending on analog or digital meter). It runs at between .36-.42 outside of the sweet spot, seemingly no mater what speed the wheel runs at. I try to zero it in as close to .2, as I can, every charge run (I have decided that I should tune the machine using the analog meter instead of digital, as the analog meter shows a steadier state).. The battery consistently takes .07 amps charging...barely a trickle...and one would think it would not be fully charged within the 20 hour time-frame, but it certainly does. OK...I will write more after 5 more cycles.
.
This project has been approached with re-purposing in mind. Much of what went into this project, for economic reasons as well as my belief that one should live as lightly on the land as possible, were salvaged items—being a good steward of what one is inherently in charge of goes a long way toward “right living.” The windings were taken from recycled TV degauss coils, the frame was used-re purposed particle board, the rotor was from my son's defunct mountain bike (has a few bends), and as much as could be re-used or recycled, was utilized in this project.
Preliminaries
First, I drew plans for the project (for reference purposes). Along side, I posted prints from the project manual, as well as other helpful photos. Then, after obtaining a suitable rotor (my son's 23.5 inch bike wheel), I began assembling resources...scrap wood, harvested degauss coils, threaded bar stock, etc...as well as, what equipment I had on hand to begin...saber saw, drill, hand tools, etc. Per my plan, I built the frame with the future possibility of including a small flux generator, possibly made from small round magnets glued to a CD with matching coils on another CD (don't know yet) as a load in mind. I pulled the old worn-out bearings and races out of the wheel and substituted sealed bearing units (if I did it over, I would have used regular bike hub bearings). I placed 16 ceramic magnets, per-spec, evenly onto the wheel with super glue, and wrapped the magnets on with stranded packing tape. I ordered electronic parts, and contemplated how to facilitate using the degauss coils I harvested for my bifiler. In the mean time, I built spools by taking 3/4” PVC pipe, cutting it into 4” pieces, obtained 3 1/2” PVC pipe plugs, and hole-sawed 3/4” holes, and glued them together—cups facing outward so that the actual coils would be 3.5 inches tall.. I ended up building a coil unwinder/wire straightener out of PVC (see photos uploaded to the group project files), and proceeded to fill some of the spools with different sized magnet wire from the degauss coils. I went on-line and found a site identifying wire sizes by its thickness, and used that to identify my wire sizes. Once my electronic components arrived, I assembled my first circuit. I used tinned perf-board, but decided to start over with plain perf-board, since it produced a cleaner product. I chose to use the MJL21194 transistor, since it is generally “beefier.” I wound my first coil and attached the coil wires (one wire was more difficult for reasons I will describe later). I found a “Skynet” (yup thats right, “Skynet”...hahaha...”I'll be back”...hahaha!) 12 volt power supply with three-plus amps of output at a yard sale and brought it home. I tested it and found it to produce a consistent 12.25 volts, and had enough amperage to run the wheel.
First Runs
I had an old riding lawnmower battery I wanted to restore, so I hooked it all up and spun the wheel. I hooked up a $50 craigslist oscilloscope and my craftsman multimeter, and watched it attempt to charge that old battery. It had only .5 volts to start, but charged (took a long time) up to 13.2. It settled back down to less than 12 volts after charging, and if left for a couple day, would loose considerable voltage. After several attempts, I decided to toss it, since it presented evidence of at least one shorted cell. Also, I noted that the wire I had trouble soldering onto the circuit, was continually coming loose. I took a closer look and found it was made of aluminum. I gunny-sacked the first coil and wound another after closely examining wire types.
Second Attempt
I purchased a cheap lawnmower battery, since I needed one anyway, and hooked it up with my new configuration. It didn't take long to charge it beyond 16 volts, but then again, it was already charged by conventional means. It took forever to discharge it. I decided I needed it for my lawnmower project more than this project, so I purchased a 5 amp/hour sealed lead/acid battery to do my testing with. I chose to run the battery at 80% its amp/hour rating and for this reason have documented it as if it were a 4 amp/hour battery.
Third Time is a Charm
I hooked up the smaller battery and spun the wheel. It began performing per spec. I did not have a panel ammeter, so I guessed at what setting the potentiometer should be set at and began “conditioning” the battery—thinking that I could do that while waiting for my newly ordered meter to arrive. Interestingly, I found that it seemed (I determined this largely by intuition) to run best (or what I thought was best, tuning-wise) just off of full steam. I discharged the battery (intuitively again) by hooking up a 200ma 12 volt lamp that draws .180 ma.. I later decided to add a small laptop computer fan to aid in discharging. After several runs (charge/discharge), I would approximate 5-7 at most, I decided to run the wheel with the battery, hooking a large 1 ohm resister on the charge side. I watched the multimeter more closely, in case it started doing something I didn't want it to do (like burn my circuit up). TALK ABOUT CRAZY! The batter voltage started somewhere near 13.38 volts, and began rising. It continued gaining voltage for a couple hours, topping off at 14.22 volts. It stayed there for a while and gradually began going down. I stopped it at 12.2 volts. I ran another charge cycle. My son showed up that next day, and I described what happened—hooking it up the way I ran it before, and it did it again! I decided to unhook it and run the regular discharge protocol...it did it again...and, AGAIN...AND AGIAN!
Ammeter Arrived!
Then my multimeter died—its battery ran totally out of power. I replaced the 9 volt battery in my multimeter and found that my test battery was WAY below what the meter had read prior to dying. The ammeter I had ordered, finally arrived. I ran a tuning session on my wheel and discovered that I had instinctively been setting the wheel at its sweet spot...”huh...go figure” I thought. I ran a charge session...It took a LONG time to charge to above 15.5 volts due to my previously relying on faulty voltage information from my dying multimeter.. I then ran a discharge session...it discharged normally to 12.25 volts. I feel that I can assume that the strange behavior I was making note of, prior to my changing the multimeter's battery, was simply an anomaly caused by the failing 9 volt battery. I am making my final “conditioning” charge run. We will see if the anomaly reappears, though I am almost certain that it was the low multimeter's readout at fault, and therefore I doubt it will. I am anxious to start my 20 charge/discharge cycle runs and see what happens. I am also contemplating how I want to proceed, since I have limited resources and wish to end up with a large energizer, 8 coil units or more, with 96 to over 100 circuits powering it.
First Set of 5 Charge/Discharge Cycles
With these first 5 runs, my goal is to attempt to consistently run the charge up to 14.5 volts on the battery, and then discharge it using a 200 ma 12 volt lamp (it actually pulls 180 ma), pulling it down to 12.25 volts (note: the power supply runs at 12.25 volts, as stated above). HOWEVER, determining when to stop the charging process at precisely 14.5 volts (or anywhere near that) has been very difficult, as it seems to take the majority of time charging the battery to 13.5-13.8 volts, and then within minutes, it's way beyond 15 volts. Setting alarms has not helped me yet, but it appears that that it takes approximately 20 hours to reach the target voltage, so I am confident that the process is happening correctly. I am determined to get a handle on this (stopping at 14.5 volts instead of letting it go past that) over the next 5 charge/discharge cycles. So far, more than not, it appears that it takes approximately .2-.235Amps to run the system (depending on whether I measure with an analog meter or a digital meter) and the battery takes about .07 amps charging. The system COP seems to hover between .30-.40, while the battery COP seems to hover near 1.2..which is great! This tells me that something is making the battery behave at an efficiency rating greater than 1 COP, even though the machine has a lower efficiency rating, somewhat near what one would expect a conventional system to function at...interesting...The “h” waves on the oscilloscope seem to show consistent 200 volt spikes. I have it tuned to run at approximately 200 RPM (depending on time of day, solar activity, etc???), and I tuned it so that the “h” waves have just stabilized from double strikes into single, with the potentiometer set at the sweet spot of approximately .2-.235 amps.(again, depending on analog or digital meter). It runs at between .36-.42 outside of the sweet spot, seemingly no mater what speed the wheel runs at. I try to zero it in as close to .2, as I can, every charge run (I have decided that I should tune the machine using the analog meter instead of digital, as the analog meter shows a steadier state).. The battery consistently takes .07 amps charging...barely a trickle...and one would think it would not be fully charged within the 20 hour time-frame, but it certainly does. OK...I will write more after 5 more cycles.
.
James
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