New Medium Sized Machine

[James_Somewhere_In_Idaho]

Hi Bob

I understand you may be frustrated, but hang in there. You'll figure it out.

BTW, hate to keep beating a drum no one seems to want to listen to, but Look at these waveforms:







These look familiar?

Well, these are typical O-scope patterns for modern automotive electronic ignitions. However, I can tell you first hand that the contact set versions of these look even more like John B's commutator SG waveform...just saying...

[BobZilla]

Just an update..

I have tried a reed switch and it presents it's own set of challenges. It will work but if you go to strong it will latch. I tried adjusting the timing and that could help but the only way to get the reed happy is to run the machine in such a way that it's not really charging very well. What I am really finding is that without the arcing you will not get anywhere near the same performance as you can get with transistors. The arcing wears down whatever mechanical switch you are using and there seems to be no way around it. I would actually favor the first way I tried with the rods over the reed simply because I can run hard as I like and get some good charging at the cost of burning rods but the reed will latch and possibly burn up your coils or at a minimum run your primary down in a flash. Given the choice I would rather have dependable switching that I have to replace rods on.

I tried a lot of variations like biasing the reed input with resistance thinking the arc may prefer to run back down to the charge pos if it was an easier path but that didn't work out too well. I even tried a traditional flyback diode and of course that suppressed the arc greatly but then we are not picking off the spike. I wish I could figure out how to make the spike run down to the charge pos but it prefers to arc instead. This is making me appreciate Mr. Bedini's transistor setup even more than ever. I imagine he may have done similar testing with mechanical switching and knows the best way to avoid it is to use the transistor. I will say that with very low power setups the reed or the rod would probably work very well, like the 3d models he is working on lately but I envisioned this machine to be handling banks of batteries. I even tried placing a resistor across the switch point to give it a soft off similar to a transistor but nope, it still wanted to eat itself for lunch.

Oh well guys this is why I experiment, you don't know until you try. In a pinch you absolutely can use a mechanical switch and you will harvest the spike but at a cost.

Not sure if I am going to give up on this idea or keep pushing on. In the back of my mind I always knew if the mechanical switching wasn't going to work out I could run this thing with a circuit board.

[James_Somewhere_In_Idaho]

Hi Faraday88

I'd love to try that, but I no longer work on muscle cars. My son and I have a couple hobbies together, one is building things such as what is described here on this forum (and hoping someday to have some small homebuilt CNC equipment, such as 3D printers, etc, to help us build things), another is high performance turbocharged all-wheel-drive sports cars...however, the cars we work on (only for limited amounts of time, and our own cars--as neither of us can work on other people's cars due to prior disabling injuries) have rather sensitive computer controls, and I do not think I would want to risk blowing an ECU up...However, if I happen to find an old high performance coil, I might be able to rig up a test bed to try out your suggestion...thank you...

[Faraday88]

Hi Faraday88

Well, I used to have my own automotive shop, and one of my specialities was in advanced electronic ignitions, and high performance racing ignitions with standard and dual point contact sets. I used an oscilloscope to do my fine tuning so that I could eliminate any spurious problems involving arcing and other problems associated with high RPMs.

Lets see...a high performance balanced and blueprinted Corvette (I regularly worked on many Corvettes that belonged to the Northwest Corvette Club, and also police interceptor cars, as well as, drag racing engines) 327 V-8, 4-bolt main bearing engine lives pretty happily at 7,500 RPM divided by 2 (four stroke engines fire once per cylinder every two revolutions) equals 3,750. 3,750 times 8 (cylinders) equals 30,000 times the contact set opens per minute. 30,000 divided by 60 (seconds in a minute) equals 500 hz. A tricked out Z-28 302 V8 four-bolt main bearing engine can go to a considerably higher RPM--and, engines designed for racing (back then) did this all the time with a dual points ignition systems--one set opens to a lessor degree than a single contact set does, and then another set opens afterwards, then the first closes, but the circuit remains open longer, because the second set is in-between the first set as far as an electrical circuit is concerned--thus, eliminating possibility of "floating the points" (creating a misfire due the contact set staying open because it's spring was not strong enough to close at that RPM. I have seen effective points ignition systems operation at least to 8,500 RPM (do the math). In fact, I had a high performance 327 V8 with a four-bolt main engine that didn't have any problem doing 7,000 (and would have gone higher, except I didn't want to display the innards of my engine all over the highways of my home town), and it did it quite nicely with a single point ignition system! Now...we regularly see SSGs running at 300-350 RPM. 350 times 21 magnets (being generous, most only have 18) equals 7350. 7350 divided by 60 equals 122.5 hz--well below what I just described. One could make a cam on the end of the rotor shaft that had enough "lobes" for the amount of poles you need to fire, or, have several sets, offset from each other, and a single lobe, or whatever configuration you want...I would say that's pretty fast switching!

Getting back to using the oscilloscope while "tuning" high performance engines: First, what is the job of a contact set? Answer: A points ignition system in a vehicle with a 12 volt system, first reduces the voltage to nine volts, using a hefty resistor, before going to an ignition coil (a transformer whose job it is to take the nine volts, and in the case of one of the high performance Mallory coils I worked with, turns it into about 50,000-70,000 volts). After the current exits the primary side of the coil, it goes to the distributor, which has, among other things, one or two contact sets, and a capacitor to help keep the current from arcing when the contact set opens. So, when looking at this process on an oscilloscope, one sees the base current on the primary side staying high, and then suddenly and briefly going low. As soon as the contact set opens, and the primary side goes low, the field of the coil collapses, and the secondary winding unloads 60.000 volts in a lightning fast snap that would send you across the room if you got hit with it (don't ask me how I know that). When studying the scope pattern, one sees much the same thing as we look at when we observe the patterns for our SSG builds when we are tuning them with a scope--including "ringing" and everything else...

CONCLUSION: This idea should work...

Hi James,

Put a 0.47 u F @ 600V in PARALLEL to the primary before doing the point breaker switching of your High-performance Mallory Ignition coil and see the result...something you will appriciate
Rgds,
Faraday88.

[James_Somewhere_In_Idaho]

Hi Faraday88

Well, I used to have my own automotive shop, and one of my specialities was in advanced electronic ignitions, and high performance racing ignitions with standard and dual point contact sets. I used an oscilloscope to do my fine tuning so that I could eliminate any spurious problems involving arcing and other problems associated with high RPMs.

Lets see...a high performance balanced and blueprinted Corvette (I regularly worked on many Corvettes that belonged to the Northwest Corvette Club, and also police interceptor cars, as well as, drag racing engines) 327 V-8, 4-bolt main bearing engine lives pretty happily at 7,500 RPM divided by 2 (four stroke engines fire once per cylinder every two revolutions) equals 3,750. 3,750 times 8 (cylinders) equals 30,000 times the contact set opens per minute. 30,000 divided by 60 (seconds in a minute) equals 500 hz. A tricked out Z-28 302 V8 four-bolt main bearing engine can go to a considerably higher RPM--and, engines designed for racing (back then) did this all the time with a dual points ignition systems--one set opens to a lessor degree than a single contact set does, and then another set opens afterwards, then the first closes, but the circuit remains open longer, because the second set is in-between the first set as far as an electrical circuit is concerned--thus, eliminating possibility of "floating the points" (creating a misfire due the contact set staying open because it's spring was not strong enough to close at that RPM. I have seen effective points ignition systems operation at least to 8,500 RPM (do the math). In fact, I had a high performance 327 V8 with a four-bolt main engine that didn't have any problem doing 7,000 (and would have gone higher, except I didn't want to display the innards of my engine all over the highways of my home town), and it did it quite nicely with a single point ignition system! Now...we regularly see SSGs running at 300-350 RPM. 350 times 21 magnets (being generous, most only have 18) equals 7350. 7350 divided by 60 equals 122.5 hz--well below what I just described. One could make a cam on the end of the rotor shaft that had enough "lobes" for the amount of poles you need to fire, or, have several sets, offset from each other, and a single lobe, or whatever configuration you want...I would say that's pretty fast switching!

Getting back to using the oscilloscope while "tuning" high performance engines: First, what is the job of a contact set? Answer: A points ignition system in a vehicle with a 12 volt system, first reduces the voltage to nine volts, using a hefty resistor, before going to an ignition coil (a transformer whose job it is to take the nine volts, and in the case of one of the high performance Mallory coils I worked with, turns it into about 50,000-70,000 volts). After the current exits the primary side of the coil, it goes to the distributor, which has, among other things, one or two contact sets, and a capacitor to help keep the current from arcing when the contact set opens. So, when looking at this process on an oscilloscope, one sees the base current on the primary side staying high, and then suddenly and briefly going low. As soon as the contact set opens, and the primary side goes low, the field of the coil collapses, and the secondary winding unloads 60.000 volts in a lightning fast snap that would send you across the room if you got hit with it (don't ask me how I know that). When studying the scope pattern, one sees much the same thing as we look at when we observe the patterns for our SSG builds when we are tuning them with a scope--including "ringing" and everything else...

CONCLUSION: This idea should work...

[Faraday88]

Hi Aln

I assume you mean this:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]4954[/ATTACH]

The above is very similar to what John B. is teaching us how to do here:

http://www.energyscienceforum.com/sh...t=3073&page=12

I was thinking we could do this using automotive contact sets (rugged and abundant), on a timing plate arrangement, with the energizer shaft that has the appropriate cam(s) mounted mounted on it, passing through a center hole of the timing plate...what do you think??? Thank you for your input.

Hi James,
Please note that Transistor switching in SSG is not mere ON-OFF switching,such that it can be replaced by a mechanical switch (2 state switch) it is a switching comparable to a light bulb whose intensity gets brighter from dim state and back to dim but is not completely OFF what whould you call a switching like that?? ..you need to do some thing else when you use a Mechanical switch and must do it pretty fast to get it effective.
Rgds,
Faraday88.

[James_Somewhere_In_Idaho]

Hi Bob

I admire your effort. John says we all need to think about how we can run these when we can't get any more transistors (or they no longer work), hence, his new project (http://www.energyscienceforum.com/showthread.php?t=3073). I think that together, all of us will come up with workable alternatives. I'm almost done with my big SS SSG build, and as soon as I can get that fixin' some big batteries I have, I will be working on something similar to what we are talking about. Good work, Bob...don't be discouraged.

[BobZilla]

Maybe at some later time James we can give it a try. At this stage of developing this machine I am just lucky to see it running much less worry about plotting it's efficiency.

So a little update on how it is going. I did get three 19awg coils made up for it. I may shoot a video later but I am pretty sure my charging has gone down in the process. It spins pretty fast,, I mesured 225 RPM using about 700ma at the best I could get it BUT the charging ws not so great. I had the coils in parallel like before.

I suspect this is because their is not nearly as much capacitance in the coils as I had with the 24awg. I think my next move will be to try putting them in series to form basically one large coil. I am also starting to doubt the practicality of my rod contacts. I knew they would wear down but if I want to switch this thing fast and put more and more coils on it they will be getting used up far to fast. I am glad I tried it and I know it will work if that is all I had but I can see it is high maintenance. I think I will try a reed switch instead.

I wonder though if it were possible to get rid of the oxygen in the rods environment if it would reduce the arc and contact wear. It's a bit more than I want to fool with just to find out but I am thinking if you built an enclosure that was sealed could you put say a candle in there and light it, let it burn all the oxygen and then run the machine.

A big part of this machines concept up to this point has been to do it with common parts, if there were no more digi-key or mouser to deliver things how would I do it. Even reed switches are crossing over into specialized material now. I did try another way that I did not show that could be used in a pinch. I had attached wire to the rods and used exposed ends as the brush. The rod was just a spring at that point and the wire carried the current. In a pinch that can work too but you would just have to keep inching out new wire as it wore out.

[James_Somewhere_In_Idaho]

Hi Bob

Gocha...seems pretty basic, though...find the ratio in regard to least amount of input to most amount of output...etc...without burning stuff up, as much as possible...right?

...then you have found "optimum trajectory" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVbwHCO9G0Q Be the Jedi, Bob...(hehehe, nothing wrong with having fun)

[BobZilla]

Thanks for sharing Bob, I've finally made it through your videos and text. I like what your doing and where your going with this. We have read it many times, "Tune to the fastest spin for the lowest amount of current." Your last video is kind of a proof-text to that. your energizer is so simple (as far as components are concerned, complex as far as timing and tuning goes). reminded of this (Calloway) but even more simple. Aln

Good too see you pop in Aln!

I tell you what, working with these simple mechanisms has been teaching me quite a bit that I did not expect.

The fan on Mr. Bedini's machine makes a lot more sense to me now. Not to put words in his mouth this is only my guess but I think it allows for setting the resistance slightly lower for more punch to the coil BUT by adding mechanical resistance it keeps the switch open slightly longer than if it were only freewheeling to it's own speed without the fan. Like he has said about it before, he is looking for a certain rpm but I never understood the effect it could have.

I am enjoying this machine a lot. I may get my new wire today which will let me put more coils on it.

Hi Bob

That xls file I was referring to, that might help you in determining optimal trajectory on your project, was originally posted at the old monopole forum by John Koorn, so maybe he can figure out how to get that spreadsheet to you... John, what do you say???

I appreciate it James but I have never been much for that sort of thing anyway. When you consider the voltage drop on the primary it quickly becomes pretty unclear of the actual watts.

[James_Somewhere_In_Idaho]

Hi Aln

I assume you mean this:



The above is very similar to what John B. is teaching us how to do here:

http://www.energyscienceforum.com/sh...t=3073&page=12

I was thinking we could do this using automotive contact sets (rugged and abundant), on a timing plate arrangement, with the energizer shaft that has the appropriate cam(s) mounted mounted on it, passing through a center hole of the timing plate...what do you think??? Thank you for your input.

[James_Somewhere_In_Idaho]

Hi Bob

That xls file I was referring to, that might help you in determining optimal trajectory on your project, was originally posted at the old monopole forum by John Koorn, so maybe he can figure out how to get that spreadsheet to you... John, what do you say???

[aln]

Thanks for sharing Bob, I've finally made it through your videos and text. I like what your doing and where your going with this. We have read it many times, "Tune to the fastest spin for the lowest amount of current." Your last video is kind of a proof-text to that. your energizer is so simple (as far as components are concerned, complex as far as timing and tuning goes). reminded of this (Calloway) but even more simple. Aln

[BobZilla]

Hi Bob --

I ran a normal SG Machine setup with a 250F capacitor changed up to 16 volts to start and my SG machine ran for 10 minutes above 300 RPM
before falling below that RPM and the SG machine was still running for another 10 minutes.

The capacitor formula for capacitors in series is below if your interested in knowing.

CT = 1/((1/C1) + (1/C2) + (1/C3)...)

Your Capacitor Value is 433.333391 Farads with a maximum voltage of 15 volts.

James McDonald

Thanks James! I had to go look at some examples after you gave the answer too me, now I see how it works. I guess since these are all the same size it is actually a pretty easy problem.

I like the capacitors as a measuring tool. I have never had much luck using them as a primary either. The voltage drops down in a consistent line with each firing rather than holding steady until almost depleted like a battery. If we could adjust the resistance all along the run it might do better but that gets complicated.

Almost completely opposite from the capacitor behavior are LifePO4 cells. Those suckers hold the same voltage flat until almost the very end of their charge and then just drop right off a cliff. Lead Acid seems to be somewhere in the middle.

[James McDonald]

Oh no brother,,,,that is the sound of success!

It is a bit much but I have it in it's own room so I hardly notice it. I have thought about some other ways to switch though. I may make a commutator style that just glides across rather than bouncing about on it. Remember though that this is very much an experiment about doing this with less. The way this is working right now the ONLY thing that is not wire and screws is one diode.


Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

I have a new video to post. In this one I am charging up a capacitor bank and gong through three timing settings to demonstrate the difference. The capacitor is nice because it shows the charge very well and it also shows that there is no connection between the primary and the charging because if they were at any time in parallel the caps would raise up very quickly. We do not see that happening however, only the radiant getting pumped in.

Video Link:
http://1drv.ms/1HqqzaJ

Hi Bob --

I ran a normal SG Machine setup with a 250F capacitor changed up to 16 volts to start and my SG machine ran for 10 minutes above 300 RPM
before falling below that RPM and the SG machine was still running for another 10 minutes.

The capacitor formula for capacitors in series is below if your interested in knowing.

CT = 1/((1/C1) + (1/C2) + (1/C3)...)

Your Capacitor Value is 433.333391 Farads with a maximum voltage of 15 volts.

James McDonald