5 filar specs

[Robert Darrah]

Hi,

I built a 5 filar along Tom C.'s guidelines and it's running now, but I don't know what the specs should be on it, i.e., is it running well or not.

The coil is 5 files all 150' long, 4 are 18 gauge and 1 is 19 gauge. It's a 3" spool with 3/4" hole and r60 rods. The coil is not litzed.

Diodes, transistors and resistors are all matched. It's a 20.5" wheel with 18 magnets, free spin time is 17.5 minutes. I'm charging a lawn and garden battery, with another as the primary.

I started with a g of w bulb and 100 ohm resistors, but even with 0 ohms on the pot the rpms maxed out at 120 and I would get about 6 triggers per pass. So I replaced the resistors with 10 ohm ones and the rpms came up to 125. Then I jumped the g of w with a screwdriver and the rpms shot up to 295.

So I took out the g of w bulb and left in the 10 ohm resistors and tuned it using the pot. I found to get a decent h wave with no extra triggering I needed a maximum of 125 ohms on the pot, plus the 10 ohm resistors, and it would draw around .670a from the primary and charge maybe .330.

I tried John K.'s method to tune it where you slowly decrease the resistance as the rpms increase, until the rpms then start to drop, and then go back and increase the resistance a little again.

So I came out with 80 ohms on the pot with a draw from the primary of 1.3 amps and .665a charging. Rpms are 308. It seems to be charging ok, the charging battery is at 14.23v at the moment. Here's a couple of pics of what I've got.



My question is does this sound reasonable for this build? I haven't seen specs on what a 5 filar should be doing so would appreciate some feedback.

Also, on the trace shot, the 4th h from the right has a spike of around 500 volts, when normally they are around 300 volts. I see on the scope it gets extra high spikes here and there and am wondering what causes this and if this is undesireable or not??

thanks,

Robert

[Howard Wetsman]

Robert,
Is that a small digital scope? I used one that gave me spurious readings on the v-v difference with the spikes (much higher than reality) and also just didn't show all the spikes of all the waves so it looked like spikes only happened once in a while. On a bigger scope it looked very different. Just a thought.
Howard

[Howard Wetsman]

By the way, nice build
h

[Robert Darrah]

Hi Howard,

They call it a 7" scope, but that's the diagonal measurement. The screen is 3.5" high and 6" wide. I don't know if that's considered small or not, as it's the only scope I've ever used.

It shows the spikes all around 300, but then one spikes high over here on the screen, and then another over there and so on, so it happens randomly around the screen. When I put both probes on different transistors so I have 2 waves displayed, one above the other, I'll get spikes in the same places at the same time on both waves.

I dunno, just curious as to what's going on, if it's because it's a digital scope, or if the spikes are really there, then why are they random and what this may do to the machine's efficiency...

Cheers,

Robert

[John_Koorn]

Robert, that looks perfect and what I'd expect to see for that type of build. The random height spikes are because the scope can't catch them all quick enough, nothing to worry about.

All you need to do now to test your setup is do charge/discharge cycles and record your data.

Good build, great work!

John K.

[Howard Wetsman]

Robert,
The same thing happens with my digital scope. I think it's just as John K says. If you do the runs and get good results you'll know you're getting the spikes. Don't succumb to the temptation of disconnecting the charge battery just to see "if the neons light up."
h

[Robert Darrah]

Hi John,

Ok, great, thanks John. I'll start on the testing. So while I'm watching it spin another million miles, what do you suggest would be a good next project to work on?

Howard,

Succumb? Who me? I think that was the other guy... Actually, I just give it a gentle spin by hand with the charging battery disconnected, just enough to see them blink a couple of times. But yes, you're right, with the 5 filar I need to be more careful than with the vanilla girl.

thanks,

Robert

[Mike Swanson]

Just wondering what is the advantage of the 5 filar coil? (Pentifilar? )

Thanks,

Mike

[Tom C]

faster charging, more power windings more transistors, bigger circuit, charges bigger batteries.

Tom C

[Forrest]

Hi Robert, Looks like you are doing quite well there. Construction looks good and you will like the output from this setup for sure. You should have absolutely no problem charging those batteries. The next step is doing the 20 runs and carefully looking at the data on the charging time vs the discharge time. I know this work is tedious and long but what else do you have to while things are running along. Build a bigger and better one!

Nice Job! Keep up the good work!

Bud

[Robert Darrah]

Hi Bud,

Yes, I've already charged up the battery once and the best part is it didn't take that long. When I did my 20 runs with the ssg it would take 40+ hours for each charge, so it seemed to take forever. I think the best thing to do to take some of the pain out of the load testing is to get a battery that is sized to match what the machine is putting out, so it only takes around 20 hours to charge.

I just looked at my 20 run data and it took me 3 months to do the tests. 90 days just for 20 tests! That's where I really screwed up. I started with a garden battery and it would have taken probably a year to charge, so I then went to a 4.5ah battery. It took way too long to charge also, so I ordered a 3ah battery online. It came and was actually 3.4ah, but it was there so I used it anyway despite the long charge time. I went with it when I should have probably got about a 2ah instead.

When it takes 3 months just to do some basic testing I can see how people give up and walk away. I'm not pointing the finger at anybody; it was just my inexperience that made it take so long. Now that I know better I'd like to pass that lesson along to new people.

Also I think what would help with the new kits is to specify more precisely what battery size people should use to speed up their load tests. I think the new kits are going to rock big time, and it will be possible to specify what size battery for a c20 rate. The more painless the load testing is the more likely people are to do it. My 2 cents.

Cheers Bud, and keep up the good work!

Robert

[MrRonsen]

@Robert Darrah
i am not alone..
i have a single coil vanilla SSG running... charging 7Ah batteries,
it takes long.. more than 40 hours...
now i am charging to 7Ah (connected in serie) and watch what happens.. might i charge two in same time as one battery,
but all that testing takes tooooo long..
do/would realy very brand new battery work so much better *hmmm*..
now i have a 64Ah battery (varta 12V L2 400/640 A(EN)) as primary, getting rid of charging the primary so often..
the consumption of my wheel is 60mA, charging is 10mA,... i have 850windings of #26/#23 wires, 16 mags on wheel, 80RPM,
so i will go up to AWG18 diam 1mm wire, building a new coil,
working on 24V would speed up too, ok i read quality of rotation first, then speed,...

but in the actual style of teaching/learning that technique..
there will be no danger for established industry.. no revolution..
many people would like to see charging two or more batteries from one...
but.. how many people reached that point realy?

[Tom C]

@Robert Darrah
i am not alone..
i have a single coil vanilla SSG running... charging 7Ah batteries,
it takes long.. more than 40 hours...
now i am charging to 7Ah (connected in serie) and watch what happens.. might i charge two in same time as one battery,
but all that testing takes tooooo long..
do/would realy very brand new battery work so much better *hmmm*..
now i have a 64Ah battery (varta 12V L2 400/640 A(EN)) as primary, getting rid of charging the primary so often..
the consumption of my wheel is 60mA, charging is 10mA,... i have 850windings of #26/#23 wires, 16 mags on wheel, 80RPM,
so i will go up to AWG18 diam 1mm wire, building a new coil,
working on 24V would speed up too, ok i read quality of rotation first, then speed,...

but in the actual style of teaching/learning that technique..
there will be no danger for established industry.. no revolution..
many people would like to see charging two or more batteries from one...
but.. how many people reached that point realy?

I did, can, do.... will do more than 2 for 1
Tom C

[Michael Luton]

Mr Ronson,
Unfortunately you are correct in thinking too few will get there. The biggest problem is people want to jump to a high end charging machine and get discouraged. The vanilla SSG is kept simple to be a learning machine and for that it is a great machine. If you complicate before you start to understand what is going on you never will get it. Learn from it then you can and will build the better machines and understand what improvements are and which you want to pursue.

Michael Luton

[Robert Darrah]

Hi Mr. Ronsen,

Wow, looking at your numbers I can feel your pain, but then I'll bet you never super glued your big toe to your ssg wheel... another story... and maybe one best not told.

My ssg was charging around 37 milliamps with a primary draw of 115ma and over 140rpms. When I looked in the reports for other people on the mp3 group a lot of them had better charging rates and rpms than that, so I'd put 37 ma at the low end of what's possible with the ssg.

So if you're only charging 10 ma that sounds way too low to me. Have you looked at it on a scope to make sure your base resistance isn't too high? Are you getting extra trigger spikes in your h wave? I'd suggest looking at the tuning again and seeing if you can't get more charging out of it.

10ma on a 7ah battery... that's about 7 times as much charging as I was doing... so I'm guessing right now it takes 280+ hours to charge? Something like that? I'd suggest getting your charge rate up a bunch and use a new battery with a c20 rating that matches what your machine is putting out, and then do your testing.

Good Luck!

Robert