5 filar specs

[Woody]

Nice looking build there Robert! I am waiting for my matched transistors to arrive, and I've marked out 150 feet on my driveway so I can wind a new coil with the 18awg/19awg wire. I'm thinking about a 5 filar coil too, and I intend to use it as the master coil for my 6 coiler like Ralph showed at the last conference. I've been getting stuff together for that build.

-Woody

[Robert Darrah]

Hi Woody,

Are you planning on litzing your coil? If you are let us know how it works out because I'd like to see a comparison between litzed and nonlitzed coils. I haven't seen anybody talking much about the benefits of one versus the other (subtle hint there.)

Sorry about the meltdown with the 3pm. But if you're going to melt something that's not a bad choice, as that kit already has a number of flaws that needed reworking. Now you can study the components and see what failed so you know what needs to be scaled up for you next attempt at 36v, because I got a feeling it's coming!

Robert

PS Hey, you inspired me to put in a tag line:

"Mother said there'd be days like this...she just didn't say there'd be so many!"

[Robert Darrah]

Hi,

A quick update on the 5 filar. I discharged the lawn and garden to 12.20 volts and then charged it up. It took 9 hours and 47 minutes to get up to 14.50 volts, so I think I'll need 2 l&g batteries for charging to stay near the c20 rate. 19.5 hours to charge will sure speed up the load testing.

Robert

[Prinsloo]

@ Robert

Nice build, good work !

What was your amp reading while charging your batteries in 9 Hours?

Also what value is the resistors on the trigger wire?

Thanks

Theuns

[Tom C]

Hi,

A quick update on the 5 filar. I discharged the lawn and garden to 12.20 volts and then charged it up. It took 9 hours and 47 minutes to get up to 14.50 volts, so I think I'll need 2 l&g batteries for charging to stay near the c20 rate. 19.5 hours to charge will sure speed up the load testing.

Robert

hi everyone,

Just want to chime in here. we dont CARE about current on the secondary. we car about CHARGING. 2 different things, we are not charging with current on the SG but voltage potential, so we are looking for how well it charges based on primary draw, and RPM. it is non linear, there will be places in the current draw from the primary where you see non linear increases in rpm of the wheel. this is usually where it drops form 3 to 2 pulses or from 2 to 1 pulse, it is a non linear increase in wheel speed as you drop in resistance on the trigger circuit.

Tom C

[Prinsloo]

@ TomC
Sorry I did not elaborate enough on the question re the Amps!

@Robert
What was your average amp draw on the primary battery while charging your batteries in 9 Hours?

Also what value is the resistors on the trigger wire?

@All – please help
Why I am asking is because I use 5 filar ±19AWG litz wired coils on a 8 magnet aluminium rotor every time I connect the second coil, the output spike drops by half. I have learned that is because the trigger voltage gets shared because of the added transistors, how do one overcome this? Is there a form on the internet where this is discussed?

Maybe I should start a new thread ? ? ? ?

Thanks

Theuns

[Tom C]

how do you get more voltage thru the trigger branches? change all the resistors to the bases. any time you add a coil you will have to adjust the trigger tuning.
Tom C

[Prinsloo]

Tom C

Thanks for getting back,

I am aware of the voltages dropping on the trigger every time you add a coil took me a while to figure it out, but how low a résistance can you go on the base of the transistor,

The base resistors on my coil is 22ohm at the moment, and the scoped base voltage between the transistor base and the resistor is - Scope 2

And between the resistor and the coil wire is - Scope 1

Any advice please.

Theuns

[Robert Darrah]

Hi Theuns,

On the first run charging 1 battery the primary draw was 1.3 amps. On the second run I was charging 2 batteries and it was 1.26 amps. I have four 10 ohm resistors, 1 for each of the transistors, plus one 80 ohm resistor (in place of the pot) in series with the four 10 ohm resistors, so basically a total of 90 ohms. The second run took 20 3/4 hours to charge both batteries (2 lawn and garden), and my rpms were around 307.

The 90 ohms is working well for me and I have 19 gauge trigger wire also, 150'. How long is your trigger wind? Did you double check for any high resistance connections? It sounds like you have a higher trigger resistance than I do for some reason. If all your connections look good then maybe you need a larger trigger wire.

Cheers,

Robert

[Prinsloo]

Hi Robert

My coils spec is the same as yours, 5 wires litz, 45 meters with 19 AWG wire and a 20 mm core, I got some lower value resistors today and will do a test as soon as I can, just don’t want to pop the MJL’s.

I was a bit concerned as most builders mentioned base resistors of 470, 200 ohm etc. and the like, my wheel don’t even move at 100 ohm base resistors.

Please explained “Did you double check for any high resistance connections? “,

Thanks

Theuns (Virus)

[Robert Darrah]

Hi Theuns,

I just meant did you ohm all your solder joints with an ohmmeter. As I'm soldering my board I'll check each connection with an ohmmeter to make sure it's a good joint. Then after it's done I'll go through the board again just to double check, as the board is out and it's easy to do.

A poor joint would have high resistance and an ohmmeter would show this. Right now you're using 22 ohm resistors and it sounds like the resistance is still too high, so you might have a bad joint, or something that's adding resistance to the trigger circuit in addition to the resistors. That's what sounds most likely to me at any rate.

Especially check that you got all the insulation off the magnet wire where you soldered it. I scrape it with a utility knife and then sand it after that. You'll see the color change and you can see the fresh copper of the wire so you know you got it all off. Then put your ohmmeter on both ends of the magnet wire and ohm your coil to make sure the insulation is all off and you have good connections at both ends.

You can't go much lower than 22 ohms on the resistors, and if it doesn't even move at 100 ohms it sounds like it's not even close to being tuned, so I don't think a lower resistor is going to do it. I'd really be looking for extra resistance somewhere that shouldn't be there.

Good luck!

Robert

[Rob_Esq]

Higher resistance = higher RPM - surely this can't be right??

Hi all. I've been tinkering with my SSG for nearly a year now, and feeling frustrated because the tuning instructions have never made sense. Basically, the higher the resistance I adjust the pot to, the faster the wheel spins. I've been scratching my head for a while now wondering how this works - surely more resistance should equal less current into the base of the transistor = lower RPM? Now I've just finished reading this thread, and Tom says clearly that "it is a non linear increase in wheel speed as you drop in resistance on the trigger circuit". Can anybody suggest what I might be doing wrong? Here is a photo of my circuit:


Rob

[Tom C]

ok I cannot see your diagram, but your pot is wired backwards most likely, it depends upon which legs you have attached. if you have the left solder point and the center soldered, turning to the right will increase resistance. use your meter on it.

Tom C

[Rob_Esq]

ok I cannot see your diagram, but your pot is wired backwards most likely, it depends upon which legs you have attached. if you have the left solder point and the center soldered, turning to the right will increase resistance. use your meter on it.

Tom C

Hi Tom. I don't think its this. I just tried swapping the connections on the pot as you suggested, but I still get the same effect .. just that have to twiddle the pot in the opposite direction. With maximum resistance its running at a cool 300 rpm (100 mps), and with minimum resistance this drops to around 206 rpm.

A few months ago I spent a lot of time trying to tune it as per the manual, but the results were always the same - the higher the resistance, the faster the spin. I even added 2 x 1K extra resistors at one point to see what happen - and the spin got even faster still. This would be great, except that I'm not getting any extra performance for the extra spin.

A while back I was getting successful charges up to 14.5V, in about 40 hours. I've pretty much rebuilt every aspect of the SSG (supposedly improving) since then though, so I cannot reproduce these conditions. The last major thing I did was to create a styrofoam wheel (see photo) with very little drag, and ceramic wheel bearings, which I am very pleased with, because it flies round with very little energy input. This increased my rpm by over 50% on the previous wheel, with less amp draw. My pleasure soon turned to dissapointment though, when I realised that it wouldn't charge above about 13.75V.

I've been stuck at this point for a good few month now. I am unable to progress with my 20 test runs: a. because I've never felt like its been properly tuned, and b. because I am no longer able to charge up to the required 14.5V.

(On the plus side, I have built myself an 8 filer coil while I've been trying to get the vanilla SSG working properly, which I'm looking forward to putting to the test

Rob

[Prinsloo]

Hi Rob_Esq

My 2c of newbie help, (you need to re-post your circuit diagram so that we can see what is going on and not speculate, cause this will just frustrate you even more)

Maybe your new styrofoam wheel does not have enough momentum ?



Theuns