Branch's SSG Build

[Branch Gordon]

Hi everyone! I was hoping to get some suggestions for improvements I can make to my current build. I shot some video going through some of the things I think are wrong...if anyone sees anything please let me know. Thanks for your help!

[John_Koorn]

Branch, the Renaissance charger is fine to recharge the primary.

Looks like your coil to magnet gap is too big. What you want to do is get a small flat blade screwdriver and slowly bring the tip close to the magnets. You will get to a distance where the the tip of the screwdriver gets sucked into the magnet, around about 1/4" for those magnets. You may need to do it a few times to get it right. Then set the gap to the distance where the screwdriver gets sucked into the magnet.

Once you have that you run the machine and take an RPM measurement. To fine tune you can adjust up and down a little and see if the RPM increases. You want the highest RPM. this will take a few hours to get right.

Do this first and then do a couple of load tests before you change anything else. One step at a time

John K.

[Branch Gordon]

First off...thanks for your responses.

I will try that screwdriver trick this evening. I have some digital calipers..maybe I can use those to help judge the distance.

For the RPM's...I thought I needed to get the highest RPM's for the lowest amp draw. That's how I tuned it. It did take a couple of really careful hours to accomplish.

The highest RPM's I got were around 100 ohms. As I increased resistance they started to fall. There was a spot around 360 ohms where they went back up. I notated that as the first sweet spot.

I kept increasing the resistance after that...found another non-linear spot between 630 and 685 ohms. This is where I decided to do my load testing.

Does this sound like the right way to tune? I may upload a video of me going through the process, as well as the spacing exercise.

I have been tracking discharge curves with the CBA III...but I am having to do 2 charge runs to get the battery fully charged. Does a battery need to be fully conditioned with radiant energy before you start getting 1 to 1 charging?

Branch, the Renaissance charger is fine to recharge the primary.

Looks like your coil to magnet gap is too big. What you want to do is get a small flat blade screwdriver and slowly bring the tip close to the magnets. You will get to a distance where the the tip of the screwdriver gets sucked into the magnet, around about 1/4" for those magnets. You may need to do it a few times to get it right. Then set the gap to the distance where the screwdriver gets sucked into the magnet.

Once you have that you run the machine and take an RPM measurement. To fine tune you can adjust up and down a little and see if the RPM increases. You want the highest RPM. this will take a few hours to get right.

Do this first and then do a couple of load tests before you change anything else. One step at a time

John K.

[Tom C]

1- your freewheel time is too low, you do not adjust it like a normal bike wheel, that wheel should be above 8 minutes easily.
2- what length is your coil wire in total? it is not about the spool it is about length 150 FT before you litz it.
3- that charge battery positive solder looks horrible get rid of alligator clips and use female spade connectors for those batteries
4- 12 gauge wire minimum for batt cables looks like that is what you have
5- dont worry about the screws, you can change to brass if you want to

a tuned SG will be 1 to 1 with a bit left over. go ahead and use john k's explaination of coil gap it works perfectly that way.

Tom C

[Branch Gordon]

Hey Tom-

1. Yeah I'm not sure why I can't get a longer time. I did loosen up the locknuts and moved them back so the wheel was very loose and you can hear the clicking of the bearings inside. If I look at the wheel from the side as it's running however it seems like it's bent....but that might be because of the loose locknuts. Anything else I can try?

2. 200'. I did not litz the wires. So I need to fix that....

3. Yeah I still really suck at soldering. Getting better....haha. I will make another attempt at it and buy some female spade connectors.

4. The red and black wires I'm using are 18 guage. The lighter colored speaker wire is thicker though. Do ALL wires need to be 12 guage or just the wire that connects the two batteries?

5. Right on, thanks!

1- your freewheel time is too low, you do not adjust it like a normal bike wheel, that wheel should be above 8 minutes easily.
2- what length is your coil wire in total? it is not about the spool it is about length 150 FT before you litz it.
3- that charge battery positive solder looks horrible get rid of alligator clips and use female spade connectors for those batteries
4- 12 gauge wire minimum for batt cables looks like that is what you have
5- dont worry about the screws, you can change to brass if you want to

a tuned SG will be 1 to 1 with a bit left over. go ahead and use john k's explaination of coil gap it works perfectly that way.

Tom C

[Tom C]

Hey Tom-

1. Yeah I'm not sure why I can't get a longer time. I did loosen up the locknuts and moved them back so the wheel was very loose and you can hear the clicking of the bearings inside. If I look at the wheel from the side as it's running however it seems like it's bent....but that might be because of the loose locknuts. Anything else I can try?

2. 200'. I did not litz the wires. So I need to fix that....

3. Yeah I still really suck at soldering. Getting better....haha. I will make another attempt at it and buy some female spade connectors.

4. The red and black wires I'm using are 18 guage. The lighter colored speaker wire is thicker though. Do ALL wires need to be 12 guage or just the wire that connects the two batteries?

5. Right on, thanks!

speaker wire is not good for battery wire in my opinion, get some 12 gauge wire from napa. balance the wheel, that will help. my bike wheel rotates over 8 minutes, it was not until I got my rotation up that I saw good results, but it differs for everyone. mostly if you are using a lot of energy to get and maintain rotation you may be using too much to have good charging.

Tom C

[Barrie Castle]

Hi Guys,

Hope this can help.

Tom's being pretty generous with 8 minutes. I never stopped mucking about with both my SSG wheels until they were both at 11.5 minutes. You cleaned everything out & used Tri-Flow, right? I ran a topic on balancing some time ago here... makes a huge difference.

http://www.energyscienceforum.com/be...spin-time.html

All The Best.

[Tom C]

Hi Guys,

Hope this can help.

Tom's being pretty generous with 8 minutes. I never stopped mucking about with both my SSG wheels until they were both at 11.5 minutes. You cleaned everything out & used Tri-Flow, right? I ran a topic on balancing some time ago here... makes a huge difference.

http://www.energyscienceforum.com/be...spin-time.html

All The Best.

most excellent Barrie!!

Tom C

[Branch Gordon]

I did clean it all out...wiped all the grease off. Bought new ceramic ball bearings. Squirted a bunch of tri flow into the cap. I'm finding though that because the locknuts are loosened, most of the excess tri-flow leaks out and drips down the bike wheel.

I haven't balanced it yet like you are suggesting with adding blobs of glue...but I think I should be getting a longer spin time even without that.

I bought this wheel off of ebay...I had a guy balance it at a bike shop...he said at the time that there was a dent in it....that might be what the issue is here.

I may just buy a nicer wheel that isn't used.

Hi Guys,

Hope this can help.

Tom's being pretty generous with 8 minutes. I never stopped mucking about with both my SSG wheels until they were both at 11.5 minutes. You cleaned everything out & used Tri-Flow, right? I ran a topic on balancing some time ago here... makes a huge difference.

http://www.energyscienceforum.com/be...spin-time.html

All The Best.

[Barrie Castle]

I think you've got it now. Rip the bearings out again & have a really hard look at the bearing tracks in good light. I tried second hand bike wheels to start with as I had them thrown at me for no money down. Even if they were only a little bit worn, it made a huge difference to spin times. Buying a new wheel from a local bike shop will save you a lot of money in the long run. Be careful to check for steel joiners on the outer rim where the join is though... it's worth a few extra bucks to just buy it fully cast. The thing you get with buying local is all the extra support. I upgraded to a much longer solid axle for ten bucks on my second SSG, which made it so much easier to mount. If you're into more expensive wheels with sealed bearings, those guys in the workshop have all the right bearing pullers & special spanners, etc for you to do a really good job. Unfortunately, they're making wheels now so that we can't just use any old tools to do the job right.

[Branch Gordon]

So I broke down and bought this new wheel: Amazon.com: Skyway Tuff II 7 Spoke Mag 3/8 Nutted 24 x 1.75 Black Wheel Front: Sports & Outdoors

It arrived on Friday. Much better quality!

Just ordered these magnets: Ceramic Magnets C8 1 7/8"X7/8"X3/8" Hard Ferrite Magnets - Industrial Neodymium Magnets||NdFeB Magnets||Magnetic Assemblies||Wind Power

Also ordered an extra long replacement axle to give me some space to work with for the coil: Front Wheel Hub Axle 195mm long

Looking forward to getting this part of the process nailed down...

[Branch Gordon]

This post is for Tom C, or for anyone who has used a similar bicycle wheel.

A few weeks back I purchased a Skyway Tuff II bicycle wheel.

It has sealed bearings.

Out of the box without changing anything it has a free spin time of 3:30. I went ahead and attached 21 magnets to it with krazy glue.

I loosened up the nuts on either end so they weren't up against the bearings. This increases the free spin time to 5 minutes, but the bearings aren't really being used in this case. The wheel just spins on the axle.

Tom, I'm curious what else you have done to these wheels to increase time? Do these sealed bearings pop out and allow lubrication with Tri-Flow? I was going to try it but don't want to break anything.

[Forrest]

Branch, Soldering can be very difficult for someone who is new. Soldering is no different than brazing or welding aluminum, stainless, or plain steel. The major key is cleanliness. Not you the materials. They have to be clean every time or the oxides that are usually present get in the way of the process. Soldering is the hardest of all the joining processes because we do not have enough heat to burn thru the oxide layer. So we either have to sand to clean or abrade the materials clean or let an acid do the work for us. They make acid core solder which will burn off the oxides on the copper but unless you clean the soldered joint after soldering the acid can be destructive to the surrounding areas. There is too much acid in the acid core solder for this application.

What you really want to do is get yourself some soldering paste. You can obtain it at any hardware store. Put a very small amount on the wire prior to soldering and the hot iron plus the presence of the soldering paste will allow the surface to become clean and solder at the same time. I always tin my wires before soldering or joining to a component.....why?......because the individual wire leads have ovide on them and you cannot get it clean without a lot of heat and some paste. Heat will destroy some components so do the tinning part ahead of time. Joining componets wants to be done with the smallest amount of heat needed to get the job done.

When tinning wires I always strip the wire insulation back and the dip the ends into the soldering paste. Then I put the wire to the iron and add a little solder to allow the tinning to take place.

The size of your iron plays a huge part in the size of the component you can solder. The larger the wire the larger the iron needs to be. As the soldering takes place the heat is drawn from the copper iron and transferred into the work. If the heat of the iron runs too cold during this process then the soldering will not take place. You need to keep this in mind when soldering. I always have a small iron and a large one running when I work.

The type of solder also plays a huge role. You definately do not want the lead free type! You want the 60/40 rosin core type for electrical work. You want the lead in there! It makes the solder flow freely.

When resoldering over and over the solder becomes very grainy and hard to work with. Adding a little rosin core solder helps with this. These are just the basics and much practice is needed to become very proficient. Keep trying! Tinning ahead is a very important part. Hope this helps.

Bud

[Tom C]

This post is for Tom C, or for anyone who has used a similar bicycle wheel.

A few weeks back I purchased a Skyway Tuff II bicycle wheel.

It has sealed bearings.

Out of the box without changing anything it has a free spin time of 3:30. I went ahead and attached 21 magnets to it with krazy glue.

I loosened up the nuts on either end so they weren't up against the bearings. This increases the free spin time to 5 minutes, but the bearings aren't really being used in this case. The wheel just spins on the axle.

Tom, I'm curious what else you have done to these wheels to increase time? Do these sealed bearings pop out and allow lubrication with Tri-Flow? I was going to try it but don't want to break anything.

Yes tri flow is my preffered lubricant. I remove the dust seals and clean out the grease, then spray liberally. balance using pennies or a screw put in opposite the heavy spot.


Tom C

[John_Koorn]

Thank you Lubriderm!!!

John K.