Hello all,
I have come up with a variant of the Tesla Switch which I am calling the Tesla Half Switch as far as I can tell it meets the requirements to be considered a Tesla Switch. By way of background, I have learned that in discharging one cap to another the law of conservation of charge not conservation of energy is followed and therefore there can be energy losses (as defined as 1/2CV2) that are related strictly to the relative capacitances and voltages between the two caps. However in going from battery to battery this is likely not the case perhaps because the battery is viewed as a resistive load or because the energy is directed towards a chemical reaction, I really don't know, but it seems the excess charge can be captured in a battery that would not so easily show up going cap-cap. However, in going either battery to capacitor or capacitor to battery one also should be fine. So to get to the point one can do the following.
Take a single battery and discharge it into two capacitors in parallel.
Put charged capacitors in series and discharge back to battery.
This arrangement requires 5 switches as opposed to the seven I believe are needed for a Tesla Switch. Actually I came up with it because, despite the arduinos and optoisolators I still wasn't sure I could build the Tesla switch and when I had this I realized it likely does the same thing. I have one "running" and the approach does work but I am losing embarrassing amounts in the switches and am now starting to mitigate switching losses.
Ciao,
Z
I have come up with a variant of the Tesla Switch which I am calling the Tesla Half Switch as far as I can tell it meets the requirements to be considered a Tesla Switch. By way of background, I have learned that in discharging one cap to another the law of conservation of charge not conservation of energy is followed and therefore there can be energy losses (as defined as 1/2CV2) that are related strictly to the relative capacitances and voltages between the two caps. However in going from battery to battery this is likely not the case perhaps because the battery is viewed as a resistive load or because the energy is directed towards a chemical reaction, I really don't know, but it seems the excess charge can be captured in a battery that would not so easily show up going cap-cap. However, in going either battery to capacitor or capacitor to battery one also should be fine. So to get to the point one can do the following.
Take a single battery and discharge it into two capacitors in parallel.
Put charged capacitors in series and discharge back to battery.
This arrangement requires 5 switches as opposed to the seven I believe are needed for a Tesla Switch. Actually I came up with it because, despite the arduinos and optoisolators I still wasn't sure I could build the Tesla switch and when I had this I realized it likely does the same thing. I have one "running" and the approach does work but I am losing embarrassing amounts in the switches and am now starting to mitigate switching losses.
Ciao,
Z
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