OverUnity Research

Thanks for the English Translation paper Tinman

I have uploaded a copy, this paper was mentioned in the McFreey Paper

AFAIK, having read the English translation of the paper by Mandelstam & Papalexi, they were using mechanical input power from a motor to vary an inductance and thus cause an oscillation to grow in amplitude, whereas normally it would remain at a steady state condition.

This was tested with active oscillators using vacuum tubes and with purely passive LC circuits with a motor driven variable inductor.

I think what we are missing here is that it takes some mechanical work to vary the inductance of an L in an LC oscillating circuit.

Even if just a tiny bit of work in the form of mechanical input, an unloaded LC circuit will grow in amplitude of oscillation (if the oscillator circuit is unloaded) leading to high voltage buildup and eventual insulation or capacitor failure.

If the oscillator circuit is loaded as they did with lamps, then considerable mechanical input power was needed to pump the inductance to supply the lamp load.

At one point they reached the limit of their motor's capability as stated in the highlighted excerpt attached. If motor power was not an input why would they come up to the limit of it's rating?

Has anyone seen in the paper where total input power and total output power were compared and produced OU? I have not seen this.

If I am wrong in my interpretation of the paper, I would be happy to yield to a more correct interpretation.  I don't claim to understand the math in the paper, but the real meat for me is in the experiments. I get the concept without the math.

I don't mean to say that it is not interesting to me, as it certainly is. I have always wanted to carry out a few experiments along these lines with a dual parametric setup, pumping L and C in the same unit.

Thanks for the summary ION.

How bizarre.

QuoteI think what we are missing here is that it takes some mechanical work to vary the inductance of an L in an LC oscillating circuit.

Seems to operate the same as those diagrams that were posted in the Russian device thread, the ones where L is switched in series.

The link below has a larger paper around 6 meg that goes into greater detail.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CC0QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tuks.nl%2Fpdf%2FReference_Material%2FMandelstam_Papalexi%2FMandelstam-Papalexi%2520-%2520On%2520the%2520Parametric%2520Excitation%2520of%2520Electric%2520Oscillations%2520-%25201934%2520-%2520NASA%25201968.pdf&ei=SZmGUq2BHfSl4AOn84DACg&usg=AFQjCNGPCdEv1DSzwU1N-EMwALvq9K3pZw&bvm=bv.56643336,d.dmg

Peter quote:

QuoteSeems to operate the same as those diagrams that were posted in the Russian device thread, the ones where L is switched in series.

Possibly

Quote from: ION on 2013.11.15, 22:02:36
The link below has a larger paper around 6 meg that goes into greater detail.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CC0QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tuks.nl%2Fpdf%2FReference_Material%2FMandelstam_Papalexi%2FMandelstam-Papalexi%2520-%2520On%2520the%2520Parametric%2520Excitation%2520of%2520Electric%2520Oscillations%2520-%25201934%2520-%2520NASA%25201968.pdf&ei=SZmGUq2BHfSl4AOn84DACg&usg=AFQjCNGPCdEv1DSzwU1N-EMwALvq9K3pZw&bvm=bv.56643336,d.dmg

Peter quote:


Possibly

russian patent
http://www.microsofttranslator.com/bv.aspx?from=&to=en&a=http://bd.patent.su/2386000-2386999/pat/servl/servlet92b8.html

Here is the image from the patent which we can discuss.

At first glance and without a thorough read of the patent it appears fairly simple.

Looks like a blocking oscillator providing switching gate pulses for the SCR's which then alternately change the capacity in the circuit by switching in either C1 or C2 at precise points. A timing diagram for the switching was not included nor were waveforms.

Zener diodes keep the output from soaring under no load by providing a small load to the system.

Output is shown looped and charges the start up battery as well as supplying a load.

Would it be possible to get a complete English pdf of this patent?

Anyone know of an attempted replication?

Edit: re-upload schematic from patent showing error.

the pdf

russian discussion here
http://realstrannik.ru/forum/52-temy-val001/93891-parametricheskij-rezonans-zubkova.html?start=252

Quote from: wings on 2013.11.16, 16:53:05
the pdf

russian discussion here
http://realstrannik.ru/forum/52-temy-val001/93891-parametricheskij-rezonans-zubkova.html?start=252

Many thanks for the find.

Quote from: ION on 2013.11.16, 14:32:19
Here is the image from the patent which we can discuss.

At first glance and without a thorough read of the patent it appears fairly simple.

Looks like a blocking oscillator providing switching gate pulses for the SCR's which then alternately change the capacity in the circuit by switching in either C1 or C2 at precise points. A timing diagram for the switching was not included nor were waveforms.

Zener diodes keep the output from soaring under no load by providing a small load to the system.

Output is shown looped and charges the start up battery as well as supplying a load.

Would it be possible to get a complete English pdf of this patent?

Anyone know of an attempted replication?

Dear ION.

I spent about a month tinkering with this circuit. I would first like to point out there is an error down at the bottom RH corner. You will notice that the supply is effectively shorted!!

I tried with both SCR's and Triac's but could not get them to turn on or off properly. Instead I used a pair of 12 V automotive relays driven by a pair of RMC PWM's !!

The upshot was that very occasionally I could get a rise in output!! I used a 300 turn 0.9 mm ECW in a Ferrite half pot core. The low resistance of the wire seemed to be better than 500 turns of thinner wire.

I gave up with it due to my lack of electronic knowledge but IMO it did show some promise!!

Perhaps, if you were to try this you might have more luck?? Than I.

Cheers Grum.

Grum:

Thanks for your input on the circuit.

As it is drawn, it seems a bit messy.

I would not have done it that way, but then again it is difficult to understand all constraints and everything the designer may have had in mind, also I haven't done a thorough read of the patent yet, just a fast read over.

Quote from: ION on 2013.11.16, 14:32:19
Here is the image from the patent which we can discuss.

At first glance and without a thorough read of the patent it appears fairly simple.

Looks like a blocking oscillator providing switching gate pulses for the SCR's which then alternately change the capacity in the circuit by switching in either C1 or C2 at precise points. A timing diagram for the switching was not included nor were waveforms.

Zener diodes keep the output from soaring under no load by providing a small load to the system.

Output is shown looped and charges the start up battery as well as supplying a load.

Would it be possible to get a complete English pdf of this patent?

Anyone know of an attempted replication?

In the circuit you show in your post seems to have a grave error.  Look at the far left bottom corner below the bridge rectifier. The output of the bridge is shorted with connections below it. ;)

Mags

oops, grumage caught it first. ;)   Good eye.


Mags

Donald smith showed 2 devices, one had rotating veins, the other he was pumping high Mu rods.
In one of his work shops someone stood up and said can you draw a simple circuit of an OU device, he drew a single transistor pumping a coil which was wound on a high Mu rod.

I think this almost definitely shows that Don smith was well aware of NMR and in fact if you take Don smiths brief case device this is an exact replication of the McFreey device in figure 6 apart from the gain material is missing, ie a 1 or 2  turn ring sandwiched in between both resonant coils La/Lb

Here's my build
(http://www.overunityresearch.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=25.0;attach=92)

Nice!   O0

Quote from: Magluvin on 2013.11.20, 04:16:02
In the circuit you show in your post seems to have a grave error.  Look at the far left bottom corner below the bridge rectifier. The output of the bridge is shorted with connections below it. ;)

Mags

Yes, it is surprising this got by the patent attorney, who, as I remember, go over every trace in a circuit. I guess the patent examiner didn't catch it either.

I re-uploaded showing the error.

Peter: As always, a nice build. What did your final schematic look like and the results?

Hi ION
This is an old build of Don smith's brief case device, but definitely worth digging out the cupboard and sticking a ring in between the 2 HV resonant coils, maybe it doesn't need a ring for NAR and instead uses NMR

Here's a quote from a post i made in the build thread

QuoteSo going back to the signal generator and sweeping for max amplitude on my primary i get a frequency of 152.44Khz, but when i do this on my secondary coil with the 47nF i get max amplitude at 148.81kHz, so it looks to me as though my coils are not tuned right now.

Note that i did a calculation on what frequency my primary coil should work at se this quote from the build thread.

QuotePrimary Coil

Wire Length 128.3 Cm
Inductance 3.912uH
Calculated Res Freq = 179.993kHz
Wire Diameter= 18AWG 1.02362mm
Number of turns 5

Michel Meyer used 172 kHz but used iron wire, you see how close Don's build is to this, maybe the fuel in Don's device is the primary 5 turn coil and was using NMR instead of NAR.

So i am wondering if the secret to Don's build is just tuning to a sub harmonic of the NMR of the primary metal, because the device uses a spark gap it has rich harmonic content, see a plot i took at the time of the harmonics across the primary coil
(http://www.overunityresearch.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=25.0;attach=256;image)
(http://www.overunityresearch.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=25.0;attach=260)

Hi Peter

Now I am going to explain a very simple thing and you can take it or not, it does not worry me, but it works, and I have demonstrated this to a group of people.

Tesla's 3,6,9 is no joke, it is real when implemented in the right way.

Harmonics will look after themselves, what is needed to start with is mixing Two frequencies, yes hetrodyning, but mixing in the item you want to alter in some way by electro magnetic waves (RF).

The most important is the frequency split, it should be eg.  120khz and X6 this frequency which is 720khz, as long as it is a 6 X difference it does not matter what frequency you start with.

Here is an example in khz:-

120          720
600          840
240          1440
1200        1680
480          2880
2400        3360
960          5760
4800        6720
1920        11520
9600        13440
3840        23040

and so on,  now look if the split was say X4 below

120         480
360          600
240         960
720          1200
480          1920
1440        2400
960          3840

I have blackened the blocking frequencies, the X6 does not have any blocking frequencies, so this split will create a full spectrum of frequencies

With harmonics, as they go up and down, the power of the harmonics is less than the original, with hetrodyning you get a straight line with peaks greater at certain points in the spectrum

As with all RF you need a matching network for the frequency, so as to stop reflective power, so it is not just connecting to a coil. This system combines in "free space",  there is no direct coupling, the item to be irradiated has to be between the two radiating coils, then you can hit what ever frequency the material being irradiated needs for whatever reaction required, be it to break molecular bonds or change atomic state. The latter I have never worked on, but breaking molecular bonds yes.

Hope I have given food for thought, and as I have said, take it or leave it.

Regards

Mike

Hi Mike

I will listen to any information given to me and bear it in mind, wether i remember it or not is my biggest problem.

Thanks
Peter

Quote from: Peterae on 2013.11.22, 21:09:26
Hi Mike

I will listen to any information given to me and bear it in mind, wether i remember it or not is my biggest problem.

Thanks
Peter

Tell me about it C.C at my age I have to write everything down and even then I foreget where I put it afterwards ???

On a serious note, think about what I have said in the previous post, I think it will help a lot. There are various threads here and in other forums that all can be related to RF and tuning in one way or the other, like reactive power is in fact reflective power, standing wave ratio (SWR) if controlled in the right way can produce some amazing effects, blowing your TX final apart :D

I was lucky to know and was a good friend, the son of the inventor of single side band (SSB) who lived in oakhurst road in Oswestry, shropshire, my home town. Like his father he was a great radio ham, his other passion was flying his own plane of which I spent many an hour with him flying over the Welsh countryside. Alas he is no longer with us, apart from in memory, those were the days.

Regards

Mike

Hi Peterae, Ion,

Pretty interesting thread on Mandleshtam and Papaleksi.  I know this hasn't been posted on for a while, but I'd like to start it up again, since I have some bits and pieces to add in this area.
First I've attached an M&P paper that I don't think has been put here before. I especially wanted to attach this to discuss pg. 37 of this doc, where in a footnote, M&P diss another researcher named W.L Barrow.
Ion said,
"I think what we are missing here is that it takes some mechanical work to vary the inductance of an L in an LC oscillating circuit."
and M&P further this in their critique of Barrow when they say that he derives energy from switching alone, which violates conservation of energy. Barrow shunts a capacitor in and out of an oscillator circuit containing a regenerative element to cancel resistance. The circuit behaves as a parametric oscillator, with peak currents at harmonics of the shunt speed, etc. M&P attribute the gains to the tube regen circuit, but I'm not so sure.
I will send the Barrow paper in a separate mail because of file sizes.
As a result of reading this paper and some others on amplification by stochastic noise, I decided that a switched inductor circuit would be worth trying, and JLN tested it in 1997.

http://jnaudin.free.fr/html/tep62par.htm

Later I did private experiments with another guy, using an optoelectronic switch designed for high isolation of switch noise, and repeatedly got measurable cyclic mV in the tank circuit, at high harmonics of the switching frequency.

As a result of these considerations, I think the garnering of even small amounts of energy from a purely switched circuit as in the Russian invention is worth a look. I have a hunch that energy is cohered from heat when the electric circuit is switched to simulate a parametric dl/dt.

orthofield

Hi All,
Here is the paper by W.L Barrow that shows a device using only shunted capacitors to generate energy.
The pages to look at are pg. 4, which shows a tank circuit containing two capacitors, one of which is alternately connected and disconnected by a motor. More explanation on pg. 5
Barrow assumes that this is identical to rotating plates or inductors to vary the C or L, which is what M&P attack.

There is a tube regenerative circuit to provide just enough amplification to maintain the net resistance of the loop at zero.

Pg. 6 shows typical waveforms, where the square wave on top is the switch waveform, and the bottom curve is a parametric oscillation at 2F.
Most important is the graph on pg. 8 which plots the switching speed of the shunted cap to the current seen between the caps (black line), the tank circuit current (dashed line), and the plate current of the regen circuit (dotted line). At 2wo when the cap is shunted at twice the tank resonance, the capacitor current is 160 mA, while the plate current is about 18 mA.
The total energy input is the energy is needed to shunt the capacitor plus whatever is supplied to the regen circuit. It's hard to estimate, but since the motor could be replaced by a modern semiconductor switch, one can basically put the input energy from this route at zero, leaving only what is actually consumed by the regen circuit.

I'm unsure whether this is OU, but along with the other tests I mentioned, and the Russian patent, there does seem to be something there...
orthofield

Hi All,

I'm starting this parametric devices thread again. This subject deserves more attention. Here I will simply review where I think the best OU possibilities are.

First, a caveat. I haven't found any incontrovertible evidence of OU in any of many tests I've been involved in.

The closest were tests using hyperabrupt varactors that Roberto Notte and I did based on a patent from J. B. Gunn, inventor of the Gunn diode. This test had enough output that it seemed reasonable to use the output to feed the CMOS oscillator driving the circuit, but attempts to do this caused a collapse of the parametric oscillations (which are notably subject to load value). It turns out that we didn't use the patent as it was stated, so this is still an open area of research.

Also, the switched inductor tests that Jean-Louis Naudin and I did based on the Barrow paper uploaded in this thread, had a small, anomalous sine voltage. These tests were later repeated with another experimenter who doesn't wish to be public. He used opto isolated hexfets to eliminate the possibility that the voltage was coming from the switches, and once again we saw these small voltages. Later, we also saw anomalous voltages in switched capacitor circuits, at high harmonics of the switching frequency. As the Barrow paper I posted below shows, switched circuits inherently have losses, since flux or charge may be lost. That there are these small gains in a very lossy situation still intrigues me. And there are ways to eliminate these losses by simply switching the cap or inductor from one tank to another. I'm repeating myself here, but this material bears more review.

Then there are the papers of Howson and Szerlip who showed that by using switching at quadrature to the variation of parameter, that the Rowe relations no longer hold, and the gain can be infinite, and not controlled by the ratio F1/F2.  It looks like I haven't uploaded these yet, but I will if there is interest.

In addition, there are device concepts that use a 'parametric' (saturating) input, and an inductive output, or vice versa. This also seems a fertile area since input and output can be isolated from each other with resonant circuits. I attach a small idea I had a couple of days ago to give you the sense of what I mean. This is perhaps the simplest parametric OU device that could exist.

In the pic you see a toroid made of a square loop material. A drive coil periodically saturates the core at frequency F. A permanent magnet (not shown) can also be used to bias the core to move it into the nonlinear part of the square BH curve. Two independent parametric oscillators, RLC circuits tuned at 2F, are also coupled to the toroid. The inductive output at F is more or less tuned out. If the core is saturated rapidly enough, the frequency is high enough to overcome dissipation in each cycle, and the load resistances are chosen properly, both oscillators will oscillate. However, the Hopf Bifurcation shows that there are two equally likely oscillations that may develop, 180 degrees out of phase with each other. If we can make this happen in the independent oscillators, their fluxes will oppose and 'cancel' in the core, and there will be no saturation of the core by the output coils (the mode in which parametric transformers load their primaries). In addition, each of the output coils also induces on the other one, increasing the output.

I'm not necessarily proposing a build of this device-- not as easy as it looks!-- but just to show that these 'mixed' devices have some possibilities for development.

Well, this is a bit of a ramble through a lot of stuff, but it gives you the idea of what areas I think would be worth looking into:

1) hyperabrupt diodes, repeating the gunn test but applying the technology as he suggests
2) noise coherence (or 'something') resulting from switched inductors and capacitors
3) switching at quadrature to violate Manley-Rowe as in the Howson-Szerlip papers
4) mixing parametric and inductive means together

Regards,
Fred

Orthofield,

Your diagram brings to mind the harmonic problems
which had to be overcome in early tape recorder
development.  Once a magnetic bias was introduced
the harmonics were no longer produced on the
recordings.  Strangely, it was discovered that the
bias could be either steady state magnetic or at
an injection frequency much higher than the desired
audio frequencies to be recorded on tape.

Your discussions and questions are very, very thought
provoking.  Really great stuff to encourage thinking.

Hi MuDped,

Thanks, that's very encouraging, MuDped!

I might not be thinking of the right technology, but I remember that superimposing a much higher frequency on the tape is a way of continually shaking up the domains so that the material can be impressed by the harmonics. It basically unsticks the domains. It's not exactly parametric but an interesting way of altering the characteristics of a magnetic material.

Fred

Quite true.  It's not parametric but was a method of overcoming
magnetic non-linearity which distorted the audio signal.

Although there may be some similarity in the approach.

Quote from: ion on 2013.11.15, 17:34:15
...
I think what we are missing here is that it takes some mechanical work to vary the inductance of an L in an LC oscillating circuit.
...

I agree with you. This is a bias of all parametric operations: changing the parameter requires at least as much energy as the energy that will be recovered by the system.
The typical example is the capacitor. To increase its energy E=Q²/2.C, one decreases C by moving the plates apart from each other, so one exerts a force against the Coulomb force that attracts the two plates, and it is easy to calculate that this mechanical energy is exactly what one will gain in the capacitor in electrical form.
The advantage of a parametric device is only if the parameter can be varied free of charge, for example thanks to the ambient heat.

Hi F6FLT,

I certainly agree with you in the case of mechanical change in capacitance. I also agree with you that using parametric change for energy harvesting is very promising. I've often toyed with the idea of using a solar panel as a varicap to tap energy from heat changes at night.

What I find a bit difficult to understand is why nobody has done a similar power balance for any other type of parameter change? I find no examples in the literature that treat the solid-state variable capacitor situation. I've found exactly one paper that talks about variable inductors, and it's not a good paper. All others simply refer back to your example. I've looked hard.
Extremely dissimilar physical situations, for instance a hyperabrupt varactor diode, are treated as identical, and the discussion is ended.
The varactor diode we used in our tests, BB212, had a capacitance variation of 29-- that is, the C was reduced from about 550 pF to about 18 pF --with an application of 10 V reverse bias. The reverse current at full bias is 50-300 nA, depending on temperature. Taking an average value at room temp of 175 nA, the power input to change the varactor C by this huge amount is obviously 1750 nW. Since the device easily operates at 1 Mhz, we can say that the C change takes 10-6 second (actually it can be much faster) so the work that the reverse bias source did to change the C, assuming the V is applied instantaneously and held for the entire 10-6 second) is .00175 nJ. Let's say the varactor was already charged to 2 V at the start of this process, giving a beginning energy of 1/2CV^2 = 1100 pJ. Now at the end of this process, with V at approx. 58 V, the energy stored in the capacitor is 42050 pJ, with a net energy gain of 40950 pJ. Regularizing units, the energy input to change the C is 1.75 pJ. So, the energy needed to change the C is apparently not similar to the energy now stored in the varactor.
Because parametric oscillators and amplifiers typically use a C ratio of around 2.5, and the above diode is used for tuning AM radios, there is little in the literature about the behavior of these hyperabrupt diodes in a parametric oscillator. But we saw some pretty strong energy gains in a device we built. Being naive, we attempted to get a self runner before we had done some serious power balance, so the situation is still up in the air. I'll post the patent that was based on when I find it again.

Regards,
Fred

Quote from: orthofield on 2019.04.12, 13:57:03
Hi F6FLT,

I certainly agree with you in the case of mechanical change in capacitance. I also agree with you that using parametric change for energy harvesting is very promising. I've often toyed with the idea of using a solar panel as a varicap to tap energy from heat changes at night.

What I find a bit difficult to understand is why nobody has done a similar power balance for any other type of parameter change? I find no examples in the literature that treat the solid-state variable capacitor situation. I've found exactly one paper that talks about variable inductors, and it's not a good paper. All others simply refer back to your example. I've looked hard.
Extremely dissimilar physical situations, for instance a hyperabrupt varactor diode, are treated as identical, and the discussion is ended.
The varactor diode we used in our tests, BB212, had a capacitance variation of 29-- that is, the C was reduced from about 550 pF to about 18 pF --with an application of 10 V reverse bias. The reverse current at full bias is 50-300 nA, depending on temperature. Taking an average value at room temp of 175 nA, the power input to change the varactor C by this huge amount is obviously 1750 nW. Since the device easily operates at 1 Mhz, we can say that the C change takes 10-6 second (actually it can be much faster) so the work that the reverse bias source did to change the C, assuming the V is applied instantaneously and held for the entire 10-6 second) is .00175 nJ. Let's say the varactor was already charged to 2 V at the start of this process, giving a beginning energy of 1/2CV^2 = 1100 pJ. Now at the end of this process, with V at approx. 58 V, the energy stored in the capacitor is 42050 pJ, with a net energy gain of 40950 pJ. Regularizing units, the energy input to change the C is 1.75 pJ. So, the energy needed to change the C is apparently not similar to the energy now stored in the varactor.
Because parametric oscillators and amplifiers typically use a C ratio of around 2.5, and the above diode is used for tuning AM radios, there is little in the literature about the behavior of these hyperabrupt diodes in a parametric oscillator. But we saw some pretty strong energy gains in a device we built. Being naive, we attempted to get a self runner before we had done some serious power balance, so the situation is still up in the air. I'll post the patent that was based on when I find it again.

Regards,
Fred

Hi Fred,

Some here are perhaps not aware of the rather large positive parametric capacitance change in solar cells so here is an sim example for a Solar Africa SA-25M panel.  Data was taken from the panel for light intensities up to 1 Sun and the resulting plot was used to generate the polynomial equation for Q.

The sim uses a switched constant current source of 100ma with the resulting voltage change seen in the pink trace which then is used to calculate the capacitance change over 100us as seen in the red trace.  The two cursor samples show 49.6nF and 365.4nF respectively.

This large value and change should be able to be tapped for improved PV performance as we had discussed years ago because normally most PV applications are used in DC modes AFAIK.

Regards,
Pm

Hi Partzman,

Yes, this still seems like a really good area for experiments! Yes, PV is all DC, except for an outlier patent that uses the negative resistance above MPPT to superimpose AC on the cell output.

That patent from Dahlberg I posted in the thermoelectric threads shows arrangements where a solar panel could be switched or dioded to be part of a resonant circuit. With a fixed inductor, the natural frequency will vary with C changes (leading to some tricky switching!). Additional voltage can be put across the panel when the C starts dropping, and extracted just as the C starts to rise. The solar panel DC output is added to the wave, of course. At first glance, the loss reduction from reduction in I that Dahlberg talks about would also still exist. (He shows that the output of his panel using his technique is approximately equal to Voc * Iss-- that is, well above the MPPT output).

I think, given the previous discussions, that we would use added voltage to get the parametric gain, rather than trying to use the solar output itself. I note that modern panels, like the ones from Sunpower, have a much higher baseline C than the older cells, so a lot more energy could be stored in the panel at peak C.

There are a lot of patents and concepts floating around for energy harvesters using parametric changes. But most use relatively exotic materials like ferroelectrics.  But here we already have a vast network of potential parametric amplifiers, already installed!

Regards,
Fred

Also check out Vasik's entry here:

https://www.overunityresearch.com/index.php?topic=3688.msg70605#msg70605

about the work of Hans Weber and the follow on posts in that thread.

Hi Fred,

Applying Dalhberg's technique to the SA-25M would result in an output gain of ~ 133%!  This needs to be looked into considering the installed PV base worldwide!

Regards,
Pm

Hi Partzman,

Yes, the Dahlberg patent would revolutionize the energy situation if it were adopted. It's common sense that once the pv cells are part of an oscillating circuit, their voltages and currents can be controlled for minimum thermal losses. It's not parametric per se, but to my mind another example of making the energy flow slow, relative to the time constant of the system, as in adiabatic charging of a capacitor. As I think you know, I always thought that ALL the energy in the solar cell could be transferred through a CLC resonant transfer circuit without any thermal losses at all! 

I also have a couple other solar cell ideas bubbling around.  Maybe our beloved moderator can start a Light to Electricity forum, parallel to the Heat to Electricity one? Thanks!

Fred

Hi folks,

Here is the patent I was trying to find that Roberto Notte and I checked out. On overunity.com he shows a photo of his circuit and says:

"I did in the past experimentation on parametric amplification following the most significative available patents. All started with a successful replication of the basic JLN implementation as per:  http://jnaudin.free.fr/html/paramp31.htm

I've to say that circuits built do work as described by patents (pat 3,125,725 Frequency converter -Chang, pat US20080185916 F Corum Power multiplication, Parametric conversion with varactors -Chan et all, etc). Mainly I used parallel of 4 varactors (Sanyo SVC389) in order to change periodically their capacitance via an external oscillator hence pumping main tank resonation to 2x or 4x.

Most interesting has been my version of E.B. Gunn push-pull circuit that delivered something very near to a self runner.
True self-runner anyway has been proved impossible at least with my resources. "

The interesting thing about our replication of the Gunn patent is that we didn't follow it completely, and still got some decent results.

Gunn intends for two closely associated tank circuits to be tuned to, for instance,  5 and 8 Mhz. The lower tank has varactors in it. After some oscillations have started in this tank, a step voltage that takes several cycles biases the varactor, and the C drops. The oscillation increases in both power and frequency, and is now detuned from the lower tank and tuned to the higher one, so that all energy transfers there.
Gunn speaks of 'surges'. Gunn says because the dissipation in the system is low, that, as in quantum mechanics, the increasing frequency represents an increase in energy. But he also reports an increase in magnitude too-- all from a Dc bias of a couple of volts. So I thought it was worth checking out.

But we only made the first stage of the device without the second set of coils where the energy is transferred to. We saw it as a clever push pull design, but not the key part. We also didn't apply the energy over several cycles, as the patent specifies. And finally, we used a hyperabrupt diode (the SVC389, rather than the BB212 I mentioned earlier) rather than his old school diode, which probably had a C ratio of .5-1.5.

I suspect we got as good as we did, simply because of the extreme amplification in the diode, but not sure.. still it was not really the invention that Gunn laid out...

Regards,
Fred

Quote from: ion on 2013.11.15, 17:34:15


I think what we are missing here is that it takes some mechanical work to vary the inductance of an L in an LC oscillating circuit.

Good day All:

I haven't posted anything here on OUR forum in a few years, figured it was time for some input. :D

A few years ago, I was thinking about the options available to switch either the *L* or the *C* or possibly both in a parametric circuit.
After reading through about all the available literature (Google) at the time, I came across the idea of **Phase** switching using a micro-controller to facilitate the switching of the *C* reactance of the parametric circuit in order to increase/decrease *C* reactance as if mimicking the physical movement of capacitor plates.
I designed and built a singled-ended >> isolated complimentary driver the used the AVAGO ACPL-K33T opto-driver (500ns max switching freq) and the UCC3715 complimentary switch FET driver (forward converter && synchronous rectification apps) along with on board isolated power supplies that float a neg. voltage @ gate/drain for fast switch discharge/turn off.  Basically the pcb will input a single-ended signal and output an isolated complimentary drive signal w/ programmable DT.
Attached some photos of my pcb design and the populated pcb.  I actually designed the pcb for a 3.5Kw synchronous linear ramp buck converter, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wro3TAjViDc , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1SrA6sz7Kk) but the application of the parametric phase switching of *C* or *L* reactance is essentially the same as synchronous rectification. 
I never had time to code the u_controller or build the actual Parametric circuit that I had envisioned, but I do have the pcbs made that could be used for part of this project.

take care, peace
lost_bro

EDIT: spelling error

Hi Orthofield,

I'm just making a general answer on the subject of parametric systems (I don't have much time this week).
I think it's a right track. If overunity there may be somewhere, parametric systems are certainly to be tried. Why? Because energy can be transferred from one system to another in a subtle and often non-linear way, and the nature of the source energy can be very different from that of the destination. This could make it possible to tap into hidden sources, or known ones but difficult to access such as nuclear reactions.
I am not so optimistic when C or L are the parameters, because it can easily be shown that the energy required to change these parameters is exactly the one you gain electrically in the system. It's to be known nevertheless it's not a dead end, you can imagine, for example, LENRs or Maxwell's demons in these kinds of experiments, especially if there is a big power. I'm going to follow with interest what you're doing.

Hi F6FLT,

Yes, I agree that there is some possibility of a Maxwell's demon type of effect, especially in experiments with switched inductors and capacitors that have consistently shown small voltages at harmonic frequencies, even with isolated switches. The paper by Barrow that I uploaded a while back is a very interesting experiment done in the 30s at MIT where the investigators naively assumed that switching a capacitor in and out of a tank would be the same as rotating a plate capacitor (in the later case of course output = input). Nonetheless they showed parametric oscillations at the appropriate harmonics, when the system was made lossless by using a regenerative circuit. There should have been nothing to amplify under the experimental conditions given. I found the paper because it was mentioned in a footnote in one of the Mandleshtam and Papaleksi papers, where they criticized it for violating C of E. It does seem to do so.

F.

hi lost_bro,

Very interesting! I'd read the first paper by Horst before but not the second, more important one.

I have a lot of comments, to keep them short I will bullet point them:

1) The circuits which switch static caps or inductors in and out of the circuit are similar to the one Barrow tested in the 30s, and the one that JLN and I tested in the 90s. Barrow is uploaded earlier in this thread. Switching artifacts are important to avoid of course. The JLN tests were crude relay tests, but later I repeated the tests with another experimenter using opto-isolated hexfets and also saw voltage spikes in the switched cap circuit. They were nothing like a parametric oscillation, but isolated voltage spikes, in the mV range, that were on the parametric resonance frequencies-- like they were trying to be oscillations. Although these were small in amplitude, they should not have been there at all under the test conditions, and I can only think that noise voltages present in the wire of the circuit were being amplified by the switching of the caps.

2) Barrow talks at length about antiresonance in his circuit, when the capacitors are switched so that their internal voltage is opposed to that of the circuit. Of course if an L or C is switched in and out of a circuit, charge or flux will be lost-- however it would be possible to switch the components into another tank when taken out of the first one, and this appears to be the only way that these types of circuits could conceivably get any serious output. As in the Barrow circuit, the total R of the circuit would need to be extremely low to allow parametric oscillations to happen at all under these conditions where zero voltage switching is used. Overall, I think these switched circuits are of scientific interest but not likely to get a powerful device.

3) More immediately useful is the case of varactor diodes. As Horst notes, the real issue that enforces reciprocality in these circuits is that the rising voltage of the parametric oscillations also changes the C of the varactors. Horst does use the hyperabrupt diodes which I consider the best candidate, because of their extreme nonlinearity. After much looking, I did find a class of parametric amplifiers/oscillators where output V was somewhat isolated from the varactors. I consider the best of these the circuit by Gunn, uploaded earlier in this thread. In this circuit, two high Q tuned circuits at different frequencies are used. An oscillation is started in the first circuit, which contains a varactor or several, which are biased by a step or ramp voltage over several cycles of the oscillation. At the end of this period, the frequency and amplitude of the oscillation are increased, and the energy is now tuned to the second tank circuit, and essential jumps over to that circuit, where it can be used. Gunn speaks of 'surges' of energy. As you can see, the output voltage swings several times from highest to lowest during one cycle of varactor bias. Maybe this isolates the varactor to some extent, since the varactor supply will see equal amounts of voltage increase and reduction? His varactors were of the old school type, with (typically) a C ratio of less than 3. I consider this circuit to be a good point for further experimentation, since Roberto Notte and I almost got self running even with the output oscillations fully interacting with the varactors.

4) Switching can also be very relevant to standard parametric oscillators where the parameter change is done at quadrature. The paper from Howson and Szerlip, attached, shows that if the parameter changing element is switched into the circuit only at quadrature (more or less) then the power gain of such amplifiers can be made infinite (contrary to the Manley-Rowe relation where the gain is limited to F2/F1).  Pages 6 and on show the experimental work. This also may be a way of disconnecting the varactor (or other element) from the parametric output.

5) In inductive circuits, the parametric oscillation flux is such to create a loss in the drive power supply by raising the inductance when power supply current is at peak. Although the use of 'nullifying' output coils has been justifiable scotched as an OU mechanism in the case of inductive circuits, I still wonder about circuits where the output is created through parametric changes, and induction is cancelled by filtering. This is why I proposed an inductive circuit that uses two parametric oscillators in the output, whose fluxes are closely coupled and opposite. I can also vaguely see some ways that a varactor coupled with an inductor, as a unit, could be isolated in these ways...

6) I've collected a lot of parametric circuits, so I'm going to go back and really zero in on this issue of output voltage affecting the varactors, to see if somebody else has solved this problem. The word 'nonreciprocal' is often used with these devices, but I believe this refers to interaction between input and output signals, rather than the varactor itself. I still live in hope :-)

Fred

This may be interesting in the context: https://phys.org/news/2019-04-newly-static-negative-capacitor.html

I downloaded the article from Nature but I haven't understood much yet.

Regarding the Gunn patent, I actually had an LtSpice IV sim that did show a gain after the up conversion to the higher frequency tank circuit but unfortunately, this was lost in a past computer crash.  I have not taken the time to replicate this due to lack of patience but it did appear that there is something to Gunn's claims.

Pm

HI F6FLT,

Not immediately useful (lack of ferroelectric nanoparticles in the immediate environment :-) though still interesting...

There are a lot of esoteric capacitors out there that might be used in a parametric OU device, in particular ones using a tube filled with ionizable gas, inserted between capacitor plates. I've seen several versions of this. There seems to be some indication that the energy needed to ionize the gas can be lower than the amplification caused by the C. There's a patent (forgot the inventor's name at the moment) that uses a sandwich of many tubes and many capacitor layers. The inventor claims antigravity effects along with radical changes in C.
I don't usually bring this up, because it does require some gas/plasma experience, but it just occurred to me that something like this could be done with small commercial neon indicator lamps, sandwiched between foil sheets.

F. 

Hi Partzman,

Very interesting that your sim showed gainful behavior. Did your sim use one of the (hyperabrupt diodes? Did the sim show the transfer of energy to the higher frequency tank as Gunn describes?

I found his reference to 'energy of frequency' to be very interesting, because he is treating the oscillation as if it were a giant photon, where E = Hv would generally apply. I'm not aware of any other case where frequency mulltiplication, etc. is treated as an energy gain. In fact, in parametric terms, typically not much of the energy will go to the new frequency, since a lot is left at other sidebands. My guess is Gunn saw energy gain in his circuit, and wanted to preserve a scientific rationale that made sense to him.

In reviewing the work I did with Roberto on this the last few days, I was embarrassed (again) by my lack of electronics knowledge. I consistently misinterpreted some simple statements he made, and I completely missed, or forgot, the key aspect of the patent which might have made it overunity. I must have driven him crazy :-)

F.

Quote from: orthofield on 2019.04.21, 16:22:02
Hi Partzman,

Very interesting that your sim showed gainful behavior. Did your sim use one of the (hyperabrupt diodes?

I don't recall but I'm sure I would have used a model that was available at the time in LtSpice.

Quote
Did the sim show the transfer of energy to the higher frequency tank as Gunn describes?

Yes, and this is where the gain manifested itself.  It took a great deal of circuit adjustment and tuning to achieve any gain however.

Quote
I found his reference to 'energy of frequency' to be very interesting, because he is treating the oscillation as if it were a giant photon, where E = Hv would generally apply. I'm not aware of any other case where frequency mulltiplication, etc. is treated as an energy gain. In fact, in parametric terms, typically not much of the energy will go to the new frequency, since a lot is left at other sidebands. My guess is Gunn saw energy gain in his circuit, and wanted to preserve a scientific rationale that made sense to him.

In reviewing the work I did with Roberto on this the last few days, I was embarrassed (again) by my lack of electronics knowledge. I consistently misinterpreted some simple statements he made, and I completely missed, or forgot, the key aspect of the patent which might have made it overunity. I must have driven him crazy :-)

F.

You probably don't remember but I showed the sim results to both you and Roberto at that time.  IIRC, I didn't "see" the gain in Roberto's bench circuit as he saw it.

Regards,
Pm

Hi Partzman,

I found some mails from you about that simulation and I'm reading it now. Unfortunately, so far I haven't found the sims themselves, labelled "Gunn2" I believe.

This would be a very finicky circuit indeed, both sim and reality. The tuning and other issues would get even worse with the hyperabrupt diodes!
I see a spice model from 2015 that has varactors with a C ratio of about 15, so maybe you used something like that.

I wonder if there is some way to get rid of the two tanks? I've thought of a couple things, then knocked them down again.  It seems to be difficult to avoid them!

Quartz oscillators can be tuned by an associated capacitor, and they are also extremely stable, so there might be some way to build up oscillations in one of them, then transfer through a nonlinear reactance to another higher frequency qtz oscillator?? There is a New Age myth via Edgar Cayce and the like, that they can be a source of power :-)

F.

Quote from: orthofield on 2019.04.12, 13:57:03
...
The varactor diode we used in our tests, BB212, had a capacitance variation of 29-- that is, the C was reduced from about 550 pF to about 18 pF --with an application of 10 V reverse bias. The reverse current at full bias is 50-300 nA, depending on temperature. Taking an average value at room temp of 175 nA, the power input to change the varactor C by this huge amount is obviously 1750 nW
...

Hi Fred,

The reverse static current is not relevant, it is only a leakage current that does not participate in the parameter change.
The important current to know is the one drawn during the dynamic variation of the capacity. This corresponds to the work done to "move the capacitor plates away from each other", because even if we are dealing with a semiconductor, it is the equivalent of this operation that is performed.
The product of this current by the voltage, integrated on the changeover time of C, corresponds to the work that opposes that of the Coulomb force between plates F=q.E, it cannot be lower. So unless you have an idea to get this current from something other than the varicap control signal, there will be no gain.

Quote from: orthofield on 2019.04.21, 16:09:16
...
Not immediately useful (lack of ferroelectric nanoparticles in the immediate environment :-) though still interesting...

There are a lot of esoteric capacitors out there that might be used in a parametric OU device

In this type of paper, the manufacturing recipe counts much less than the underlying principle. Even if we do not have ferroelectric nanoparticles, we may be able to get around the problem and apply it differently, for instance with electrets.
Certainly there are many ways to make a parametric change of a capacitor, but how to do it without it costing us more than we're going to earn, that's the one and only question.

Diodes like 1N4007 and zener diodes can be used as varactors, they have quite big range

For example in this video test setup presented, capacitance change from 24pf to 2000pf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTKShnW4w-8 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTKShnW4w-8)

Regards,
Vasik

Hi F6LT,

The reverse static current is not relevant, it is only a leakage current that does not participate in the parameter change.

Agreed. In fact it occurs to me that the varactors could be driven by a supply that has a much higher output impedance. It's the voltage that seems the bigger issue for me, since when the para oscillations start, the bias signal will be drowned out by the larger voltage. But if the supply puts out say 20 nA current at 50 V (like some version of a HV supply I've seen used for electrostatic precipitators) then the para oscillations can go much higher.

The important current to know is the one drawn during the dynamic variation of the capacity. This corresponds to the work done to "move the capacitor plates away from each other", because even if we are dealing with a semiconductor, it is the equivalent of this operation that is performed.

I admit that the situation I described is an artificial one (and not even accurate, as I look back on it). We saw current spikes into the varactor bias in dynamic operation. However, even with that we got self running for a short period of time, and the reason the device stopped had more to do with matching impedances than with a lack of energy to drive it. I think the static or quasi-static case is important, because if one can show realistically that a varactor charged with 2 V can be quasi-statically biased, say over 5 seconds, with a net energy gain, then there is some validity to my argument. I'll write this up, correcting my previous mistakes, when I get back from work today.

The product of this current by the voltage, integrated on the changeover time of C, corresponds to the work that opposes that of the Coulomb force between plates F=q.E, it cannot be lower. So unless you have an idea to get this current from something other than the varicap control signal, there will be no gain.

A priori, this appears to be true. But the same argument can be made against any and all purported overunity devices, unless they describe a new source of energy-- in which case the a priori argument is that no such source of energy has been described in the literature! So, such reasoning, although necessary to eliminate seriously bad ideas, may lead to 'false negatives' in practice. We are justifiably wary of false positives, but false negatives are also deleterious.

In this type of paper, the manufacturing recipe counts much less than the underlying principle. Even if we do not have ferroelectric nanoparticles, we may be able to get around the problem and apply it differently, for instance with electrets.

I agree that there are a lot of ways to go, since we are dealing with a process (parametric amplification) that is not tied to any particular materials. However, the material the authors describe is quite exotic, and I've never seen reference to anything like it before-- which is why it got written up in a journal.
There are some circuits (star/delta) composed of standard R, L, C components that will show a negative resistance, inductance, or capacitance across one leg of the circuit. Substituting one of the components with a variable version of the component could lead to a variable negative capacitance that is easily controllable.

Certainly there are many ways to make a parametric change of a capacitor, but how to do it without it costing us more than we're going to earn, that's the one and only question.

Yes. In all but a few very obscure cases, magnetic components are lossy as they reach saturation, and so I discard them (except for the obscure cases, to be discussed later). The hyperabrupt diodes are my best candidate, and so far there is some indication they may work for this. Early days, though..

F.

I guess I haven't figured out the 'quote' feature, so the response above is a bit garbled. At least F6LT will know what he wrote :-)

F.

Fred,
If you precede a sentence with the word "quote" in square brackets and follow it with /quote in square brackets it will appear as a quote on the forum.  Hypertext uses square brackets as markers and the data inside the brackets tells it how to display.  Thus the word "bold" inside square brackets means that following text will display as bold and /bold inside the brackets turns off the bold instruction.
Smudge

Thanks, Smudge, I realized that, after I sent it, of course..

Quote from: orthofield on 2019.04.22, 14:31:45
...
A priori, this appears to be true. But the same argument can be made against any and all purported overunity devices, unless they describe a new source of energy-- in which case the a priori argument is that no such source of energy has been described in the literature!
...

I agree with that. Therefore, the idea of a parametric device must include the reason why its behaviour would not conform to the "literature" or could not to be conform.
Otherwise we can try anything, it might take a while :-).

Quote
"However, even with that we got self running for a short period of time, and the reason the device stopped had more to do with matching impedances than with a lack of energy to drive it."

If you have a good lead, go ahead!  O0

Quote from: Vasik041 on 2019.04.22, 09:07:41
Diodes like 1N4007 and zener diodes can be used as varactors, they have quite big range

For example in this video test setup presented, capacitance change from 24pf to 2000pf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTKShnW4w-8 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTKShnW4w-8)

Regards,
Vasik

Thanks for the information, Vasik.
Impressive variation that I didn't expect!

Quote from: F6FLT on 2019.04.22, 15:33:14
Thanks for the information, Vasik.
Impressive variation that I didn't expect!

Neither did I, as this exceeds most experimenter available diodes that are only around 20pF. But then it is curious that the upper limit is close to the value of the DC blocking cap, so I have to wonder if he is actually measuring the 2200 pF DC blocking cap as the impedance at the anode of the diode goes to a low value with the forward bias. If he changes the DC blocking cap to 4700pF what will be the new upper limit? Will it still be around 2000pF?

I will repeat this test as is, and with a small change to the test setup as time permits. Of course different cap meters can give variable results, so all is good.

Regards

Here is a sim test of the capacitance change for an On Semi 1N4007 model with a reverse current of 1ma.

As is seen, at ~10ns the capacitance is 16.04pfd and at 450ns the capacitance is 599ffd.

This technique will not work for measuring the forward capacitance of this same diode due to forward conduction.

Regards,
Pm 

This is a sim of the forward capacitance of the same 1N4007 diode at .1v, .2v, .3v, and .4v step levels.  The test is a simple series resonance of the diode's capacitance with the 200uH L2 inductor. 

The first resonance at .1v is initiated by the closure of S1 for 200ns and the following step changes produce the resulting resonance voltages.

As can be seen, the capacitance values are considerably less than the video tests indicate for this diode.

Regards,
Pm

Edit: Replaced sim to show the method used to calculate the capacitance of each step.

And yet another forward conduction test method sim that takes advantage of LtSpice to set certain initial conditions to nodes.  In this case, we set an initial voltage level across D1 prior to the start of the simulation and then we immediately discharge any energy in D1 through L1 and measure the peak current in L1 when the voltage across D1 is zero.  We can then calculate the apparent capacitance of the diode under any initial forward voltage bias.

The results here are more accurate and differ from the resonance tests because their voltage variations change the capacitance as can be seen in the non-linearity of the waveforms.

IMO, any attempt to utilize this apparent forward capacitance for OU will be in vain due to the amount of energy required to forward bias the diode as compared to the energy available from the capacitance.

Regards,
Pm

Hi All,

Still poking around on varactors. Since the C change is completely due to V, no bias current is really necessary-- it's an artifact--so I was looking for some sort of pure voltage source that could drive varactors. F6FLT mentioned electrets and that got me thinking. Generally these are charged to too high a V, but it seems like a weak electret could be switched into a set of varactors to drive parameter change.

I also looked at electret microphones which also have the high output impedance. Since sound is always present in the environment, it should be possible to make a 'sonic energy harvester' using electret mike + varactors. As in other capacitive energy harvesters, a battery could charge the varactors in portions of the cycle where C is dropping, then discharge the higher voltage into a load while C is rising. The battery could be kept charged, and excess energy used to power a load. This would be cheap to build and test.

This circuit for a small FM transmitter uses an electret to drive dual varactors:

http://electronics-diy.com/electronic_schematic.php?id=1066

I'm not sure if the HF dynamic behavior of the varactor would be relevant in this case, so it seems possible that the output power could be higher than the acoustic input power.

F.

A current is needed in any case where C or U change: i = d(C.U)/dt = C.dU/dt + U.dC/dt (https://www.mathworks.com/help/physmod/sps/ref/variablecapacitor.html;jsessionid=35d49f130b364cb848b31750369c)

No gain. The extra energy we expect comes from the increase in U following the decrease in C. But since we supply U to decrease C, we directly supply the "extra" energy!
With an electret, perhaps...

Hi F6LT,

You're right, certainly current must flow, as the V increases in the bias. Electrons have to get to the bias juncture. But the question is, how low does the initial static current need to be? I see no indication at all that current is required to maintain a static C in the varactor. Current exists in the static case because the varactor is not a perfect diode.
Say the bias is 2 V and 1 pA, from some electrostatic V source. The bias is raised to 10 V and 5 pA (assuming a linear relation between the two).  In this case, as far as I can see, the C change will happen in the same way as if the bias began at 2 V and 1 nA, etc. Sure, a current flows, but the power consumed is not the same. That's why I latched onto the electret idea.
I got out my old book "Varactor Applications" and there is not one word about energy supplied by the pump, except to say that all the energy is supplied by the pump! No discussion of conversion efficiency at all. In these old para. amplifiers, used mostly for radio astronomy and the like, they were concerned about noise, not power, so a lot of this information is not too useful when it comes to power balance. Like I said, aside from your two formulae, there is no discussion in the literature of what actually happens in terms of power. I still consider it an open question.

Perhaps Partzman can simulate a very low current reverse bias, maybe using an FET, to see if I am right or wrong about using such a source to alter the C?

F.

Quote from: orthofield on 2019.04.25, 15:36:11

Perhaps Partzman can simulate a very low current reverse bias, maybe using an FET, to see if I am right or wrong about using such a source to alter the C?

F.

Fred,

I have done many simulations with various non-linear caps including mosfets and as F6FLT stated, the energy required to charge a given device is always more than can be recovered.  At this point, I have found no exceptions but this is not to say it is impossible.

For example, there may be a possibility this can be done with BiCmos devices as described by Tsividis but the source and drain must be separate from the substrate and a connection to the substrate must be available.

His configuration allows a parametric amplifier to be built with such devices which would be equivalent to moving plates of a physical capacitor apart.  The question would be if his boost voltage would require more energy than would be available from the increase voltage at the gate.  I have not found a model to try in LtSpice nor have I tried any bench tests so I have no idea whether this is possible or not.  I can say that standard depletion type mosfets do not work!

I included one of his papers below.

Regards,
Pm

Hi Partzman,

Yes, we've certainly discussed this before. But you may have possibly misunderstood what I was asking, because of my use of the term 'FET'. I'm thinking of a hypothetical source that limits bias current to a varactor to less than the datasheet's leakage current. For instance, say the varactor bias has a leakage current of 20 nA. This hypothetical gadget would supply way less than this current, say 20 pA in the 1-10 V range. The question then becomes, does this very low current still allow the varactor C to be changed, as bias V is raised?

F.

Quote from: orthofield on 2019.04.25, 16:36:19
Hi Partzman,

Yes, we've certainly discussed this before. But you may have possibly misunderstood what I was asking, because of my use of the term 'FET'. I'm thinking of a hypothetical source that limits bias current to a varactor to less than the datasheet's leakage current. For instance, say the varactor bias has a leakage current of 20 nA. This hypothetical gadget would supply way less than this current, say 20 pA in the 1-10 V range. The question then becomes, does this very low current still allow the varactor C to be changed, as bias V is raised?

F.

Ah yes, I misunderstood.  I wonder if you charge at a current below the leakage current if you would have any charging of the device but maybe I'm still missing something.  I have tried adiabatic charging of non-linear caps and at best it results in a COP ~1.

Regards,
Pm

Quote from: orthofield on 2019.04.25, 16:36:19
Hi Partzman,

Yes, we've certainly discussed this before. But you may have possibly misunderstood what I was asking, because of my use of the term 'FET'. I'm thinking of a hypothetical source that limits bias current to a varactor to less than the datasheet's leakage current. For instance, say the varactor bias has a leakage current of 20 nA. This hypothetical gadget would supply way less than this current, say 20 pA in the 1-10 V range. The question then becomes, does this very low current still allow the varactor C to be changed, as bias V is raised?

F.

The polarization current is a question of a not perfect varactor, not a question of operating principle, it is a pure and simple loss of energy, in addition to that at the origin of the change of C and which will be due to the current already mentioned i(t) = dQ/dt = d(C(t).U(t))/dt. Indeed, the electrical charge being conserved, if the one retained in a capacitor changes, it is because it is input or output from the capacitor, so it is a current.
There is no dynamic current if and only if C and U are covariant in the opposite direction. This is the case when the plates of a capacitor are moved away from each other: U increases proportionally as C decreases. The energy is proportional to U² so it increases. In this case, it is the mechanical energy of separating the plates that is transformed into electrical energy, and the charge is conserved.
In the case where the variation of C is obtained by modifying U, we always have this work of separating the charges of the 2 plates, this follows from the Coulomb law. Here this work is obtained from U, we will consume a power U(t).i(t) = U(t) . d(C(t).U(t))/dt.

For this reason, even if the static bias current were zero, or limited, we would still have COP <= 1.
The trick of a parametric system is to tap a free energy to change the parameter (heat, ZPE, nuclear, electronic spin...). If we use the same energy as the one we want to produce, in this case electrical energy, and on the same port as where we want to recover it (a capacitor electrode), we go round in circles.

Hi Partzman, F6LT,

On reading both your replies, I suddenly got it. To admit my ignorance is hard, but it's the right way. I assumed that the back bias didn't charge the varactor. I forgot about the polarization or displacement current. Simple and obvious but somehow I missed it, through all the years of working on this stuff.

I've realized that my own overunity ideas are not particularly good, and taking people's time. On reviewing where I can do some good, it returns to simply notifying when I've found an interesting patent or paper, so I'm going to stick to that, and stop pitching my ideas.

I also want to broadcast the Dahlberg and some thermoelectric patents to other forums devoted to these subjects, since they deserve wider awareness. I need to write up some articles on them that will get wide distribution. So those are the two areas I will continue to move forward.

Fred