This thread is about measuring the input and output of the Bedini SSG circuit under a series of controlled tests.
Hi Fausto,
This is a great idea for a thread. I would be happy to offer some suggestions.
MileHigh
I would offer that a more general thread be started entitled: A Guide To Input / Output Power Measurements, of which the SSG could be a sub-category with variations on the theme specific to the SSG.
I would hate to see all MileHigh's good information get buried in the SSG thread and be unread once the SSG is exposed for what it is.
Fausto:
Let's start with measuring the power consumption of the motor.
If you use a digital multimeter on current measurement, and put it between the source battery and the Bedini motor, it should be quite accurate with one important limitation. The limitation is that the pulse frequency of the motor must be above about 20 Hz. The digital multimeter is very good at making an average current consumption measurement, as long as the pulsing current waveform is above about 20 Hz. If the frequency of the pulsing falls below about 20 Hz, then you can expect that the display will become unstable.
So you can verify this by simply looking at the digital display. If the digital display is stable and not jumping all over the place then you can be quite confident that the average current consumption is accurate. If the display is not stable then you have to ignore the reading from the digital multimeter.
We all know that analog meters do a pretty good job of measuring the current consumption also, because they simply average the current because the analog needle movement itself acts as a low-pass smoothing filter. However, analog meters themselves have their limitations. If the current waveform has very sharp transients in it, I would be suspicious of the reading of the analog meter. If you see the needle moving up and down, then it would be similar to the case of the digital multimeter and you must be careful. The smart thing to do would be to act conservatively and ignore the readout because the needle is not stable.
In both cases you are really more interested in the power consumption of the motor. If the battery has voltage fluctuations because of the pulsing load of the Bedini motor then you must put a very large capacitor in parallel with your source battery to smooth out the voltage fluctuations. You have to verify this with your scope. That way, when you measure the average current consumption of the motor, and you know that the battery voltage has been stabilized with a big capacitor, then and only then can you get an accurate power consumption calculation.
All of the above is standard practice, with the caveat that you must have stable displays on either type of meter. It is a huge mistake to ignore this and just pick one of the changing numbers on your digital display or to mentally average a fluctuating needle display in your head. In addition, for very irregular waveforms I think that an analog meter can give an inaccurate display, even if it is stable.
How do we overcome these limitations? My suggestion is to uses simple techniques that make use of standard components which I will discuss in the next posting.
MileHigh
So let's discuss a very simple technique to get a very accurate power consumption measurement for your Bedini motor. There are many ways of doing this but let's start with one simple example.
Here is what you need:
1) A large electrolytic capacitor. Perhaps something like 30,000 uF at 25 volts. That might be the size of a 300 ml Coke can or larger.
2) A 1% precision resistor, let's say 100 ohms @ 1/2 watt. Alternatively you can take a regular 100 ohm resistor and measure the resistance of it with your multimeter.
3) A bench power supply that has a variable output voltage from 0 to 25 volts.
With these components you are going to simulate a 12-volt power supply with the large capacitor.
The circuit is very simple: You connect the output of the power supply to the 100-ohm resistor, and that is connected to the positive of your big capacitor. The positive of the big capacitor is also connected to the power input of the Bedini motor.
You set your power supply to 12.6 volts and you charge up the big capacitor to 12.6 volts. Then you connect your Bedini motor and get it running.
When you do this you are monitoring the voltage across the big capacitor. You notice the voltage across the capacitor starts to drop. So you compensate by increasing the voltage from your variable power supply.
Let's assume that after a few minutes, the Bedini motor is running normally at it's stabilized speed. You have also stabilized the voltage in the big capacitor back up to 12.6 volts to simulate a normal battery. To do this let's assume that the voltage from the power supply has to be set to 13.84 volts.
You have to check the voltage across the capacitor with your oscilloscope to see if it is relatively stable. If the ripple voltage is less than +/- 0.1 volts, then let's say that the voltage is stable enough. If there is too much voltage ripple, then simply add a second big capacitor in parallel to the first capacitor.
So how do you calculate the power consumption of the motor? It is very easy, you know the voltage supplied to the motor, it is 12.6 volts. And you know that the average current that you are feeding into the capacitor from the power supply is identical to the average pulsing current that is going into the Bedini motor. The current in must be equal to the current out if the capacitor voltage is stable.
So the current is (13.84 - 12.6)/100 = 12.4 milliamperes.
Therefore the power consumption of the Bedini motor is (0.0124 x 12.6) = 0.156 watts.
Note that you don't actually measure 13.84 volts and 12.6 volts and do the subtraction. You simply put your multimeter across the 100-ohm resistor and measure 1.24 volts. You are taking advantage of the fact that the multimeter is more accurate when measuring lower voltages.
Let's check the power dissipation in the resistor = (0.0124 x 0.0124 x 100 ) = 0.015 watts. So you are fine using a 1/2 watt resistor in this example and you are sure that it will not burn up.
Here is the big advantage with this setup: It will be able to measure the power consumption of a Bedini motor or any other device no matter how crazy the current waveform is. As long as your big capacitor is big enough to smooth out the voltage then it will work. It will allow you to make very accurate power consumption measurements without worrying about the limitations of digital and analog meters.
The disadvantage is that you have to work with a variable voltage power supply and you have to wait a few minutes to let everything stabilize before you make your final measurements. If you are doing research this should not be a problem.
MileHigh
Ion:
Thanks for your suggestion but I prefer to leave the thread title as is. It is better 'marketing' to have the measurements closely connected to Bedini motors. It will draw more attention that way.
MileHigh
Fausto:
Now I will discuss a method for measuring the power output to the charging battery for a Bedini motor.
The way a Bedini motor charges the charging battery is via a discharging inductor. This is discussed in detail in the Bedini 10-coil Alternative Discussion thread on this forum so I will only mention the summary points here. Anyone that is truly interested in understanding how their Bedini motor works should read that thread and try to understand all of the concepts discussed there.
A discharging inductor outputs a fixed amount of energy for each current pulse. If the battery is sulfated and has a very high input impedance then the discharging inductor will output a sequence of short current pulses at high voltage for a low average current. If the battery is new then the discharging inductor will output a sequence of longer current pulses at a lower voltage for a high average current.
Therefore, depending on the condition and resting voltage of the charging battery, the average current output by the drive coil of the Bedini motor can be high or low. Therefore it does not make sense to measure the average current output into the charging battery.
I know that this statement will not seem to make sense to almost all of the Bedini experimenters, but it is a fact. The sequence of discharge pulses of the drive coil of the Bedini motor will output a fixed amount of average power, but the average current in the current pulses can be variable, and the associated voltage spikes due to the current pulses can be variable.
Another fact in the above statement that may be surprising to new readers of this thread is that the discharging drive coil in a Bedini motor outputs pulses of current, and not pulses of voltage. For more information please read the Bedini 10-coil Alternative Discussion thread on this forum.
If you have been working with your Bedini motor and have always thought that the drive coil outputs voltage spikes after the transistor switches off, it's time to take a fresh look at this issue. The drive coil actually outputs current spikes, and you see voltage spikes on your scope as a result of that.
So we know that whether the charging battery is old and sulfated and has a high input impedance, or if it is new and has a low input impedance, the discharging drive coil of the Bedini motor will output a fixed amount of power into either type of charging battery. Therefore the logical thing to measure is the average power output by the drive coil.
When the drive coil discharges, the current flows through the diode and then into the charging battery. Therefore some of the output power is also dissipated in the diode as heat power. When we make our measurement of the average output power of the Bedini motor's drive coil, we need to account for the average power dissipated in the diode also. To do this measurement we are going to swap out the charging battery with a large capacitor in parallel with a resistor. If we keep the voltage on the large capacitor approximately the same as the charging battery voltage, then the power dissipated in the diode will be approximately the same for the case when the charging battery is in the circuit.
So to measure the power output from the Bedini motor you do the following: Swap out the charging battery for a large capacitor in parallel with a variable resistor. Run the Bedini motor and watch the voltage across the large capacitor start to increase and then stabilize at a certain voltage. Then adjust the variable resistor so that the capacitor voltage stabilizes at the normal voltage of the charging battery. Measure the voltage across the large capacitor with your multimeter and make a note of it. Then shut down the Beini motor and disconnect the variable resistor making sure that you do not change the setting. Take your multimeter and measure the resistance of the variable resistor. The average output power of the Bedini motor is then the capacitor voltage squared divided by the measured value of the resistance. This measurement will be quite accurate and does not include the power that is dissipated in the diode.
It may seem strange to remove the charging battery from the Bedini motor to make a measurement of how much average power is going into the charging battery but it is valid. The reason it is valid is because you know that a discharging inductor will discharge all of its energy independent of the load. So the load can be a charging battery or a capacitor in parallel with a resistor, it does not matter.
So far in this thread you have been given some techniques to make precise measurements of the average power consumption of a Bedini motor and the average power output into the charging battery. If you play with your base resistor and let the motor RPMs stabilize, for each setting of the base resistor you will get different readings for the average power consumption of the Bedini motor and the average power output into the charging battery. In reality, you can make this measurement quite simple. All that you have to do to get the maximum power output to the charging battery is play with the base resistor and look at the resulting voltage across the capacitor in parallel with the resistor that is in place of the charging battery. When you find the base resistance setting that gives you the highest voltage across the capacitor, that is the base resistor setting that gives you the maximum average charging power. More sophisticated experimenters would want to watch both the motor's average power consumption and the average charging power to find a "sweet spot" that factors in both of these variables.
MileHigh
Yesterday I purchased more items to build a new 4 coil Bedini motor for this thread and today I purchased on EBay 2 large 15000uf 100v caps to do the filtering the MileHigh proposed for the measurements.
The coils have been ordered straight from Bedini's site so that I have the correct coil with 8 windings for 8 transistor per coil. So this is not a regular SSG but not a 10 "coiler" either. It will be middle ground.
I am still wondering about the load test if we should use 2 or groups of 3 or 4 batteries on front-end and back-end so rotation becomes possible, but we can leave that for after i have the machine build and the first proposed measurements done.
This is much fun and thank you MileHigh for your input and desire to teach.
Fausto.
Hi Fausto,
That sounds great and I wish you good luck with your experiments.
A few comments about big capacitors used in the charging battery position. Even though the spikes can be high enough in voltage to fire a neon when there is no load, some experimenters might feel the need to get capacitors that can sustain a very high voltage. This is not truly necessary because when you put a fully discharged capacitor in place of a charging battery, the spikes from the coil start off at zero volts and start charging the capacitor from zero volts. In other words the "voltage spikes" completely disappear. I assume that some experimenters may not be aware of this. The reason for this of course is that they are not voltage spikes, they are current spikes.
So a 25-volt or 35-volt electrolytic capacitor is perfectly good for running these types of experiments also. The advantage is that you can get a larger capacitance in the same sized capacitor can if the voltage rating is lower.
Whatever type of capacitor you use, there is a real danger for overcharging them to too high a voltage when they are charged by the coil's inductive current spikes. You really have to be careful and watch the voltage. Even if you have a resistor in parallel with the big capacitor, until you are familiar with your setup, you really should check the capacitor voltage frequently and ensure that you don't damage the capacitors. I assume that if you over-voltage a big electrolytic can capacitor and it blows, it is very nasty and could be dangerous.
Finally, I sent you some emails about your circuit on OU for you to contemplate.
MileHigh
QuoteI assume that if you over-voltage a big electrolytic can capacitor and it blows, it is very nasty and could be dangerous.
That is true if a low source impedance and high currents are available for the cap such as line operation off a bridge rectifier. The SSG is a rather high source impedance device, as such the big electrolytics will get very leaky and only charge up to and maybe a little beyond their rated voltage.
You can check this out by simulating the SSG with a resistor characteristic of the SSG DCR, and hook it to the power supply and cap. Start running the voltage up and at some point close to the voltage rating of the cap you should start to see the current increase. Don't stay there too long...not good for the cap but will give you a good idea how bad these caps are slightly above rated voltage.,
The area above the normal rating is the surge rating, typically 110% of DC rating, a very leaky area that will cause heating effects and danger of blowing if sustained.
The SSG is a very poor motor / generator as such it's coupling from the primary battery through rotation and a very leaky magnetic structure should pose no problems for the cap with a suitable load resistor.
Hi Ion:
I am not quite sure what you mean by simulating the SSG's DC resistance and stuff like that.
Permit me to be more clear with the dangerous scenario that I was implying:
You have a 20,000 uF 35-volt electrolytic cap, and you put it in the charging battery position and there is no bleeder resistor across the capacitor, and the initial capacitor voltage is zero volts.
You then start the SSG and the drive coil starts pulsing current into the big cap. So the voltage starts to climb on the cap in steps, and the higher the voltage gets on the cap, the smaller the voltage steps get.
You know the reverse breakdown voltage on the diode is going to be high, let's say 100 volts. So if you leave the Bedini motor running like this unattended, then the cap will keep on charging and the voltage in theory can get as high as the diode breakdown voltage.
I am assuming that the 35-volt electrolytic cap will start to croak in the 40-ish volt range. I just don't know how they will fail, it is something that I have never looked into. All that I know is that they are a potential powder-keg, with lots of electrical energy stored up in them.
Plengo is getting 15,000 uF caps rated for 100 volts. Let's check the energy at 110 volts, = 1/2 * 0.015 * 100 * 100 = 90.75 Joules. It's not a huge amount of energy but it is easily enough to make a 1-watt low-valued resistor explode if it was placed across the terminals. Just an ordinary piece of wire would probably explode if it was placed across the terminals. So I am just wondering what would happen if the capacitor is sitting there charged to 109.8 volts, and then one more inductive spike from the coil comes along through the diode and puts the capacitor over the threshold.
So we are talking about some sort of self-explosion here, where the electrolytic dielectric fails and it has an internal short or something? I don't know because I have never been there. I can even imagine the cap spraying hot oil everywhere and going boom! I just don't know.
MileHigh
Yes, MH, I haven't been exactly clear. Lets say the capacitor in question has a soft knee above it's rated voltage where it actually starts to dissipate energy due to the increase in leakage current. In some ways the electrolytic capacitor can be thus compared to an MOV (metal oxide varistor) as you exceed it's rated voltage.
As long as the power input to the capacitor is below that which causes the temperature rating to be in the safe area (80 C or 105 C), the clamping action of the leakage current will probably safely dissipate the heating, and the voltage will not continue to rise.
My statement is based on operation with a SSG of normal build where there is just not that much current available to cause a rapid overheating and explosion.
My statement does not hold if you have a lot of current available to rapidly charge the capacitor past it's rated voltage.
Most of the video's on youtube that show the fireworks are seriously pumped with lots of current, such as this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCPXckfT-6g&feature=player_embedded
Yes there is considerable energy stored in a large electrolytic, but usually when they short within a circuit that has limited applied current, they generally do not explode.
Ion:
Awesome stuff thank you. I was punch-drunk stooopid and I totally forgot about YouTooobe.
Here are two more clips for fun and fear:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WheLp0RdLQ&feature=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WheLp0RdLQ&feature=related)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-W1LVnFrDZQ&feature=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-W1LVnFrDZQ&feature=related)
Fausto and anyone else, especially beginners:
When you connect a capacitor where the charging battery normally goes, it's almost like a slow version of when the neon lights up. In theory any Bedini motor output can charge any capacitor to several hundred volts. This means that if you leave the Bedini motor unattended connected to a capacitor, there is a risk of the capacitor exploding from over-voltage.
If you look at the video clips you will see small electrolytic capacitors explode violently.
This means that a coke-can sized electrolytic capacitor could cause a very dangerous explosion if you leave it connected to the Bedini motor unattended. Watch the capacitor voltage with your multimeter and do not exceed the voltage rating!!!
Play safe!
MileHigh
Perhaps the test I ran this morning will shed a little light on electrolytic capacitors and how they work.
The object of the test was a 4700uF 16 Volt Nippon capacitor rated 85 C
I hooked it up to my HP6181C current source which has three settings of 2.5 mA, 25 mA and 250 mA with a vernier for each range and has up to 115 volts source capability in the max setting. I monitored current through the cap, voltage across it with various Fluke meters and case temp with a Fluke 52
I stepped through various current settings and recorded current, voltage across the cap and case temperature.
Note that voltage setting was maxed at 115 volts.
As you can see from the data, the internal leakage rises dramatically with overvoltage and attempts to self limit when fed from a current source. The overvoltage creates temperature rise which contributes to but is not the only source of increased leakage current. All these factors are interrelated.
When fed from a current source you would expect the capacitor to continually rise to the source voltage (115 volts in this case) and explode. At the current settings shown, this is not the case because of the increase in leakage current.
Notice from the data the capacitor in some ways acts like a zener diode neatly limiting it's voltage to 25 V despite large current change.
When this capacitor did let go (on the last test), it was not an explosion and fire, but a snap like a cap gun. They are designed to fail safely in their normal failure modes. Tops of smaller caps have triangular weak spots designed to release pressure safely. Larger caps have vents or seals that let go.
What you see in the videos on youtube with fire, smoke and explosion are gross overloads of the capacitors.
Still best to play it safe and monitor capacitor voltage, try not to exceed their ratings.
Now can anyone tell me how many Joules per pulse a typical Bedini puts out and what is the typical pulse repetition rate?
Ion:
Thanks for your explanations and your test data. It's very much appreciated.
It's also VERY cool to see that you did a test using a current source type of power supply for your testing. The concept of a "current source" with an infinite output impedance is a difficult one for beginners to grasp. It's much easier for people to understand what a voltage source power supply is with a zero output impedance. I have been hammering away on this concept in the 10-coiler thread because it is central to how a Bedini motor works. So it is really great that you showed that you can use one on your test bench, i.e.; they really exist in real life.
QuoteNow can anyone tell me how many Joules per pulse a typical Bedini puts out and what is the typical pulse repetition rate?
What a GREAT question!!! Any keeners out there with their Bedini rigs that can answer that one? It's time to move beyond measuring your RPMs!
MileHigh
Hi every1,
First off thanks for the invite MileHigh, nice forum ;)
About the input power consumption, i have a power supply 0 to 30vdc.
I have a bunch of 25.000uf 15vdc caps and a few 1Farad 20vdc audio power caps aswell.
Been using for power input measurements 2 25.000uf caps in parallel with the power supply and a analog amp meter, make that 2 amp meter.
Only thing i dont have is the 1% precision resistor 100 ohms @ 1/2 watt.
Will get one and put it in place.
At this moment my power input connection are like this... :P
Power supply is at 22 volts going to the 2 25.000uf caps in parallel than through a Voltage Regulator 18V and than through a Daftman Hall/Mosfet and than through 2 amp meters and last to my run coils. The caps are rated 15vdc but can and have handle countless times volts around 30vdc without any damage. i`ll be carefull ;)
I have 2 amp meters(1 3amp & 1 100Ma) becuase when i start up my device it draws more so i switch to the 3 amp meter and afther a few minutes or so when it stabilize i switch to the 100Ma meter to see more accurate the amp draw.
The Daftman circuit has been modify, no neon bulp. It dont collect B-emf or use the B-emf.
The B-emf if any goes to a small cap and than back to the run coils so i hope... ;D
One question about that resistor, so it goes on the positive wire coming from my power supply and going to the positive on the cap. Is this right ???
In other words, can i like connect it directly on the positive of the cap and the ohter side of the resistor goes to the positive wire?? Or do i need to like cut the positive wire in 2 pieces and sandwich that resistor in between??
Oke, so when i`m done with this just meassure the voltage across the resistor and i`ll have the input Milliamps ??
I will be comparing the voltage reading from across that resistor and the Milliamp on my analog meter to see if they are kinda the same.
At this moment even if i let my device running for a long time the 100Ma meter still moves back and forth a little bit...not really stabilizing ???
A question about measuring a Gen coil or more Gen coils in series, do i need a large cap and a 1% 0.5watt resistor??
And how do i connect that resistor??series, parallel adn where... ???
Oke, thanks in advance for the help on this and sorry for all noobie questions.
Peace!
VZ2DAY
Quote from: MileHigh on 2010.09.12, 17:31:24
So let's discuss a very simple technique to get a very accurate power consumption measurement for your Bedini motor. There are many ways of doing this but let's start with one simple example.
Here is what you need:
1) A large electrolytic capacitor. Perhaps something like 30,000 uF at 25 volts. That might be the size of a 300 ml Coke can or larger.
2) A 1% precision resistor, let's say 100 ohms @ 1/2 watt. Alternatively you can take a regular 100 ohm resistor and measure the resistance of it with your multimeter.
3) A bench power supply that has a variable output voltage from 0 to 25 volts.
With these components you are going to simulate a 12-volt power supply with the large capacitor.
The circuit is very simple: You connect the output of the power supply to the 100-ohm resistor, and that is connected to the positive of your big capacitor. The positive of the big capacitor is also connected to the power input of the Bedini motor.
You set your power supply to 12.6 volts and you charge up the big capacitor to 12.6 volts. Then you connect your Bedini motor and get it running.
When you do this you are monitoring the voltage across the big capacitor. You notice the voltage across the capacitor starts to drop. So you compensate by increasing the voltage from your variable power supply.
Let's assume that after a few minutes, the Bedini motor is running normally at it's stabilized speed. You have also stabilized the voltage in the big capacitor back up to 12.6 volts to simulate a normal battery. To do this let's assume that the voltage from the power supply has to be set to 13.84 volts.
You have to check the voltage across the capacitor with your oscilloscope to see if it is relatively stable. If the ripple voltage is less than +/- 0.1 volts, then let's say that the voltage is stable enough. If there is too much voltage ripple, then simply add a second big capacitor in parallel to the first capacitor.
So how do you calculate the power consumption of the motor? It is very easy, you know the voltage supplied to the motor, it is 12.6 volts. And you know that the average current that you are feeding into the capacitor from the power supply is identical to the average pulsing current that is going into the Bedini motor. The current in must be equal to the current out if the capacitor voltage is stable.
So the current is (13.84 - 12.6)/100 = 12.4 milliamperes.
Therefore the power consumption of the Bedini motor is (0.0124 x 12.6) = 0.156 watts.
Note that you don't actually measure 13.84 volts and 12.6 volts and do the subtraction. You simply put your multimeter across the 100-ohm resistor and measure 1.24 volts. You are taking advantage of the fact that the multimeter is more accurate when measuring lower voltages.
Let's check the power dissipation in the resistor = (0.0124 x 0.0124 x 100 ) = 0.015 watts. So you are fine using a 1/2 watt resistor in this example and you are sure that it will not burn up.
Here is the big advantage with this setup: It will be able to measure the power consumption of a Bedini motor or any other device no matter how crazy the current waveform is. As long as your big capacitor is big enough to smooth out the voltage then it will work. It will allow you to make very accurate power consumption measurements without worrying about the limitations of digital and analog meters.
The disadvantage is that you have to work with a variable voltage power supply and you have to wait a few minutes to let everything stabilize before you make your final measurements. If you are doing research this should not be a problem.
MileHigh
Hi BiDaDiKuNuKu,
Welcome to the forum and you are very welcome!
QuotePower supply is at 22 volts going to the 2 25.000uf caps in parallel than through a Voltage Regulator 18V and than through a Daftman Hall/Mosfet and than through 2 amp meters and last to my run coils. The caps are rated 15vdc but can and have handle countless times volts around 30vdc without any damage. i`ll be carefull Wink
I have 2 amp meters(1 3amp & 1 100Ma) becuase when i start up my device it draws more so i switch to the 3 amp meter and afther a few minutes or so when it stabilize i switch to the 100Ma meter to see more accurate the amp draw.
Can you link to one of your clips that shows this? Or perhaps you have a link to a picture that shows this setup on your web site or even draw a schematic of your power measurement circuit? I am not sure what the "Daftman Hall/Mosfet" circuit is also, do you have a link for that or perhaps there is one on the TEEP forum? Using two amp meters also sounds strange to me. So I can't comment on that setup right now.
If your 15,000 uF caps are electrolytic caps please read the last few postings by Ion. He is stating that when you over-voltage electrolytic caps then they can self-discharge. If you charge one up to 30 volts and leave it alone for one hour and then measure the voltage, is it still 30 volts?
QuoteThe Daftman circuit has been modify, no neon bulp. It dont collect B-emf or use the B-emf.
The B-emf if any goes to a small cap and than back to the run coils so i hope...
I saw one of your clips where you collect B-emf into a capacitor and if I recall correctly you measure about 30 volts. I am not sure what size capacitor you are using to collect the B-emf. Then you demonstrate putting what looks like a 3-volt white LED across the capacitor. That would indicate that by adding the LED you reduce the capacitor voltage to 3 volts, and all of the B-emf power then is used to light the LED. Again, it's hard to comment on exactly what you are doing.
If you are not collecting the B-emf and you have no capacitor then in theory the B-emf energy is being dissipated in your main drive transistor(s) and that is something that you don't want to do.
QuoteOne question about that resistor, so it goes on the positive wire coming from my power supply and going to the positive on the cap. Is this right?
In other words, can i like connect it directly on the positive of the cap and the ohter side of the resistor goes to the positive wire?? Or do i need to like cut the positive wire in 2 pieces and sandwich that resistor in between??
Yes the resistor goes between the positive output terminal of your power supply and the positive terminal of your capacitor. Certainly you can add a wire to make the physical connection.
Perhaps something like this: <power supply positive terminal> <wire> <resistor> <capacitor positive terminal> <wire> <motor positive input terminal>
Note that your motor (the one in your clips) is quite big and may consume a lot of power. In your case it may be necessary to use a resistance of higher wattage. For example you could put two 1-watt 200-ohm resistors in parallel to make a 100-ohm 2-watt resistor. They don't have to be 1% precision resistors, all that you have to do is measure the resistance with your best multimeter and write it down.
QuoteOke, so when i`m done with this just meassure the voltage across the resistor and i`ll have the input Milliamps ??
Yes, as long as you make sure everything is stable like it is explained in the procedure. Good luck!
MileHigh
Now to discuss measuring the power output from your generator coils:
QuoteA question about measuring a Gen coil or more Gen coils in series, do i need a large cap and a 1% 0.5watt resistor??
And how do i connect that resistor??series, parallel adn where...
For the generator coils, you don't need to use a cap at all, you just need a load resistor. It's a bit complicated because the amount of power you measure from the generator coils depends on the RPMs of the motor and the value of your load resistor.
Here is a suggestion for a simple test to start learning about the process: Get two 100-ohm 1-watt (or 1/2 watt) resistors. They don't necessarily have to be 1% resistors. In all cases you can always measure the resistances of the resistors with your best multimeter and write that information down.
You will need a "True RMS" multimeter. You may already have one right now.
The resistor goes across the two terminals of your generator coil setup.
You will run three tests with three different load resistor configurations:
1. With the two resistors in series for a load resistance of 200 ohms.
2. With one resistor only for a load resistance of 100 ohms.
3. With the two resistors in parallel for a load resistance of 50 ohms.
For each test you put the load resistance across the two output terminals of your generator coil setup. Then you run the motor and with your True RMS multimeter you measure the voltage across the load resistance. The True RMS multimeter must be set on AC voltage measurement. We are going to hope and pray that the motor will be running fast enough to give you a stable voltage readout on your multimeter.
For each test the power output from your generator coils is = (voltage-squared)/(load resistance).
You should get different power measurements for the three different load resistor configurations. If it all works out that would be a good start!
MileHigh
A handy way to measure input power. A diagram might be helpful. I drew this up for gotoluc.
.99
Hi Poynt,
Can you describe how to use that circuit? It's not too clear to me, I don't see and input, not even sure what you mean by "input power."
Thanks,
MileHigh
Thanks for the input "MileHigh and poynt99"...
@ poynt99...a diagram was just what i needed all though i dont really understand it yet... ???
@ MileHigh...TheDaftman circuit can be found on the teep forum.
I`ve modify it by removing the neon and resistor, in place of the resistor theres an 1k pot now. All though i dont really use that pot...but its there just in case.
I get some B-emf from my run coils and that is beying directed to the cap in the system.
Its a cap with some diodes so the mosfet doesnt get any B-emf and the energy in the cap is being use when the run coil is activated.
It does work, the cap does collect some energy and feed it back to the coil...:)
About my Big setup using alot of energy, not really.
@ first it ran with a 12vdc motor...12vdc @ around 3 amps...36 watts.
Second time it ran on standard bedini, bedini darlington pair, half bipolar and full bipolar (see the to vids of the FLYMAG device of mine)
It ran at 30vdc max @ around 0.23amps...about 6 to 7 watts.
But now i`ve rebuild the whole setup "man that was some work" still aint done yet...anyway
Its running now with that modify circuit with alot of good upgrades...
So 18vdc @ 0.06 to 0.200 depending on what ratio i use and how fast i wanted to go.
But i am aiming to have it running below 100 milliamps...
So lowest energy use is 18vdc @ 60milliamps...1.08 watts...:)
Highest is 18vdc @ 0.2...3.6 watts...:)
About the 2 amp meters, thats prettey simple i jsut have them both in parallel along the same wire but both have a on/off switch so i can switch from 1 to the opther depending on the amp draw... ;D
Big setups doesnt necesery means big amp draw...i`ve seen some tiny bedini`s using like 2 or 3 amp 2 12vdc.
Aint no way one gonna get even close to get that from the output...;-)
Anyway...hope i make some sence here above...
Btw, i will be making a vid on alll this above when i am done with my upgraded FLYMAG setup...:)
And now that i know how to meassure the output(not really, i`ll have to read it a few times for it to sink in) hopefully i can meassure that aswell with the input.
My page is : http://www.youtube.com/user/BiDaDiKuNuKu
Peace!
VZ2DAY
Hi BiDaDiKuNuKu ,
Ok I looked at the Daftman circuit layout and I am pretty sure that I understand. You say that you are feeding the energy in the cap back to the run coil. I remember seeing that in your clip. There is no rush but perhaps one day you can add that to the standard Daftman circuit layout drawing and take a picture and upload it here or put it on your web site.
I understand that pictures are really helpful, even for my simple power measurement circuit for measuring the power consumption for the Bedini motor. Just for completeness, I will say that the ground for the large capacitor is connected to the power supply ground, and that is also the source battery ground relative to the Bedini circuit.
Quote@ first it ran with a 12vdc motor...12vdc @ around 3 amps...36 watts.
Second time it ran on standard bedini, bedini darlington pair, half bipolar and full bipolar (see the to vids of the FLYMAG device of mine)
It ran at 30vdc max @ around 0.23amps...about 6 to 7 watts.
Yes, for the 12 vdc motor @ 36 watts, that's a lot of power. It would be best to measure the power consumption for the standard Bedini configuration and other lower power configurations. With 6 or 7 watts of average power consumption, you should be fine with a 1/2 watt 100-ohm resistor. If the 100-ohm resistor burns up you can try a higher power resistor or try a 50-ohm resistor. The actual value of the resistor is not critical, I just picked 100 ohms as a typical value.
QuoteAbout the 2 amp meters, thats prettey simple i jsut have them both in parallel along the same wire but both have a on/off switch so i can switch from 1 to the opther depending on the amp draw..
I get it now!
QuoteBig setups doesnt necesery means big amp draw...i`ve seen some tiny bedini`s using like 2 or 3 amp 2 12vdc.
Aint no way one gonna get even close to get that from the output...;-)
Anyway...hope i make some sence here above...
You are making sense for sure. Just to elaborate, we can never forget that a Bedini motor is a pulse circuit, and consumes current in irregular pulses. Therefore what we are trying to do is measure the equivalent average DC current consumption. Then we can calculate the power consumption.
QuoteBtw, i will be making a vid on alll this above when i am done with my upgraded FLYMAG setup...Smiley
And now that i know how to meassure the output(not really, i`ll have to read it a few times for it to sink in) hopefully i can meassure that aswell with the input.
Looking forward to seeing your video.
A few more comments about measuring the output from your generator coils. Most experimenters want to connect a full-wave bridge rectifier (FWBR) to the generator coil output and then add a capacitor the the output of the FWBR and then measure the rectified DC output voltage and also put a load resistor on the DC output and measure like that. It sounds sensible to most people to do it that way. In fact, doing this FWBR + capacitor setup unnecessarily complicates things and actually makes it more difficult to measure the power output. I will not discuss all of the technical details to explain why.
In my posting I said just add a load resistance to your generator coil output and measure the voltage with a "True RMS" multimeter. We can call this the "bare bones" approach. This approach is simpler and should give better results. It is more like what we see in the real world. For example, if you are making toast with a toaster, it's the identical setup. A toaster is simply a device that connects AC mains voltage to a load resistor. No capacitors, no FWBRs, no-nothing, just a bare-bones heating element connected to the AC mains power. "Keep it Simple" is a good way to go here.
MileHigh
Quote from: MileHigh on 2010.09.19, 14:25:15
Hi Poynt,
Can you describe how to use that circuit? It's not too clear to me, I don't see and input, not even sure what you mean by "input power."
Thanks,
MileHigh
MH & Hi BiDaDiKuNuKu,
It's the same circuit I recommended the RA group use for measuring the power supplied by the battery. I have made this circuit as well for my tests, you may remember. It's quite simple, and
V1 is your source battery or power supply:
1) Pi = Vi x Ii
2) measure "Vbat" on the diagram. This is
Vi3) measure with a digital voltage meter the DC voltage across the current sense resistor R3.
4)
Ii (input current) is VR3/10 (or 1 Ohm if you choose a lower value resistor)
5) Pi(average) = Vi x Ii
Now you can calculate the average DC power being supplied by the source.
.99
Thanks Poynt,
Yes it is essentially the same thing that I described in my posting. You may note the "in your own fishbowl" phenomenon at play here. If I may suggest, it would be great if you could annotate your diagram, it would be a great help.
Your description makes sense, but my mind was still dealing with multiple names for the same variables and even V1 and Vi make things confusing because those are not the same voltages. Also your diagram has "1.5" under "V1" making it look like a standard 1.5-volt battery, when in fact that's where you connect the variable power supply.
Nonetheless, your circuit is essentially the same thing as I outline in my posting. Relative to your diagram I do not use C1 in the setup that I describe, I just have the variable power supply output. I am also suggesting that C2 be a much larger capacitor, like 15,000 uF or greater, considering that the Bedini motor may suck quite a bit of current when the transistor switches on.
Thanks again!
MileHigh
@ MileHigh...
About a pic, will make one when i fixied my camera. The bat holder broke of... >:(
Or better yet, i`ll take a drawing of the hall/mosfet from the Daftman and use photoshop to modify it... ;)
I havent done it with a standard bedini, what i was doing with the bedini was simply removing the noen and ad a HV cap to collect the B-emf.
With that i lid up a Led...
btw, whats a true RMS multimeter... ??? got a few multi meters here but if they are true RMS
About that gen coils meassurements, i`ll just hook up a resistor and meassure it/them... ;)
About the pulsed devices and their amp draw in pulses, that means that a device is pulsing (example 0.5amp) for the period of time u adjust it by...interesteing ;D
So like to really meassure it properly, one should take in account the times pulsed for each revolution and also the time of each pulse duration.
And also the lenght of the cirkel being made by the magnetes that pulses the unit.
Example, if u got like 3 magnetes to pulse on a cirkel of 5cm diameter (5x3.14=15.7 cm) and the 3 magnetes are like (example 1/5 of that toatal(15.7cm)..
Does this means that u only pulsed for 1/5 of each revolution... so if 1 revolution is 100 % so 1/5 is like 20% pulsed...
How can one convert that 20% amp draw into the "genuine" amp draw.
in other words, if we balanced out these numbers for input and output we just might crack the BIG OU thingy...LOL... :P
Now this is really getting beyound my understanding...will get it though ;D
I see u like the "KISS" approche..."keep it simple stupid"...haha...i do to ;D
Hi BiDaDiKuNuKu,
A "True RMS" multimeter is a slightly more expensive multimeter that can measure the RMS voltage of an arbitrary voltage waveform. In other words the AC waveform does not have to be a sine wave. That's in contrast with an ordinary multimeter that can only measure the RMS voltage of a perfect sine wave, like from your AC mains power.
The voltage output waveform from your generator coil setup will not be a perfect sine wave. Therefore to measure your power output you need a multimeter with true RMS capabilities. "RMS" meas "root mean square," it factors in the fact that higher voltages deliver proportionally much more power to the load than lower voltages.
QuoteSo like to really meassure it properly, one should take in account the times pulsed for each revolution and also the time of each pulse duration.
Yes, and even the pulse itself itself has an irregular waveform. Therefore the waveform for the current consumption from a Bedini motor is highly unusual, pulses mixed with zero consumption, and the pulses themselves are irregular. It's sometimes simply impossible for a multimeter to convert this into an equivalent average DC current consumption. Therefore you use "tricks" with a large capacitor and a shunt resistor to overcome this problem.
QuoteExample, if u got like 3 magnetes to pulse on a cirkel of 5cm diameter (5x3.14=15.7 cm) and the 3 magnetes are like (example 1/5 of that toatal(15.7cm)..
Does this means that u only pulsed for 1/5 of each revolution... so if 1 revolution is 100 % so 1/5 is like 20% pulsed...
That's correct but you are oversimplifying how much time the pulses are on, you cannot make a correspondence with the physical size of the magnet. You can look at this on a scope to have a better idea. All that you have to do is put a 1-ohm shunt resistor in series with your power supply positive and then you will be able to see the current pulses by looking at the waveform across the shunt resistor.
QuoteHow can one convert that 20% amp draw into the "genuine" amp draw.
The "genuine" amp draw is the real-time amp draw. It is not convenient to work with this data. Therefore with the capacitor/resistor setup we have discussed you can say that the genuine amp draw is
equivalent to a certain average DC amp draw. This is a perfectly valid thing to do. Once we have the equivalent average DC amp draw, and we already know the voltage, then we can calculate the average power consumption of the motor.
The whole idea is that it is not convenient to work with the "real" pulsing data, it's too complicated. We have to work with the averaged data, otherwise we would go nuts.
MileHigh
@ MileHigh...
Thanks for the input, much appriciated... ;D
May u all have a great week & be safe...
Peace!
Some more issues related to Bedini motor measurement techniques.
Getting to Know Your Drive Coil
Certainly you want to take your multimeter and measure the resistance of your drive coil. Assuming that your source battery is 12.6 volts, then you can determine the approximate amount of current that your drive coil can draw from the source battery after the voltage has been applied long enough to fully energize the inductance of the coil. I am saying that the current is "approximate" because it is in fact a little bit less than this because when the transistor is ON, it's not a perfect switch. For most transistors, you might see a 0.2 volt drop across the transistor when it is on.
So with your approximate drive coil current you can look up the spec sheet for the transistor you are using and see what base current is required to fully turn the transistor 100% ON. This is reference information for doing a test on the drive coil and also for when you want to get to know your pick-up coil.
I am assuming that a typical drive coil is between 8 and 20 ohms. We want to look at the current flowing through the drive coil and in most cases we would use a 1-ohm current sensing resistor in series with the drive coil to do this. That's a little bit too close for comfort to 8 ohms, therefore I would recommend that you take two 1-ohm resistors and put them in parallel to make a 0.5-ohm current sensing resistor. That should be a low enough resistance to not affect the operation of the drive coil too much.
The next thing to do is do a reality check test. Remove the charging battery from the Bedini motor and leave the reverse-biased diode in place connected across the two terminals of the drive coil. That diode will protect the transistor and protect you from getting a high-voltage shock. Connect the 0.5-ohm current sensing resistor between the source battery positive terminal and the coil. Disconnect the pick-up coil connection from the transistor base. You are now going to switch the transistor ON and OFF just by using the 12.6 volts from the source battery. Therefore you need to calculate the correct base resistance to give you the proper base current that will switch the transistor on completely when the resistance is connected to 12.6 volts.
So now you are ready to do the reality check test. Switch on the transistor completely by connecting the base resistor to the positive terminal of the source battery. With your multimeter check the voltage at the collector of the transistor. It should be about 0.2 volts above ground. This would be telling you that the transistor is 100% ON, which is what you want. If it is higher than that then don't be surprised if your transistor starts to heat up fairly quickly. This would be indicating that the transistor is not 100% ON and is instead operating in partial conduction mode. You need to fix this problem by lowering the base resistance to increase the base current.
Since you know the voltage of the source battery, the voltage drop across the transistor when it is 100% ON, the resistance of the coil and the resistance of the current sensing resistor, you can easily calculate the current through the coil. Then put your multimeter across the current sensing resistor and measure the voltage. Calculate the current from the voltage measurement and see if it is about the same as what you calculated the current should be. If everything checks out, you are good to go!
Now you can put your Bedini motor back together but leave the current sensing resistor in place. Run the Bedini motor and look at the current through the drive coil by monitoring the voltage across the current sensing resistor. Try playing with your base resistor, see what happens as the motor gets up to full speed, etc, etc.
When your motor is running at its normal speed, you will be able to see the coil energize and then discharge it's stored energy into the charging battery. All of that information is in the current waveform of the drive coil.
You will notice that the famous "voltage spike" is not too glamorous looking when you look at the current waveform. You will simply see the current drop to zero when the transistor switches off. Again, it is not a "voltage spike" coming out of the drive coil, it is a "current spike" and it is worthwhile looking at it.
If you replace the charging battery with different resistances, you will see the L/R time-constant change as you change resistances. The higher the resistance the shorter the L/R time-constant. This is a rough analogy to an old sulfated charging battery. The lower the resistance the longer the L/R time constant. This is a rough analogy to a fresh battery. The longer the time-constant the higher the average current going through the diode into the resistance. Again, this illustrates that the average output current from the discharging drive coil is VARIABLE and dependent on the input impedance of the charging battery.
The most important thing you are looking for is to check how much current is flowing through the drive coil before the transistor switches off. The current is at a maximum just before the transistor switches off. The closer this is to the maximum current that can flow through the coil as per your calculations and measurements above, the less efficient your Bedini motor will be for converting source battery power into charging battery power. This is because of the law of diminishing returns with respect to the drive coil: The closer you are to saturating the drive coil to its maximum current level, the more energy you are loosing in the drive coil due to resistive losses. Also, the rate of increase in current spike energy decreases the closer you get to saturating the coil.
Finally, now that you know what your transistor collector voltage is supposed to be when the transistor is 100% ON, you can also monitor the transistor collector voltage with your scope while the motor is running. Looking at this voltage will tell you how well a job your pick-up coil setup is doing at switching the transistor 100% ON or 100% OFF. That is your goal for the pick-up coil circuit, to operate the transistor as a switching device only, and to avoid putting the transistor into partial conduction mode as much as possible.
MileHigh
Status update:
Today I got my 4 bedini coils. Transistors are on the way. Rig to hold the whole setup done.
Fausto.
Fausto:
It looks great! It looks like you are building a "four-cylinder" engine there. I am sure that you are having fun!
MileHigh
Status update:
Today I got the 50 transistor MJL21194. Now I have almost everything to build. I will manufacture the board myself and mount the coils very soon.
And yes, it is fun. Almost like a 4 cylinder engine.
Fausto.
Getting to Know Your Pick-Up Coil
The pick-up coil is what is used for timing the firing of the transistor. It does this by putting current through the base of the transistor. There is a trimpot or a fixed resistance to limit the current going into the base input of the transistor and also adjust the timing of the switching of the transistor.
We can think of a few design goals for the pick-up coil and transistor setup:
We want it to turn the transistor ON and OFF as quickly as possible so that the transistor only works in switching mode.
We want it to use the least amount of energy as possible in order to keep any Lenz' Law drag on the rotor to a minimum.
We want to have flexible timing so that we can tune our Bedini motor.
There are a lot of trade-offs that can come into play here. For example, if you make your pick-up coil a lot of turns, then you can get higher voltages out of it. That coupled with a higher base resistance will give you faster OFF-ON and ON-OFF switching times. The trade-off is that you burn more energy in the pick-up coil circuit and therefore cause more Lenz' Law drag on the rotor.
My advice would be that once you get your motor running, spend a day or two experimenting with different pick-up coil and base resistance combinations. This has to be done with an oscilloscope, and what you want to look at is the transistor collector voltage. As mentioned in a previous posting, looking at the collector voltage tells you how well your transistor is switching.
One of the limitations associated with a standard pick-up coil configuration is that you are pretty much limited to switching on the transistor at top-dead-center (TDC). If you really had a choice, it would be nice if you could delay the start of the pulse to sometime past TDC, because at TDC you are not getting any torque out of the repulsion between the magnet on the rotor and the electromagnet of the drive coil.
Personally, I am not a fan of doing a full bifilar winding of the entire coil so that you end up with two identical coils, and you use one for the drive coil and the other for the pick-up coil. I think that it would be worth it to experiment with a smaller pick-up coil made with fewer turns of wire that is close to the rotor. I believe that this type of configuration would give you better overall performance and control over the timing circuit for your Bedini motor. A small pick-up coil will most likely work much better than a full-sized pick-up coil.
If you want to experiment with different pick-up coil configurations, you must understand how the pick-up coil interacts with the changing flux with respect to time due to the passing rotor magnets. The smaller and simpler the pick-up coil, the faster the rise and fall times will be in the voltage waveform generated by the coil. This can be advantageous because it facilitates faster switching of the transistor.
Another interesting idea would be to use a two-stage transistor amplifier setup to power the drive coil. The pick-up coil output would connect to the base resistance of the first transistor. This base resistance could be very high and therefore it would not really load the drive coil at all. The first transistor output would provide the appropriate base current to the second transistor, which is the transistor that energizes the drive coil. That extra signal amplification would facilitate very fast transistor switching, which is what you want. Since the base resistance of the first transistor would be very high, it would effectively mean that you are just reading the EMF from the pick-up coil, like in a comparitor circuit. That could make the variable timing setup much easier to do.
Anyway, there are many interesting possibilities that a Bedini experimenter could explore for the pick-up coil timing circuit. I would recommend that you get your Bedini motor running with a standard pick-up coil setup first. Then after that perhaps explore other options with your pick-up coil circuit to see if you can get better performance from the pick-up coil circuit and from the motor. There are ways to get much more flexible timing if you have a totally separate pick-up coil also.
MileHigh
Quote from: Plengo on 2010.09.21, 21:54:51
Status update:
Today I got my 4 bedini coils. Transistors are on the way. Rig to hold the whole setup done.
Fausto.
Looking good Plengo ;D...keep at it ;)
QuoteThere are ways to get much more flexible timing if you have a totally separate pick-up coil also.
I would opt for Hall effect sensor driving FET or Darlington in place of the pickup coil. They are available with built in low power hysteresis amplifier for nice clean transitions to drive the power device.
Also a small separate Hall effect device allows easy timing adjustment.
http://www.allegromicro.com/en/Products/Design/hall-effect-sensor-ic-applications-guide/#Q7
Well I stumbled across a new YouTube Bedini SSG clip that's quite interesting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPpfO_yinr4 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPpfO_yinr4)
Efinder2 has a setup where his SSG is running in self-oscillation mode. The SSG output is charging a cap, and that is powering a quite large DC motor. When he uses his fingers to put a load on the large DC motor, he sees that his SSG current consumption goes down.
So, as of today this clip is one week old and some other SSG enthusiasts are congratulating Efinder2. The exciting thing is that when he adds a load to the DC motor the current consumption goes down. It sounds very impressive, and it seems counter-intuitive. So the preliminary conclusion is that it looks like some Bedini SSG magic is happening, more load equals less current.
I made three postings on his clip suggesting that he make some more measurements to try and understand what is going on. I think I know what's happening and I outlined that in my postings. It remains to be seen if he will make more measurements.
MileHigh
I'm going to discuss a measurement issue that came up from Aaron's comments in the Bedini 10-coiler thread on EF.
Fist Aaron said these correct comments about using voltage on batteries as a way of determining if you have over unity or not:
QuoteThat is a tired and worn out argument. Those that know what
they're doing do not simply use voltage that shows up on a meter
to see how much energy there is. Work is drawn from the battery.
This has been repeated countless times and insinuating that this
is the method used to determine "overunity" is misleading and is
manipulation. Some people starting out will think voltage readings
means more than it does, I did in the beginning because I didn't
know better but this does NOT apply to those that have been
working on these projects for a while.
Then subsequent to that he made these comments:
QuoteThen turn off the machine and disconnect the secondary battery and
draw a load at the right rate (c20 is probably what most people will
scream about) and also with a current sensing resistor and do the same
data capture until that battery is down to the voltage where it was
before it received a charge. Use a resistive load on this battery instead
of an inductive load.
Aaron is suggesting this:
1. Measure the start charging battery voltage.
2. Measure how much energy you put into the charging battery
3. Discharge the charging battery at the C20 rate and measure the energy until the voltage reaches the voltage you measured in Step 1.
4. Compare the energy you put into the charging battery from Step 2 and compare that to how much energy you extracted from the battery in Step 3 to determine your COP.
The huge mistake here is that Aaron is using battery voltage, which is what he stated that you can't use in a posting that he made just one day before. I also am pretty sure that the Yahoo Bedini groups use the same method and that means all of their COP data is junk.
Here are the facts to consider:
A. The voltage on a battery is essentially the same for up to 90% of the discharge cycle. That simple fact right there indicates that measuring battery voltages is meaningless data.
B. When you charge a battery you will read a fake voltage that is higher than the real battery voltage due to the battery's charging input impedance.
C. When you discharge a battery you will read a fake voltage that is lower than the real battery voltage due to the battery's discharging output impedance. Depending on the discharge rate, you will read a different voltage.
The whole premise for Aaron and the Yahoo Bedini group's COP measurement for charging and discharging batteries is hopelessly flawed. You simply cannot pick an arbitrary battery voltage and charge and then discharge back to the same voltage. Logically it doesn't make any sense at all. Even the ambient temperature will affect the nominal battery voltage.
Somewhere in this thread or in the 10-coiler thread there is a discussion about how to make measurements to determine how much energy there is in a battery using load testing. You have to define a protocol for a given battery and stick to it. It's a lot of work and it takes discipline.
And I will repeat a comment that I have made before. Measuring the output impedance of a battery can tell you about the state of charge of the battery or the state of health of the battery. It is much more useful information than the open-circuit battery voltage. Experimenter's should learn how to do this so that they can get a better handle on their batteries. It has been mentioned several times by me and nobody ever says anything. It's a very useful tool and it is simply not discussed by the experimenters and I think that's a shame.
MileHigh
I never make a comment when you make this argument because the only comment must be, "You are correct".
When I see a group using such COP determinations, I don't waste any more time reading the posts.
=> DeepCut
Have you yet visited the lead acid battery desulfation forum?
HERE (http://leadacidbatterydesulfation.yuku.com/)
Pulse charging is very beneficial to several battery chemistries
but especially so for the lead acid battery.
The brief over-voltage spikes are very effective at converting
old crystalline sulfate back into active plate material to restore
battery capacity. They will also accomplish equalization without
excessive gassing and heating of the battery.
The main reason these kinds of chargers aren't sold as a retail
unit by big names is their production of EMI/RFI.
Several repetitions of the pulse charging followed by useful
discharge cycle will restore your batteries to their maximum
capacity. Converting all of the accumulated sulfation on the
plates is a rather slow process and does take some time.
Yes, pulse charging (when done carefully) is superior to steady
state charging.
Please continue with your accounting of your progress. It will
be helpful to all who desire to get the most out of their lead acid
batteries for the longest possible time.
Hi MileHigh,
I've been busy but have also taken some to read up on the stuff you suggested. My 3 pole Bedini motor is on it's way so I have preparing to do some testing and was reading up.
I have some questions I hope you can answer. You must have built heaps of these Bedini motors to know so much about them.
If the coil is only charging to the run battery voltage how is it that the charge battery voltage can get higher than the run battery voltage?
There was a post where the guy asked why his neon bulb lights up when it is an AC bulb. How can it do this if the run battery is only say 12v and it takes 90v to light the bulb?
I don't know what you mean about Lenz law and how it fits with Bedini motor? I thought that Lenz law means that the collapse in the coil stops the wheel turning but I've seen videos that show that the magnet is past the wheel when the coil switches off?
In the Yahoo group they to charge the battery to like 14.5v and discharge it to like 12.2v and measure the current to the battery. But you have to do the same for 20 runs. This makes sense to me. Why do you say this is junk? I don't know how to measure battery impedance, do I need fancy instrument or scope or something?
DragonSlayer