Project Centurion - efficient wireless electricity

[Slider2732]

Named after a British tank, cos i'm British and the circuit features a tank section.

The idea, is to use as little incoming current as possible from a 1.5V AA and yet give a good bang for the buck with wireless energy output.
Presently, the circuit will run from 2.8mA and partly light a red LED at around 2" induction range.
Or, 6mA and run 4 LED's of different colours, plus a digital watch.

It ties in to my SWES 2 circuit, as discussed in another Bench thread...but aims to bring the power used right down.

Ultimately, i'm looking to scavenge whatever input power is needed, from RF, mains leakage, room lighting.


Here's the vid, uploaded today:

And a couple of pics, including the simple circuit:

[Peterae]

Hi Slider
Fantastic work & video, Thanks for sharing 

Peter

[Itsu]

Nice Slider,

i might try to replicate that.

What if you put a germanium diode in series with the led?
Anyway, guess you are using a very small 10uF smoothing cap in the receive circuit as i cannot see it 
What about the dotted line in the transmitter coils, does it mean there is some ferrite there or are they air coils?


Thanks,  regards Itsu

[Slider2732]

Thanks chaps

It's a bit of an oops on the diagram for the transmitter coil. I was going to leave it as an empty space but put the dash lines in in case ferrite worked out as more efficient. A dotted line for a 'maybe'. The coils are just aircore, wound on an old pills bottle.
Yeah, the watch has an SMD cap inside it, from when I was doing experiments with a solar cell outside. The smoothing cap only has to remove the transients, so can be 1uF upward, depending on the load.
A germanium in series with an LED will be tried, might also put one in series to the Base of the transistor

Did some frequency measurements today and I was surprised that this circuit runs so fast... 1.4MHz !
So it does need slowing down and i'll be trying a cap over the transmitter coil. Ideally, somewhere around 1KHz would be the aim.


The pic below shows the lowest current yet, 1mA and able to light 2 LED's plus run the watch circuit.
It uses a 24+24 aircore transmitter coil, with the standard 24 turn receiver coil. Electrical tape does a fine job of holding the coil together, i'd used superglue previously. In fact though, I put a spot of superglue on the end of the wrap to make sure it never unwinds.
The current used has gone down, but the limitations are noticeable compared to 3mA on the 12+12 transmitter.
Solar is interesting...a calculator type panel from a Dancing Flower runs it on the light from the table lamp, only if the Base resistance of 7.1K is removed. That 7.1K was derived from using a variable pot in the early stages. I use a 100uF across the power rails with the tiny cell because the output is about 1/4mA.

[Itsu]

Slider,

thanks for the info.

Is that a 22nF cap across the 1MOhm?

I build the transmitter (MPSA18, 2x 12 turns air coil).
Feeding with a 1.5V aaa battery

Here the severall scope signals

yellow (1) is collector signal
blue (2) is voltage across battery
green (4) is current measured in plus line of battery with my ac/dc current probe
red (m) is math mean power input (ch2 * ch4).

Tomorrow i will build the receiver part.

Regards itsu

[Slider2732]

Very cool and thank you...your scope shots are always so informative
I see yours is running at a similar 1.8MHz.

Ah no, the cap is a 0.022uF a '223' as written on an orange ceramic.
I tried all sorts and arrived at the cap value through trial and error, for the most output from least current - those being the primary reasons for building this setup.


Tests this evening have been to do with coil geometries. The pills bottle winding has been based on a few years now of induction coil builds for Tesla towers and other projects....diameter to wire gauge etc bench stuff.
So what would happen with vastly different set ups ?
The first pic shows a 24+24 turn pills bottle sized transmitter coil and a 24 turn coil of the same 23AWG gauge wrapped around a reel of adhesive packing tape. The reel is below the coil.
By adjusting the variable pot value, for the Positive rail to Base resistance to 390ohms, the red LED fired up quite well. The induction range is 2", but, the current used was quite a hefty 8mA.
The second pic shows a different arrangement. A 36+36 transmitter coil was used. With the pot now at 35K the large receiving coil and the small regular coil both lit. Amperage fell right down to 1mA, which I was very happy about.

A transmitter coil was tried, wound on the packing tape reel of 24+24 turns. It ran ok and gave a reading of 2mA but so incredibly intriguingly showed a mere whiff of meter needle movement when the Base and Collector wires were reversed.
Y'see, a coil will run better with the wires one way than the other....the 2 ends affect the running amperage and I can only guess that's because both won't be exactly the same resistance. When hardly the blip of current was seen, it didn't do anything with any receiving coil tried...but I want to get that running and see what happens.

It's also interesting to find that a higher wind coil doesn't necessarily translate to lower running amperage and that loading a transmitter down with extra receiving coils can actually reduce the current used !

That Base resistance pot is becoming ever more useful. It's a 50K by the way.

[Slider2732]

And here we go !
I put that 24+24 tape reel transmitting coil back on, the one that hardly moved the needle when connected last time.
Set the pot to 35K again and nothing. So, I lifted the receiving coil a touch and on came the LED.
Anything from around 30K to 45K runs it, but best at 35K
Current usage now is in the realm of meter accuracy error...it reads 0.5mA  

The first pic shows the fix for the induction, sitting the 24 turn receiving coil on 2 pieces of drinking straw.

The second pic shows it running from solar. A garden light panel has replaced the battery and is deriving the light from my CFL table lamp. A 100k resistor has replaced the pot and works. it was on the table and saved hunting for a 20K and a 15K at this time of the evening.

[Slider2732]

Further update -
A goal has been met !
Zero reading on the meter  

I knew the variable pot to the Base from the battery was important, but not quite in this way for getting that amperage down - I removed it out of the circuit !
Now we have a circuit that deserves to be on this forum...it uses basically nothing.

The transmitter coil is of 24+24 turns 23AWG and secured with electrical tape. The diameter is that of a Walmart pills bottle.
The electrical tape also serves to give the needed very slight distance separation, to enable non saturation of the inter-coil energies.
The receiving coil is of 12 turns same gauge, with the red LED sat directly across the coil ends.

It also runs from the solar garden light panel, sat upside down on the table, with a superglue bottle sat on top of it to block even more light  


Here's the quick update video:

[Peterae]

OMG Slider LOL

[Slider2732]

Hehe fun huh

It's now practical too...the watch is running, using the upside down solar panel with the glue bottle on top.
I took the LED off and replaced with a Germanium diode.

[Peterae]

are you able to replace the solar panel with a avramenko plug, if so then what you need to try is an antenna 1/4 the length of the wavelength, that's how Don smith supposedly made his loop, well he didn't use an avramenko plug, but maybe worth tinking about.

[Itsu]

Very cool and thank you...your scope shots are always so informative
I see yours is running at a similar 1.8MHz.

Ah no, the cap is a 0.022uF a '223' as written on an orange ceramic.
I tried all sorts and arrived at the cap value through trial and error, for the most output from least current - those being the primary reasons for building this setup.

So that's 22nF.

OK,  you are moving fast, so i build a new transmitter coil 2x 24 turns and the old transmitter coil 2x 12 turns = 24 turns is used as receiver coil.
Red led direct attached to this receiver coil.

This more turns in the transmitter coil has decreased the frequency till 900KHz.
Loading the transmitter coil with the led shows increase in input power.

Removing the 7.1Kohm base resistor flips the circuit into burst mode.
The peak input current increases greatly, but the frequency drops tremendously and therefor the overall input power.
The led is barely lit and seems to blink on the video.

Video here:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUKF_q0md2g&feature=youtu.be

Screenshot of the burstmode situation below

(be aware that the mA / division should read 100mA due to the fact that its being controlled by the current probe controller and therefor  the current RMS value should be x 10 as well as the math main power,
but this last function is only accurate when using many samples (bursts).  


Regards Itsu

[Slider2732]

Will do that Peter  
Maybe induction from a mains lead and out to an antenna, then picked up with that AV plug method.
All that's needed is voltage, of about 1.5V, current can be nearly nothing. Many transistors (as you know) will start up with 50nA and as long as at least that is coming through then the circuit will start up...or indeed a further tuned circuit in any case.

Thanks again Itsu. Yes, sorry, uF and nF discernment troubles !
Measurement of the meter zero input version showed 128KHz.
Looking forward to the video, it was still processing a couple of minutes ago.


Edit: Have seen the video and thanks for shooting it
Interesting scope shots for the burst mode.
One thing that may change readings, is to swap over the Base and Collector transmitter coil wires...it really does affect the running markedly.

[Itsu]

Interesting scope shots for the burst mode.
One thing that may change readings, is to swap over the Base and Collector transmitter coil wires...it really does affect the running markedly.

Right, it made the led go even dimmer.
instead of a burst of peaks every 23Hz or so, now a single peak every 23Hz or so was seen.

When swapping the aaa battery for a garden light solar panel (1.5V in the evening light), it went in an other pulsing mode because the voltage was sagging due to the current peaks.
When backing up the solar with a 10000uF elco it went back to the previous burst mode.

Putting the solar flat on the desk made all voltages dissappear and no signals / led light where seen.

Regards Itsu

[Farmhand]

Forgive me if I have this the wrong way around, but If we want to transmit wireless energy then why would we want the input as low as possible, I would have thought the more energy that can be transmitted for the size of the device efficiently the better. I mean what use is a power not enough to even light an LED ?

If enough power can be transmitted to a remote location or even over a short space to light an LED fully then I can see the point and the usefulness of it.

Somehow I don't think you will be able to transmit more energy than you input, there will always be losses, even Tesla stated that. And working with RF the losses will go
everywhere in all directions, unless there is a conductor connection like the Earth that does not qualify as a (man made wire), my definition of wireless means "no man made wires", however some on the forums say the Earth is a wire but it isn't it's a conductor if it's used as one.   Using the Earth is still Wireless as such. Or a coupled transmission.

A fully conductorless transmission will be a "coupled" transmission "coils close" or a "received" transmission coils far apart and out of coupling distance.

A coupled transmission is not much more than a air core transformer, you only need to look at it to see that, even the commercial iterations for cell phone charging are just air core transformers with loose coupling.

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For a cell phone charger the transmitter circuit should "idle" when the receiver coil is not in place and the input should drop to idle power input, then when the receiver coil is placed in close relation to the transmitter coil the transmitter coil transfers power to the receiver coil and the input increases to meet the load due to a few factors which can be varied.

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[Slider2732]

@Itsu - that makes sense, that the peaks inverted.
I noted improvements when a 100uF cap was across the power input.
My table lamp is a 23W CFL and positioned approx an arm length from the panel when it was upside down. The lamp has a shade on it but the panel was somewhat under the light area.

@Farmhand - Great input and thinking points, thanks.
Indeed, much is linear. The drive here was to try and get the input down as low as possible and to hopefully do things with the circuit that were a bit different to the usual demo's. Hence the solar panel thing.
But, to then take things forward in low energy circuits. Previous wireless circuits have run from water and soil, but getting a good steady light output has normally given way to blinking.

For high transfers such as cellphones (relatively high) a circuit should detect a load. Really, 2 circuits maybe, 1 a low energy 'ping' system and then if there's a detection, the charge circuit kicks in. Such a pinging circuit would ideally be powered from ambient general energies available in an average house.

[Farmhand]

Yeah it is all interesting and a good project, thinking of setting a similar arrangement up myself, but using a small Half H Bridge or H bridge to oscillate the primary with AC.

The video's below with DC input might show something to interest you. 

In a cell phone charger the setup I imagine would simply act as a transformer (which it is), in that when we run a transformer with no load the input power drops to "idle" power, then when we add a load the load reduces the Back emf and allows current to flow to power the load. But to do that we need to hold close to resonance with a pulsed DC input, or use an AC supply.

If using resonance we can adjust the circuit so that when the receiver is unloaded the transmitter goes out of tune and the input drops, by adjusting the L or C so that the circuit sees maximum Back emf when the receiver has no load and less Back emf when the receiver is loaded.

Idling Tesla Coils Transmitter - receiver Short video Fixed frequency DC driver. Pay no attention to the Gate wave form it's atrocious. These videos are from sep 2012
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEX9MKBhVZk

Longer video of above experiment. This one shows that when the receive has no load the transmitter is almost powerless, and non radiating. Also shows the Tesla text about idling his power plant. When the light flashes or the motor speed varies I am adjusting the transmitter L - C, the same effect can be got from adjusting the receiver.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lV_u9xy73bU

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This video clip is a feed back oscillator and works a bit different, but is quite effective and not bad on power. This one tanks the transmitter primary and at about 2:45 in the video I show the primary wave form which is 150 volts P to P the tank resistance is not much and the oscillating current is a lot for the primary wire I think I measured 15 amps peak current there. From memory I think both circuits can work in both modes. Mode 1 is low idle power and rises to meet the load(if it can) Mode 2 is maximum input power at idle and the input lowers as the loads are drawn. The oscillator doesn't work exactly as a true Armstrong oscillator works I don't think. But it works.

Armstrong oscillator and two receivers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJd8TNC75AI

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[Slider2732]

Thanks for the thoughts and videos...sorry it took a while to get around to viewing them.

I liked the Ground inclusion in the first vid, which itself brings up an old interesting subject, what with Berdini motors and his original Patent drawings.
Am thinking of a room of a house with basically no power draw, fed by a few super caps and a small solar panel outside. Someone walks in and puts a tablet anywhere on a table and the reactive circuit jumps in, powering/charging the device. Walks over to a lamp and touches the base, the reactive circuit jumps in again and only then does the lamp power flow.
A room with no sockets, but able to power a myriad of devices and with a practically zero power use when idling.


Just spent an hour looking through my older vids and can't find the one I wanted. It was a reactive circuit, in that the LED onboard would flash, until a load changed the coil properties and then the light would be on solid. No idea where that has gone as I rarely delete anything !