Bi-toroid

[poynt99]

Hey Milehigh,

You might have some fun with this one...

.99

[Farrah Day]

As P99 put the Thane Heins thread in at my request, I just wanted to nudge this thread back up. I'm quite surprised that some of you TPU boys are not looking at this a little closer.

The following link is a rexresearch equivalent tp P99s link above.

http://www.rexresearch.com/heins/heins.htm

This bi-toroid looks like it has possibilities.

[Room3327]

Farrah,  If you look at diagram 3 of the Bi-toroid none of the math makes any sense to me.  By his own numbers he has 16.9 VA or watts going in the primary and 11.51 watts coming out both secondary's combined?  But even aside from that the calculations don't make sense, assuming a 1:1:1 ratio of the windings he has 49.8 volts and .24 amps going into the primary with a 2.5 ohm winding. That tells me he should have about 20 amps peak going into the primary not .24 amps. OK is the primary current limited that is still 49.8 X .24=11.9 watts going in the primary and if you say it is at a higher frequency then we are not talking 2.5 ohms DC resistance but a higher inductive impedance number. Still doesn't make sense, now look at the load on the first secondary coil 180 ohms which he is claiming is dropping 11.43 watts, but 49.8 volts divided by 180 ohms is .276 amps X 49.8 volts is 13.77 watts?  And the second secondary coil has a 1 ohm load on it this is a whopping 49.8 divided by 1 =49.8 amps X 49.8 volts which = 2480 watts??? He is saying it is only .02 watts? It just doesn't look to me like anything other then another transformer and only about 60% efficient at that by his numbers.  But I could be wrong.

[Farrah Day]

Got to say Room, this isn't my main field of interest and I've never looked too closely at it. I think it was just the fact that the idea of the secondary flux path seemed to make good sense to me.

You seem to have looked a little closer into it than myself, perhaps I'll find time to take a better look.  It would not be too hard to knock one of these up to test, so perhaps that's what I need to do, as if it's anything like electrolysers fitted to vehicles, the theory doesn't always seem to concur with the practical results.

[MileHigh]

Well Poynt,

I am really late to the party and thanks for the link to that doc from several months back.  I noticed that the latest Thane C. Heins clip was echoed on the other two forums so I thought that I would link it here also.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVYiT4zK9Kc

A preliminary comment relates to measurement errors associated with digital multimeters when they are at the extreme limit of their range.  For example, the current he measures going into his primary is 0.003 amperes.  It flickers to 0.002 sometimes.  You are super inaccurate here.

The 0.003 ampere reading might be somewhere between 0.0035 and 0.0025 amperes.  It's hard to be sure where the cutoffs are because you don't know the inner workings of the multimeter.  No matter what there is a huge amount of uncertainty in the measurement relative to the absolute measurement of the current as being "0.003" amperes.  This could have a major impact on any potential over unity measurement.

Thane discusses power factor and I will just state a general comment.  If any transformer is unloaded, then the primary current waveform will be 90 degrees out of phase with the voltage waveform for power factor of zero.  In other words the unloaded transformer acts like an inductor.  As you start to add a load to the transformer secondary the phase relationship changes and the power factor starts to move away from 90 degrees.

Thane says his power factor is stated as 0.34 or 70 degrees in the text annotation.  Verbally he says it's 75 degrees.   The inverse cosine of 0.34 is 70.12 degrees.  I'm wondering how he measured the phase difference.  It's something that is hard to eyeball, and chances are the waveform does not line up with the graticule on his scope.  I am assuming that he measured this with a ruler???  I am not sure here, are there better ways to do this?  It's a critical measurement because it affects his input power calculation.

Note also that this is all sine-wave based, so there are no back-EMF spikes to worry about in this setup.

MileHigh

[MileHigh]

I just realized in my last posting I was linking to a junk pirate clip collector.

Here are the most recent three Thane C. Heins clips on his real YouTube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQq1-J8SOtc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eiu-dCe8bnA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AeWkNYjUNQ

I am going to make a few generic comments on the architecture of Thaine's setup.  I couldn't find a diagram but I assume those following the developments are familiar with the latest configuration.

I am going to call the inner flux path the "Figure8" and the outer flux path the "OuterO."   Lets assume that the Figure8 orientation is horizontal.  Therefore the primary coil will be vertically oriented.  This is how you see it in most of his clips.

To keep things simple we will just talk about flux flowing in one direction, even though the whole system is AC-based and the flux is bidirectional.

When he energizes the primary coil we know that the flux will circulate through the Figure8.  Assume the flux flows bottom to top through the primary coil.  Therefore flux circulates counter-clockwise in the left half of the Fgure8 and clockwise in the right half of the Figure8.

Assume the two secondary coils have the same number of turns and they have the identical value of load resistor connected to them.

The two secondary coils will also induce flux to flow through the OuterO.  Here is where we run into a problem.

Let's look at the right half of the Figure8.  On the right side the flux is flowing downwards.  The right secondary coil gets current induced into it to drive the right load.  This induced current creates flux in the opposite direction of the source flux.  The source flux is flowing downwards, therefore the induced current creates flux that is flowing upwards.  This induced-current-generated flux also induces flux in the OuterO that flows upwards.  Upwards flow in the right side OuterO corresponds to counter-clockwise flux flow.

Exactly the opposite reaction happens on the left half of the Figure8:

Let's look at the left half of the Figure8.  On the left side the flux is flowing downwards.  The left secondary coil gets current induced into it to drive the left load.  This induced current creates flux in the opposite direction of the source flux.  The source flux is flowing downwards, therefore the induced current creates flux that is flowing upwards.  This induced-current-generated flux also induces flux in the OuterO that flows upwards.  Upwards flow in the left side of OuterO corresponds to clockwise flux flow.

So the OuterO is getting conflicting induced flux that cancels itself out.  In other words, if the number of turns in the two secondary coils and the load resistors are perfectly balanced, then the OuterO does nothing because of the flux cancellation.

Therefore as a general statement, the OuterO flux ring is not serving any useful purpose.  The setup would work just as well if you only had the Figure8 flux path with the three coils.

In the next posting I can propose a test to see if my analysis is correct or not.  It's quite hard to visualize this stuff so the test is absolutely necessary.

MileHigh

[MileHigh]

Okay, so now a test to see if my theory is correct or not.

The test is quite simple.  You do the configuration described in the previous posting, with the same number of turns in the two secondary coils and matching load resistors.

I am not comfortable with the very low power levels that Thane works with.  If that could be improved upon it would be good.  As a suggestion if you had a big 12-volt transformer then you could drive the whole setup with 12 volts AC.  If your turns ratio was 1:1 between the primary and the two secondaries then you should see 12 volts AC on the two secondaries.  Then you could add some fairly low load resistors so that each resistor dissipates about two watts.  So if you could get two 2-watt 60 or 70 ohm load resistors you would be in very good shape.  Then you have real measurable power flowing through the setup and you are staying away from the dangerous mains power.

So all that you have to do now is wrap between 20 and 100 turns of fine wire around the OuterO that's away from the Figure8 setup.  This is simply your "flux sensor" coil.  Just connect your multimeter or scope probe to it and you should see a very feeble output voltage.  This would be telling you that almost no magnetic flux is flowing through the OuterO because of the flux cancellation problem as indicated in the previous posting.

If you see a very low-level AC voltage, you should be able to tweak the self-cancellation to make it disappear almost completely.  The easiest way to do this would be to add or subtract one or two turns to one of the secondary coils.  You should be able to tweak the flux self-cancellation so that the AC voltage almost completely disappears.  No AC voltage on the flux sensor coil means no flux.

So what does this mean for any over unity with Thane's new configuration?  Well, if you prove that the OuterO does not do anything of value, then what are you left with?  You are left with the Figure8 transformer setup.  That's an ordinary vanilla transformer, and vanilla transformers are not over unity devices, they are under unity devices.

MileHigh

[Allcanadian]

@milehigh

So what does this mean for any over unity with Thane's new configuration?  Well, if you prove that the OuterO does not do anything of value, then what are you left with?  You are left with the Figure8 transformer setup.  That's an ordinary vanilla transformer, and vanilla transformers are not over unity devices, they are under unity devices.

All the experienced and very credible engineers who have actually tested this technology would probably disagree with your theory and I do as well ---- next theory please.

Regards
AC

[ion]

When you drive a transformer hard into saturation, you waste a lot of power heating the core and the primary rather than transferring power to the load.

Thane admits burning up a hefty transformer overdriving that primary coil that he wound with fine wire in an effort to raise the impedance. Where did all that power go? Certainly not into the light bulb. His output is ridiculously low for the amount of power he is pumping into the primary.

He claims it is all reactive. I doubt that or he would not have burned up the driving transformer.

Current input rises rapidly when you approach saturation, loading on the secondary backs you off this part of the BH curve.

He sees input power drop a bit when he connects the load. This is normal for a saturated transformer, as the load takes the transformer out of saturation a bit.

Most transformers that must handle a wide range of loading are designed with enough magnetic headroom so the idle current is low enough to keep the transformer out of saturation during light loads. This is a variable duty transformer.

Not so for specially designed transformers that are not meant to run unloaded. This type of transformer has lower magnetic headroom but typically never sees a "no load" or "light load" condition. Therefore it can use a bit less copper and iron for the same kVA transfer. This is a fixed duty transformer, designed that way for economy of manufacture.

Yes I actually do the tests, have hundreds of transformers all sizes from milliwatt to high kVA. worked also as an engineering consultant to a transformer manufacturer.

Sorry, IMHO no FE here, just misinterpretation of data and effects.

Send Thane a donation if you really believe in his work. He seems like an honest fellow.

Next Theory?....I don't have a theory, just lots of years working around transformers and power devices, driving them in and out of saturation, measuring DC unbalance effects on cores, driving inductive loads with solid state power control devices etc. etc. When you do this for your livelihood as part of a small company, you can't afford to make this kind of error because no one is "funding" you.

[MileHigh]

@milehigh
All the experienced and very credible engineers who have actually tested this technology would probably disagree with your theory and I do as well ---- next theory please.

Regards
AC

I am not really following the replications but I probably will for a while starting now.  I am curious to see if anybody will do the test.  I won't be holding my breath.

I am under the impression that this is a brand new configuration that Thaine has developed so I doubt any of the engineers at the University of Ottawa have had a chance to look at it.

You're being dismissive of my theory and I am rusty with this stuff but I think what I said is sound.  Thaine seems to think that the outer flux ring will prevent the load from being seen by the power source driving the primary coil.  To me that doesn't jive.

You disagree with me, so what are your reasons?  Do you have a theory for how it operates?

Going back to Thaine's overall proposition which I believe is that he claims that he can turn purely reactive power (power factor = 0) into real power going into a load.  The power companies don't want that.  They don't want their big customers storing and then pushing energy back into the grid.  I am guessing it causes their distribution transformers to get hot circulating current for no reason, which reduces their real capacity to output power.  Large industrial companies that are running lots of big motors and stuff like that have to install devices that correct their power factor and bring it much closer to 1.  That's why big transformers are rated in volt-amperes output and not in watts.

A little factoid is that standard computer switching power supplies are also problematic for the power companies.  They also have a weird power factor because they typically only draw power at the peaks of the AC sine wave.

MileHigh

[Chet K]

ion
Have you looked at the most recent independent test data?
I would have to be very ignorant not to respect your Knowledge,I just want to know that you are up to speed on Thanes latest INDEPENDENT test Data.

This "Burning up " issue is this recently??

Nobody is really looking to waste time here.

Thank you
Chet

[Chet K]

poynt
Can you post the latest data here?
I sent it to broli to post at OU down load section.
Can you just transfer that to here?

Chet

[Allcanadian]

@Ion

Next Theory?....I don't have a theory, just lots of years working around transformers and power devices, driving them in and out of saturation, measuring DC unbalance effects on cores, driving inductive loads with solid state power control devices etc. etc. When you do this for your livelihood as part of a small company, you can't afford to make this kind of error because no one is "funding" you.

I know a great deal of people in the field of electrical engineering, power engineering, instrumentation etc ...  but not one of them can tell me what a magnetic or electric field are fundamentally, not one. Personally I find this very odd that persons with a combined experience of a few hunderd years or more cannot tell me "what" it is exactly that they have been working with all these years --- Do you find this odd?. I do not mean to judge you or anyone but at some point I personally came to the understanding that I will never be an expert at anything, in any sense of the word, until I know what I am dealing with. Once I came to this understanding I can honestly say everything became much easier, I had many options I never would have considered, I understand many new technologies almost immediately.
The real proof of understand also has to do with your paycheck, people do pay anyone tens of millions of dollars or more because they understand conventional technology, they get paid that much because of what they understand that everyone else does not. They get paid because they have "improved" technology in a way nobody had ever considered and this improvement has a great deal of value and hopefully it will make peoples lives better.
Regards
AC

[MileHigh]

For reference, here is Thane's July 28, 2010 instructional video explaining how the Bi-Toroid Transformer works with diagrams:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcAYhM0LX9A

To repeat my point, he is failing to note the flux cancellation problem that I described a couple of postings ago.

The YouTube user besibes18 came to the same conclusion as me.  This is a quote from a comment on Thane's clip that Thane did not respond to:

IT'S WRONG ANALISE IN VIDEO. 1/ WHEN USE BOTH SECONDARY COIL THEY CANCAL EACH OTHER SO THE ONLY WAY THAT FLUX GO IS IN PRIMER COLI LIKE A STANDART TTRANSFORMER. NO ENERGY WIN 2/ WHEN USE ONE SECONDARY COIL ON LOAD THERE IS NO CANCAL FLUX BUT PRIMERY COIL FLUX HAS E EASY TO GO THE SECONDAR COIL UNLOAD SO THE VOLTAGE ON SENDARY DROP MUCH. AND SO DON'T HAVE WIN ENERGY. REPLY ME12:56 12/09/2010

Note that he also makes a very relevant point that I didn't think of.  If you put a load on only one of the two secondary coils, then the flux from the primary coil takes a "free ride" through the clear path of the unloaded secondary coil.  Therefore very little flux will pass through the path of the loaded secondary coil and it's voltage output will drop a lot under load.

Well at least I have another person that agrees with me.

I am not concerned with saturation issues, and in this clip Thane does not discuss the saturation of the core.  A transformer under normal operation is never saturated.  I know that Thane has made more recent clips discussing saturation but I have not watched enough to know where he is going with that.

I will repeat a suggestion for any replicators, and that is to use load resistors where the power dissipation is at least a few watts.  If you are operating in the milliwatt range then your measurements will be more difficult and possibly inaccurate.  Also, if you get a hefty 12-volt transformer, say at least the size of your fist, then you can drive the whole setup with 12 volts AC and be much safer.  When you are directly hooked up to 120 volt AC mains power there are three dangers.  The first is the high voltage.  The second danger is accidentally burning up your coils.  The third danger is if you accidentally make a short-circuit, some metal may vaporize and spray into your face before the circuit breaker blows.

MileHigh

[wattsup]

What I have noticed from Thanes work is one major thing lacking. There is no pulsing, no creative use of capacitors, no looping. Most always everything is connected to the mains and is straight run. He has the greatest drive to produce these great mechanical ideas, rotational schemes, but what is lacking is the pulsing. I can't remember seeing any make/break scheme. Just linear works. Too bad cause I think he is playing with some damn nice ideas, damn nice toys.

[MileHigh]

Wattsup:

To me it sounds like you have a bias towards pulsing, perhaps because most of the experiments you see use pulsing?  Thane mentions somewhere that he envisions an application where the Bi-toroid transformer is used for improving power line transmission.  I think he envisions this as a better transformer that is also an over unity device.  I would guess that he is not going to go in the direction of pulsing anything.

For all of the fun people can have with pulsing, there is a down side that some might not be aware of.  The pulsing produces radio interference.  Even the famous Imhotep conversion of a computer fan into a miniature Bedini motor would not be acceptable.  You would never be able to sell one.

In my "bad guy" role I have tried sometimes to demystify pulsing.  In the Bedini threads I discuss it in detail, and it's quite technical at times.  I admit I also talk tough on those threads.  I discuss how an inductor discharges from multiple angles and completely deconstruct Bedini motors.  On OU you started discussing coils and the spark when you disconnect them in a new thread.  If you read the Bedini threads on this site you will learn how discharging coils work, but unfortunately you won't find it all laid out in a single clear posting.

I think CuriousChris said that when the coil disconnects the current stops flowing for an instant and then the collapsing magnetic field builds up voltage and then you get the spark and plasma conducting through the air and the current flow resumes.  He's wrong.  The current doesn't stop flowing for an instant.  What really happens is the moment the the coil goes open-circuit the plasma is instantly created so that the current keeps flowing without interruption.  Even if you don't see or hear a spark for a small coil, the same thing happens.  I am not about to get into the whole deal with you though.  If you really want to learn about how a coil works, then check the Bedini threads on this site.

MileHigh

[ion]

ion
Have you looked at the most recent independent test data?
I would have to be very ignorant not to respect your Knowledge,I just want to know that you are up to speed on Thanes latest INDEPENDENT test Data.

This "Burning up " issue is this recently??

Nobody is really looking to waste time here.

Thank you
Chet

Hi Chet

In the last video (Dilbert's Dilemma) of the group of three posted earlier earlier by MH, at 4.0 minutes Thane points to the transformer on the left (roughly 150 VA capacity) and says he already burned this one up trying to drive the primary of his BITT .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AeWkNYjUNQ

He says he had to hook the system up to a larger transformer because he needed 220 volts to drive the finer wound primary into saturation.

At 5.5 minutes in the video, he says he has to discontinue the test because he can already smell the larger transformer burning.

His load on the secondary ranges from 1.09 Watts to 1.65 Watts based on the meter readings shown into a resistive lamp.

So a transformer rated around 150 Watts was burned up and a larger one started to burn with a load down the line of less than 2 Watts.

What kind of energy saving device do we have here?

Draw your own conclusions.

I admire Thane's craftsmanship regarding the devices he has built and tested. I applaud his dogged tenacity in searching for ways to improve energy usage.

I hope that he dreams on and has a breakthrough perhaps as an offspring to his present work.

I wish him the very best of luck in his work.

But I smell a measurement error here.

[MileHigh]

Ion:

I just watched the Dilbert's Dilemma clip again.  I agree with you and I am going to try to add to your comments.

It looks like the problem is the asymmetrical flux paths as pointed out by the YouTube user besibes18 that I quoted in posting #13.  When he goes high voltage he has set the secondary coil S1 to be either open-circuited or short-circuited.  S2 is always connected to the light bulb load.

Case 1:  With the S1 secondary coil open-circuited and the primary voltage at 222 VAC he gets (2.43 V x 0.45 A) = 1.09 watts across the light bulb load.

In this case almost all of the flux generated by the primary coil flows through the left (S1) flux path because it offers no resistance to the flux flow.  This looks like a big inductor.

Only a tiny amount of flux flows through the right (S2) flux path and this puts 1.09 watts through the light bulb load.

From the perspective of the mains power, the load looks like a big inductor (the primary coil with the left flux path) and small separate resistive load.  Thane thinks the power factor shows a 90 degree phase shift on his scope, but I would assume it's not quite 90 degrees but he can't see it.  This accounts for the 1.09 watts of power going into the light bulb load and the power dissipated in the wires themselves.

Case 2:  With the S1 secondary coil short-circuited and the primary voltage at 222 VAC he gets (3.30 V x 0.50 A) = 1.65 watts across the light bulb load.

In this case almost all of the flux generated by the primary coil flows through the left (S1) flux path because it offers very little resistance to the flux flow.  I say "very little resistance" in this case as opposed to "no resistance" in Case 1.  The fact that the secondary coil is short-circuited means that it looks like another inductor driving a small resistance, which is the resistance of the wire itself.  That accounts for the "very little resistance" in the left flux path.  In this case there are two coils (the primary and the S1 coil) so this ends up looking like a giant inductor that's driving a very small load.

So compared to Case 1, for Case2 a bit more flux can flow through the right (S2) flux path because of the very small resistance on the left (S1) flux path.  That's why a bit more power flows through the light bulb, 1.65 watts.

From the perspective of the mains power, the load looks like a huge inductor (the primary coil plus the S1 coil with the left flux path) and a slightly larger separate resistive load as compared to Case1.  Again, Thane thinks the power factor shows a 90 degree phase shift on his scope, but I suspect it's not quite 90 degrees but he can't see it.  This accounts for the 1.65 watts going into the light bulb load and the power dissipated in the wires themselves.

In summary, for this clip his setup in both cases looks like a giant inductive load plus a tiny resistive load.  That's why his power factor is almost zero.  The reactive part of the load is dissipating considerable power through the wire resistance.  The fact that he is lighting up a light bulb is almost incidental.  The problems associated with the asymmetrical flux paths for this particular experiment mean that the setup fails to efficiently transfer the mains power to the light bulb load.  Instead the setup is acting more like a pure inductance through the left (S1) path than anything else.

I think Thane should explore this asymmetrical flux path issue in more depth, as well as exploring the issue relating to the canceling fluxes mentioned in post #13.

MileHigh

[ion]

Referring again to the Dilbert's Dilemma video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AeWkNYjUNQ

Thane attempts to convince viewers that the phase shift between voltage and current on the primary is exactly 90 degrees out of phase therefore zero power factor.

He shows the traces with low vertical gain when he is driving the primary at very low input voltage, and the traces appear not to be close to 90 degrees out of phase.

He then shows the scope in an extremely expanded scale when he overdrives the primary forcing it into saturation. We then see three sharp vertical traces on the scope, the two outer green being current and the center violet being voltage, and since they are equally spaced, we are led to believe the current and voltage are exactly 90 degrees out of phase within the resolution of our eye.

As anyone who has used a scope knows, you can position the current waveform exactly between the voltage traces by adjusting the vertical position for that channel. This would fool the viewer into thinking the zero power factor 90 degree phase difference is maintained. You could also add some delay to one channel so that when the PF appears to be approaching 90 degrees out, it is actually moving closer to unity.

No one has commented on how a 150 VA driving transformer can be overheated and burned up by driving his supposedly zero power factor primary and a lamp with less than 2 Watts.

I would recommend that Thane purchase a $25 "Kill-O-Watt" meter and put this to rest.

[poynt99]

Referring again to the Dilbert's Dilemma video:


I would recommend that Thane purchase a $25 "Kill-O-Watt" meter and put this to rest.

ION, If Thane did that, he'd then have to get a REAL job  

Right now it's all gravy, and he appears to be enjoying it.

.99

[wattsup]

@MH

The conversation with @CuriousChris continues. Seems throwing around "qualifications" or "credentials" is where it's at so I will just stay out of it from now on. No sweat. lol

Regarding the BITT video of Thanes, I stand by my comment. Such multi path flux builds could only be controlled and improved with precision pulsing at various levels. A straight run device in my view is only possible once such a multi-path transformer was better understood via what you would learn with pulsing. For me a straight run device can only be built once all the parameters are known in advance. Regarding radio interference of pulsed devices, ultimately, if a totally free energy device was devised that could change the face of how energy is produced, believe me, radio interference would be the last of the worlds problems or counter arguments. It's like saying if you want to catch some fish in this lake, only stay in the 3 foot and 1000 foot depths so that's about 10% of the lake.

Again, in my view what Thane has built is a very nice toy, but the game played with that toy is going by the wrong rules. He should be pulsing that primary and not wasting straight juice. But we can only do what we are comfortable with. If you look at OU.Com there is a thread on a new EV Grey video. There you can see a total mastery of build and thought and control. Not just plug it in and see what happens.

[MileHigh]

No one has commented on how a 150 VA driving transformer can be overheated and burned up by driving his supposedly zero power factor primary and a lamp with less than 2 Watts.

Ion:

It's great that you are a transformer expert!

You could hear the humming getting louder as he cranked the voltage up to 220 volts.  I am assuming that humming was from the Bi-toroid transformer and not the variac, but I can't be sure.  My guess is that the fine wire in his primary coil could not take the reactive AC current going through it considering the amount of resistance in the wire.  Especially when the wire is tightly wound, you can produce more heat than can be readily dissipated, and the coil has to get damn hot before it reaches thermal equilibrium.

I have an interesting question for you.  What about all of the little low-power wall transformers that are used to power small electronics devices.  If they are not connected to anything, they are unloaded transformers and reactive loads also.

My train of thought has always been that for a much larger unloaded transformer, the inductance is much larger, and therefore the AC impedance is very high at 60 Hz.  The inductance is high enough that the reactive current is insignificant, and there is nothing to worry about.

But for a little unloaded "wall wart" transformer, the inductance is much lower and I always had the feeling that they should fry at 60 Hz.  Is there a series resistor or something to keep the reactive current low when they are unloaded?

Thanks,

MileHigh

[MileHigh]

Wattsup:

For sure the current in a discharging inductor does not stop momentarily when you first make the disconnect.  I read CuriousChris' latest posting and it looks like he knows what he is talking about except for that fine detail.  The moment you open-circuit an inductor that has current flowing through it, it starts to discharge through the air which is turned into plasma due to the high voltage.  While the plasma is in existence the current flow will decrease from the initial level until it stops at zero.  But to be absolutely precise, there is never a "hiccup" in the current flow like CuriousChris is suggesting.  If you really really want to split hairs, there may not be plasma for a few microseconds because the current flowing through the coil has to charge the stray capacitance in the coil before the plasma ignites, but I really doubt that's what CuriousChris is implying.  Even if you were charging the stray capacitance, the current would still be flowing in the coil.  If you read through my Bedini stuff you will learn that a discharging inductor is a current source, and that explains the high voltage right there, it's a no-brainer.

As far as the pulsing and transformers goes, I saw a posting by you recently discussing inductive spikes and the amount of energy they contain.  You, and many people believe that there may be a stress induced on the aether or something to that effect that taps into some extra energy.  The real truth is that inductors are just as boring as capacitors.  They only discharge as much energy as you put into them in the first place.  This is an absolute carved-in-stone fact.  It can be proven quite easily on the bench.  Inductors have a mystique because of the high voltage they can produce.  Many people find this fascinating and almost mystical and something takes on a life of its own around that property of inductors.  They call it "radiant energy."  If I said to you that capacitors can produce super-high spikes of current, you might not even take notice.  Inductors and capacitors are very similar.  So I am not sure if you think pulsing some sort of transformer configuration will bring out some extra effects, but I just wanted to give you the low-down on coils and by extension transformers.  There is never excess energy in the output voltage spike from a coil.  To be even more precise, the output spike is a current and a voltage spike, where the current is determining what the voltage is.  In that sense, it would be more appropriate to call it a current spike.  Again, that's all explained in the Bedini threads.

MileHigh

[ion]

Ion:

It's great that you are a transformer expert!

You could hear the humming getting louder as he cranked the voltage up to 220 volts.  I am assuming that humming was from the Bi-toroid transformer and not the variac, but I can't be sure.  My guess is that the fine wire in his primary coil could not take the reactive AC current going through it considering the amount of resistance in the wire.  Especially when the wire is tightly wound, you can produce more heat than can be readily dissipated, and the coil has to get damn hot before it reaches thermal equilibrium.

I have an interesting question for you.  What about all of the little low-power wall transformers that are used to power small electronics devices.  If they are not connected to anything, they are unloaded transformers and reactive loads also.

My train of thought has always been that for a much larger unloaded transformer, the inductance is much larger, and therefore the AC impedance is very high at 60 Hz.  The inductance is high enough that the reactive current is insignificant, and there is nothing to worry about.

But for a little unloaded "wall wart" transformer, the inductance is much lower and I always had the feeling that they should fry at 60 Hz.  Is there a series resistor or something to keep the reactive current low when they are unloaded?

Thanks,

MileHigh

I am by no means a transformer expert, just a practical experimenter.

Typically a transformer will emit a loud buzzing or humming when driven into saturation. Also the current waveform will be tall thin slightly rounded spikes 2-3 milliseconds wide with nothing on either side of the zero crossing. This is the pulse sharpening effect of a saturated inductor.

A typical 120 volt wall wart such as a Uniden 7 Watt telephone supply is rated at 9 volts 300 mA. output.

Note that it has a primary DC resistance of about 310 Ohms. There' your series resistor, the primary is wound with very fine copper wire, probably #32 or #36.

Unloaded the power factor is 0.16 to 0.17, and the current at the primary 0.03 Amps

Loaded with a 20 Ohm resistor the secondary yields 9.45 Volts or 4.46 Watts

The power factor is then 0.84

The high primary resistance helps to limit excess current from an unloaded device, still it is mostly reactive from the 0.16 power factor.

BTW, size of a transformer does not necessarily mean high inductance. A much smaller device with lots of primary turns can have more inductance. Ampere turns. Size is related to power handling capability, and you can use a bathroom scale to get a rough idea of this (for a given frequency say 60 Hz.)

[Allcanadian]

@milehigh

The real truth is that inductors are just as boring as capacitors.  They only discharge as much energy as you put into them in the first place.  This is an absolute carved-in-stone fact.  It can be proven quite easily on the bench.  Inductors have a mystique because of the high voltage they can produce.  Many people find this fascinating and almost mystical and something takes on a life of its own around that property of inductors.  They call it "radiant energy."

I would agree to some extent but it should be understood that what many call absolute carved-in-stone facts sometimes have limitations to the rule or exceptions. A few years ago I did some experiments to first define what constitutes "normal" operation of an inducance and then the limitations of the popular understanding of normal operation. I built a solid state electrometer to measure both magnitude and phase differential in electric fields, hall effect circuits for measuring magnetic fields as well as the standard equipment. Now let's consider "normal operation", we close a switch to charge an inductance with current, we see a voltage rise on our oscilloscope connected across the inductance which then levels off indicating the current has stabilized, we open the switch and see a voltage spike (an inductive discharge) proportional to the resistance to the discharge. This is normal operation which is equivalent in a mechanical sense to a water ram pump, we have increased voltage at the expense of current and the energy remains constant.
Now let's consider abnormal operation that is what you do not know, if we consider that the current input to the inductance is solely responsible for the inductive discharge or voltage spike then they must always be proportional to one another and there can be no exceptions but this is not the case. I built many circuits to specifically test one exception to the rule whereby I could produce an inductive discharge, a voltage spike, on both the "make" and "break" of the circuit switch. Both inductive discharges (two) would induced a voltage in nearby coils and would also be indicated on all measuring devices. Now if the inductive discharge is solely a product of the disruption of a current already established in an inductance then how can I produce another inductive discharge before any current whatsoever has started to flow in the same inductance? It should be noted that both inductive discharges were in fact equal in every sense of the word which still leaves us with this nagging question of how an inductive discharge can occur "before" a current has been established, in fact before any current of any sort is flowing in the inductance? Now if as many believe, the input must be equal to the output then why do I get two equal outputs from only one input?
It would seem to me that what I have proven as a fact in reality through actual experiments would seem to be in direct conflict with what you have stated. It should also be noted that my experiments are based on the research of Nikola Tesla over 100 years ago and that he had documented these facts on more than a few occasions.
Now consider your statement:

They only discharge as much energy as you put into them in the first place.  This is an absolute carved-in-stone fact.

If this is true then how can I produce a "discharge" well documented by Nikola Tesla before I have "put" any energy into it in the first place? Common sense would suggest one of us is wrong.

Regards
AC