Donald Smith Devices too good to be true

[mr.clean]

What is the difference between a sparkgap in series and a sparkgap across the HV-source?

Which is better and why?

i have found that both can work, but the difference is (to me) that parallel gap is best because i can use less voltage to get arcing across the gap, and the firing is more smooth, not as abrubt as para cap.

also i recall reading Tesla saying in the Colorado notes that para gap was most desirable, i think he said it was because putting all power thru the gap in series was too hard on the caps

[level]

Hi T actually you're right on, in my last BiTT vid with smoothed DC measurements i am taking power from the separate wound, series connected, high Current coils, with HV secondaries underneath (not a secret )

Hi mr clean. Long time no see. I don't recall you mentioning anything about having high voltage windings in the video. Did I miss something in the video?

[janost]

I tried this circuit with a 6v battery.

Without the SIDAC and lightbulb the cap charges to over 2Kv
(I dont know exacly because my DMM says OL when over 2Kv)

With the SIDAC and the lightbulb there is a orange glow in the 230v lightbulb.
The DMM says 38v over the lightbulb.

I cant measure it with the scope but its likely 215v pulsing with a ratio of 1:5
The input current was 186mA@6v

My guess is that the output looks like the second picture.

[clarence]

info for large metglass toroid

hi Penno been away for a while doing experiments
im trying to catch up on posts but right now im working on ...stuff

hope to have some new and interesting stuff soon, and i finally got my MetGlass cores for my BiTT and regular trafo experiments

Imageshack - imageqptq.jpg

Imageshack - imageymb.jpg

Hello Mr Clean,

Clarence here,

question : I was wondering where your source for the large metglass toroid was obtained? I would like to purchase one to use for a later build on the DS
black suitecase transformer you also showed in your imageshack pics.

what comments would you make about just press connecting the two halves together and then making the windings on the two long sides or maybe making two fiberglass bobins for the metglass and then after winding the coils on the one half of the combo metglass/bobins then sliding the other half metglass together to complete the secondary two coil windings as a unit?

What I see in the pic Don then wound the secondary coils unit with some type of fiberglass tape before then winding his primary coil around the whole unit which completed his resonant transformer ready for HF/HV supply input.

I believe this with a driver and a few caps for resonance with high impedance/low current and a GDT would make a simple enough device to exploit for HF/HV AC purposes. I would love to try it later for sure. thanks in advance for the info and any comments!

as always, mike, onward!

[level]

Hi Clarence. Mr. Clean can confirm where he got his cores from, but I believe this is the manufacturer's webpage which lists their distributors for their metglas cores:
Contact Information for Power Industry and Metglas Products - Metglas, Inc.

And this is the specs info on the metglas cores from one of the distributors:
Elna Magnetics
Elna Magnetics - Metglas Cores
Scroll down in the PDF to the AMCC 500 and AMCC 1000 C cores, for example of two commonly used sizes of the metglas C cores.

You can request quotes on the cores here:
AMCC-500 - Elna Magnetics
AMCC-1000 - Elna Magnetics

[clarence]

thanks for info!

Hi Clarence. Mr. Clean can confirm where he got his cores from, but I believe this is the manufacturer's webpage which lists their distributors for their metglas cores:
Contact Information for Power Industry and Metglas Products - Metglas, Inc.

And this is the specs info on the metglas cores from one of the distributors:
Elna Magnetics
Elna Magnetics - Metglas Cores
Scroll down in the PDF to the AMCC 500 and AMCC 1000 C cores, for example of two commonly used sizes of the metglas C cores.

You can request quotes on the cores here:
AMCC-500 - Elna Magnetics
AMCC-1000 - Elna Magnetics

Hello Level,

Clarence,

Thanks for your interest , info , and comments Sir , I appreciate them all!

as always, mike onward!

[mr.clean]

Hi mr clean. Long time no see. I don't recall you mentioning anything about having high voltage windings in the video. Did I miss something in the video?

hello buddy well im still discovering things, but im exploring if there is a point in stepping up the volts so high, combo of hv and hc and /or shorting is the obvious thing to do....
also im playing with different circuits, finding stuff out. and studying the joule thief/ringer/etc.. maybe pure BEMF (nature's reflex) is the way to go (being so efficient to start with)

[mr.clean]

Hello Mr Clean,

Clarence here,

question : I was wondering where your source for the large metglass toroid was obtained? I would like to purchase one to use for a later build on the DS
black suitecase transformer you also showed in your imageshack pics.

what comments would you make about just press connecting the two halves together and then making the windings on the two long sides or maybe making two fiberglass bobins for the metglass and then after winding the coils on the one half of the combo metglass/bobins then sliding the other half metglass together to complete the secondary two coil windings as a unit?

What I see in the pic Don then wound the secondary coils unit with some type of fiberglass tape before then winding his primary coil around the whole unit which completed his resonant transformer ready for HF/HV supply input.

I believe this with a driver and a few caps for resonance with high impedance/low current and a GDT would make a simple enough device to exploit for HF/HV AC purposes. I would love to try it later for sure. thanks in advance for the info and any comments!

as always, mike, onward!

hi man, ordered the cores from Guangzhou china Coilcore Holding, but to make it worthwhile a local buddy also ordered some. i guess i just didnt want to settle for compromising the dimensions, and only a few would work unless i had them custom wound and cut. so i just matched up what dimensions would work based on the second largest core as outer, then have 2 small for inner

im still not sure if the Metglass will work, but the cores are good for most anything

[clarence]

thanks for info

Hello Mr. Clean,

Clarence,

thanks for the info, I will use it and besides its good to hear from you also, I do appreciate your efforts Sir.

as always, mike, onward!

[mr.clean]

Hello Mr. Clean,

Clarence,

thanks for the info, I will use it and besides its good to hear from you also, I do appreciate your efforts Sir.

as always, mike, onward!

Thanks Mike, i forget to say hello sometimes, but you all are strangely closer than some in person friends i have lol

[level]

hello buddy well im still discovering things, but im exploring if there is a point in stepping up the volts so high, combo of hv and hc and /or shorting is the obvious thing to do....
also im playing with different circuits, finding stuff out. and studying the joule thief/ringer/etc.. maybe pure BEMF (nature's reflex) is the way to go (being so efficient to start with)

Hi amigo. Sounds like you are leaving no stone left unturned. Those joule ringer circuits are pretty amazing on what they can do with so little power consumption. I have been doing lots of experimenting as well, trying lots of different coil and transformer arrangements. Seeing interesting results sometimes, but no over unity as of yet.

I can reproduce something similar to the Thane Heins effect, but when I measure really closely I am not measuring over unity. The effect I am seeing seems to be due to a transformer arrangement that has very high leakage inductance (which translates to their being low flux linkage between the primary and secondary windings). So it looks to the primary like there is very little load, but there is also very little power delivered to the load in this arrangement due to very low effective flux linkage between the primary and secondary. Not sure if that is the same as the Thane Heins effect, but it seems quite similar anyway. Have been experimenting with a bunch of other things as well, trying to find some sort of key to the Don Smith/Kapanadze devices, but I haven't found any keys yet.

[mr.clean]

Hi amigo. Sounds like you are leaving no stone left unturned. Those joule ringer circuits are pretty amazing on what they can do with so little power consumption. I have been doing lots of experimenting as well, trying lots of different coil and transformer arrangements. Seeing interesting results sometimes, but no over unity as of yet.

I can reproduce something similar to the Thane Heins effect, but when I measure really closely I am not measuring over unity. The effect I am seeing seems to be due to a transformer arrangement that has very high leakage inductance (which translates to their being low flux linkage between the primary and secondary windings). So it looks to the primary like there is very little load, but there is also very little power delivered to the load in this arrangement due to very low effective flux linkage between the primary and secondary. Not sure if that is the same as the Thane Heins effect, but it seems quite similar anyway. Have been experimenting with a bunch of other things as well, trying to find some sort of key to the Don Smith/Kapanadze devices, but I haven't found any keys yet.

Hehe yeah, sometimes good to doubt if youre doing the right thing.
Yes it strange what happens when you add flux paths, its gotta be engineerable tho
For anyone interested, im working on understanding and designing joule thief/ringers for higher voltages, and serious loads, but here is something i threw together.

Was gonna give up till i put things in the right order, its a Larsko schematic, and in my opinion a close relative to ss Tesla/ kacher by how the high turn secondary is straight to base,BUT use a pot right off base, or you draw more milliamps than volts (rofl

The input power used here was 1/3 the voltage needed, and barely enough current to light 1 LED, but have 6 or so lit up. And no step up, 1:1 ratio, only using back emf spikes 2.66 Mhz vibes at 418 Khz repetion, something is definitely going on here...

http://imageshack.us/a/img32/694/imag1475y.jpg

[mr.clean]

Hi amigo. Sounds like you are leaving no stone left unturned. Those joule ringer circuits are pretty amazing on what they can do with so little power consumption. I have been doing lots of experimenting as well, trying lots of different coil and transformer arrangements. Seeing interesting results sometimes, but no over unity as of yet.

I can reproduce something similar to the Thane Heins effect, but when I measure really closely I am not measuring over unity. The effect I am seeing seems to be due to a transformer arrangement that has very high leakage inductance (which translates to their being low flux linkage between the primary and secondary windings). So it looks to the primary like there is very little load, but there is also very little power delivered to the load in this arrangement due to very low effective flux linkage between the primary and secondary. Not sure if that is the same as the Thane Heins effect, but it seems quite similar anyway. Have been experimenting with a bunch of other things as well, trying to find some sort of key to the Don Smith/Kapanadze devices, but I haven't found any keys yet.

perfect way to describe it, flux linkage. although in my more recent BiTT video using ferrite core and zvs push-pull circuit i can light incandescents as well, pretty cool.

one thing to better link the flux i believe is making a series connection from secondary to the other.
also gaping the cores has not been explored, maybe keeping them more separate would be better, but still have the outer L2 to L2 1 coupling, and having asymetrical L2's even could be good...

good job tho, keep going man, and hey have you ever seen this site?...
ANONIMUS FREE ENERGY / FreeEnergyLT / FreeEnergyLT

in the first picture on the page, it shows a hand drawn schematic, and in red it says "Tariel prosil predat narody" ... (Tariel asked me to tell the world)

http://freeenergylt.narod2.ru/anonim...3.01.28.0C.jpg

maybe you can figure S1 and S2

[level]

A way to measure input power on low power pulse circuits

Was gonna give up till i put things in the right order, its a Larsko schematic, and in my opinion a close relative to ss Tesla/ kacher by how the high turn secondary is straight to base,BUT use a pot right off base, or you draw more milliamps than volts (rofl

The input power used here was 1/3 the voltage needed, and barely enough current to light 1 LED, but have 6 or so lit up. And no step up, 1:1 ratio, only using back emf spikes 2.66 Mhz vibes at 418 Khz repetion, something is definitely going on here...
http://imageshack.us/a/img32/694/imag1475y.jpg

Hi mr clean. That looks interesting. I don't know what exactly you are doing in your circuit, but I think it is most likely that the actual current draw from the DC power supply is probably higher than what shows on the digital current meter. This is because the current is likely drawn off in fairly narrow pulses, and I don't think the digital meter accommodates those kind of short duration pulses very well.

Coincidentally, I have been recently experimenting with pulse circuits and using power from the back pulses off of coils as well, so I have been thinking about how to get a better idea of actual input power consumption on these types of circuits. When I try to measure input current using a series resistor and a scope, I see some wild spiky waveforms going all over the place so it is also fairly doubtful whether a scope's RMS calculation would give a very accurate reading for that sort of spikey complex current waveform.

What I have been thinking of trying is the following. If the pulse circuit we want to measure input power for has a fairly low input power consumption, then we should be able to use a large capacitor of about 10,000uf to 20,000uf or so to power the circuit for say 5 seconds or possibly more. We can then do some calculations to get what should be a fairly close approximation of the average input power that was consumed for that time period.

The calculations should work like this:
(Someone correct me if I am make an error here, but I think this is correct)

Let's say we charge up a 10,000uF electrolytic capacitor to 1 volt.
That should work out to 5 millijoules of energy stored in the cap.
We then hook up our charged capacitor to the power input terminals of our low power consumption pulser circuit (such as a joule thief or ringer cct) and we time it and leave it hooked up for say 5 seconds (as close as we can manage it). We disconnect the capacitor from the circuit right at the 5 second mark.

I believe we can then calculate the input power consumed by our circuit as follows:
Let's say our capacitor now measures 0.5 volts after being hooked up for 5 seconds.
So the energy remaining in the capacitor is 1.25 millijoules
(The energy stored in a capacitor is dependent on the voltage squared, so it is not a linear relationship between the voltage drop on the capacitor and the energy drop. W = ½ CV^2 )
So we have consumed:
Start energy - remaining energy = energy consumed
5 millijoules - 1.25 milljoules = 3.75 millijoules consumed over 5 seconds
1 Watt = 1 Joule per second, so we just need to divide the energy consumed in Joules by the time in seconds that the energy was expended over to get the average power consumed during that 5 second time period:
0.00375 Joules / 5 seconds = 750uW (750 microwatts)
Of course this is an estimation since we won't be able to connect our capacitor for exactly 5 seconds if we are just doing this manually, but if we connect as close as we can to 5 seconds (or whatever time interval we choose) it should be a fairly good indication of how much real power was consumed.

Note: When powering a circuit with a capacitor to estimate the input power of a circuit, the capacitor voltage drops over time, so the input power to the circuit will also drop over time as the capacitor discharges. Keeping the test time to shorter durations such as 5 seconds will be better than longer durations, and also using larger values of capacitance will show a slower voltage drop, so should be better as well. You can parallel several capacitors together to get a higher total capacitance value, but be careful as large values of capacitance can store a lot of energy, and at higher voltages can give lethal shocks.

This is just an example, and you can see that even a 10,000 uF capacitor would not be able to supply a whole lot of power unless you charge it up to a much higher voltage. With your circuit being powered by 0.5 volts, you might well have to use a super capacitor with a value in the Farad range to do a proper test, but I think this might be a much better way to measure average input power consumption for pulse circuits.

You seem to have some interesting things going on in your circuit. I think I see a toroid winding with some neo magnets stuck to the toroid?

[mr.clean]

Hi mr clean. That looks interesting. I don't know what exactly you are doing in your circuit, but I think it is most likely that the actual current draw from the DC power supply is probably higher than what shows on the digital current meter. This is because the current is likely drawn off in fairly narrow pulses, and I don't think the digital meter accommodates those kind of short duration pulses very well.

Coincidentally, I have been recently experimenting with pulse circuits and using power from the back pulses off of coils as well, so I have been thinking about how to get a better idea of actual input power consumption on these types of circuits. When I try to measure input current using a series resistor and a scope, I see some wild spiky waveforms going all over the place so it is also fairly doubtful whether a scope's RMS calculation would give a very accurate reading for that sort of spikey complex current waveform.

What I have been thinking of trying is the following. If the pulse circuit we want to measure input power for has a fairly low input power consumption, then we should be able to use a large capacitor of about 10,000uf to 20,000uf or so to power the circuit for say 5 seconds or possibly more. We can then do some calculations to get what should be a fairly close approximation of the average input power that was consumed for that time period.

The calculations should work like this:
(Someone correct me if I am make an error here, but I think this is correct)

Let's say we charge up a 10,000uF electrolytic capacitor to 1 volt.
That should work out to 5 millijoules of energy stored in the cap.
We then hook up our charged capacitor to the power input terminals of our low power consumption pulser circuit (such as a joule thief or ringer cct) and we time it and leave it hooked up for say 5 seconds (as close as we can manage it). We disconnect the capacitor from the circuit right at the 5 second mark.

I believe we can then calculate the input power consumed by our circuit as follows:
Let's say our capacitor now measures 0.5 volts after being hooked up for 5 seconds.
So the energy remaining in the capacitor is 1.25 millijoules
(The energy stored in a capacitor is dependent on the voltage squared, so it is not a linear relationship between the voltage drop on the capacitor and the energy drop. W = ½ CV^2 )
So we have consumed:
Start energy - remaining energy = energy consumed
5 millijoules - 1.25 milljoules = 3.75 millijoules consumed over 5 seconds
1 Watt = 1 Joule per second, so we just need to divide the energy consumed in Joules by the time in seconds that the energy was expended over to get the average power consumed during that 5 second time period:
0.00375 Joules / 5 seconds = 750uW (750 microwatts)
Of course this is an estimation since we won't be able to connect our capacitor for exactly 5 seconds if we are just doing this manually, but if we connect as close as we can to 5 seconds (or whatever time interval we choose) it should be a fairly good indication of how much real power was consumed.

This is just an example, and you can see that even a 10,000 uF capacitor would not be able to supply a whole lot of power unless you charge it up to a much higher voltage. With your circuit being powered by 0.5 volts, you might well have to use a super capacitor with a value in the Farad range to do a proper test, but I think this might be a much better way to measure average input power consumption for pulse circuits.

You seem to have some interesting things going on in your circuit. I think I see a toroid winding with some neo magnets stuck to the toroid?

good points and calculations, hehe yes i wondered about the actual input myself,

i took the setup home and set it to 1 volt (or else it would not read at all at .5 volts )
and that simulates well a single AA or AAA.
Also im figuring out how to run this on 12v etc

picture below is of scope across 1 ohm resistor off positive, 4Mhz wave seen, pulsed at 169Khz intervals...

DC power supply read 5mA @ 1volt... scope showed actual was 4mA

Output was able to light multiple bulbs,
(each requiring 1.9volts and 10mA to be as bright straight from the power supply )

and good eye, on that particular one earlier with 6 LEDs did better with a magnet on the core, input current dropped and light increased ! but.. you can do virtually the same with more control by using a pot on the base

i think its because the magnetic field (or whatev ) is simply enhanced from the magnet, and then the field collapse is also enhanced, without using more power to do it

and something new (i think ) is using single wire baby air core pancakes then connected as Joule Thief, got the idea from Incroyables Experiences
(French guys on youtube, fukn really good ! )
but a buddy lent me these perfect little pancakes to try and work beautifully