Imhotep's Radiant Oscillator Video

[ren]

Thanks Ren for taking the time to explain how the cap pulser works. It does what I thought it did. I have tried charging up a cap and manually switching it into the charge battery. My fingers got really tired! It looks like this automatic pulser circuit is something that I can now figure out how to build. If I have any more questions I will use the appropriate thread and keep this one clear for Imhotep oscillator discussion. By the way I noticed that people are having trouble with heat and burning out transistors. Been there done that. You are right that you have to watch the resistance on the base of the transistor and put a fixed resistor in with the pot. On my latest circuit I got away with a 100ohm resistor with a 1K wire wound pot. It was just trial and error but the TIP3055 transistor I'm using runs cool. I'm also dumping alot of heat (still) into the 25ohm rheostat that I use so I put hefty heat sinks on the front and the back of it and it is working.

The last thing is that I also am also seeing very strange charging readings. The thing is though, I really don't trust these digital ammeters. I think that they give false readings with this type of circuit. You really have to do charge/discharge testing to see what's happening and that takes time.

Thanks again for the help.

Lidmotor

Cool, glad it helped. Try get an analogue gauge specifically for the voltage level of the batteries your using. It may be a bit hard if you are using lithiums or such with unusual voltage levels, but the one I have is 11-15v.

Try different sized caps too. The common consensus is a medium to large capacitance is better.

[Peter Lindemann]

Ammeters Unreliable

Thanks Ren for taking the time to explain how the cap pulser works. It does what I thought it did. I have tried charging up a cap and manually switching it into the charge battery. My fingers got really tired! It looks like this automatic pulser circuit is something that I can now figure out how to build. If I have any more questions I will use the appropriate thread and keep this one clear for Imhotep oscillator discussion. By the way I noticed that people are having trouble with heat and burning out transistors. Been there done that. You are right that you have to watch the resistance on the base of the transistor and put a fixed resistor in with the pot. On my latest circuit I got away with a 100ohm resistor with a 1K wire wound pot. It was just trial and error but the TIP3055 transistor I'm using runs cool. I'm also dumping alot of heat (still) into the 25ohm rheostat that I use so I put hefty heat sinks on the front and the back of it and it is working.

The last thing is that I also am also seeing very strange charging readings. The thing is though, I really don't trust these digital ammeters. I think that they give false readings with this type of circuit. You really have to do charge/discharge testing to see what's happening and that takes time.

Thanks again for the help.

Lidmotor

Lidmotor,

I totally agree with you, the digital ammeters are not reliable to measure the recovered energy. There are a number of reasons for this. The most obvious reason is that all digital equipment operates by taking samples of data at a specific rate. Most of these sample rates are relatively low for normal meters, and therefore miss the peak events, or only capture them once in a while, in a high frequency environment like this. If your oscillator is running at a fixed rate, you should be able to see a secondary wave moving through the data as the sample rate of the meter and the oscillation rate of the system interact. It looks random at first, but then you can see it.

The second, and not so obvious reason is...... there really is NO SUCH THING as a meter that measures CURRENT. The meter is actually a milli-volt meter that MEASURES the voltage drop on a "calibrated resistor" called a shunt. Then, the current in AMPERES is calculated assuming that OHM's LAW is applicable in this situation. For "normal electricity" coming from a battery or a generator, this current "measuring" arrangement works very well, but it is very important to understand that this is NOT a direct measurement of current. It is the measurement of a small voltage drop across a resistor in the circuit, and the calculation of current based on Ohm's Law.

When an inductive collapse is applied across such a situation, the initial voltage spike can produce voltage gradients across the shunt far in excess of the nominal conditions. If the digital sampler happens to "pick" one of these moments, the meter readout will show "extremely high currents" which, in fact, do not exist. This, and other anomalies, are artifacts of the meter.

If you are running a capacitor charge and discharge circuit, the very best way to calculate the recovered energy is to put your scope (or volt meter) across the capacitor and measure the high and low voltage in the cycle, and calculate the number of Joules stored in the capacitor in each condition. The difference is the amount of energy, in Joules, you are delivering to the battery under charge during each discharge. Then, determine how often the discharges occur to determine the rate of energy delivery, from which a figure of Joules per second (watts) can be calculated.

John Bedini and I figured all of this out in 2003. Even then, the battery can charge much faster than the "watts in" figures suggests is possible, depending on a wide variety of other factors. This is why John has always said that the true energy content of the inductive collapse cannot be measured with the equipment we currently have.

Hope this helps.

Peter

[KGround]

CFL Power Factor Correction

Steve Windlisch has spun off several articles based on the discovery, first mentioned here, that US CFL lamps do not contain power factor capacitors. Here is one sample: http://peswiki.com/index.php/Article:Are_U.S._CFL's_Designed_to_Make_Us_Pay_Mor e_on_Our_Power_Bills?
There are several problems with the article:

1) Electric meters in the US read ‘real’ power (kW) and ignore reactive (kVAr) power. Personal experimentation using the older style electromechanical meters for both residential single phase and industrial three phase installations confirm this. Some modern electronic meters do have the ability to measure instantaneous kVAr and thereby to compute instantaneous power factor, but I can find no evidence in a fairly extensive internet search or by questioning a couple of utility metermen that any old or modern meter records kVAh for billing purposes.

2) Because of 1, any power factor less than 1 works to the consumer’s advantage, at least as far as billing for power use is concerned. The reactive part of power into loads with power factor less than 1 is just ‘borrowed’ from the electric company and is not recorded on the meter. Hence any energy you get from ‘reactive’ power instead of ‘real’ power is free energy as far as your electric bill is concerned.

3) The real disadvantage from reactive power is to the electric utility. Their meters only charge for ‘real’ power but their generators, transmission lines, and distribution equipment must be adequate to supply the actual load in kVA - that is the kW they bill you for plus the kVAr that you get for free. This why electric utilities sometimes meter industrial users with special metering equipment to determine their peak kVAr and assess charges when the power factor of the user’s load falls below some preset amount, typically 0.8 or so. This is also why utilities will require industrial users with a bad power factor load to apply power factor correction at the user’s own expense. One good point about all of this from a residential load standpoint is that poor power factor from residential loads is typically small and the large number of small users tend to average out over sections of the distribution system. Still the net tendency is for the total averaged load to be slightly inductive, so utilities end up installing power factor correcting capacitors throughout the system at the utility’s expense. These charges are of course marked up and passed on to the consumer.

Background information:

‘Real’ power is named thus because it is the ‘real’ part of total power when AC power is represented in vector notation. “Real’ power in kW is the integral over one complete AC cycle of the instantaneous values of amps and volts at each point of integration. Only that portion of the current which is in phase with the applied voltage ‘counts’ in the calculation of ‘real’ power.

The other part of the power that you actually use is the ‘imaginary’ part of the vector representation of power – that part of the power where the amps are not in phase with the applied voltage. The total load (kVA - thousands of volt-amperes) consists of the vector sum of the ‘real’ power (kW - kilowatts - thousands of watts) plus the kVAr (thousands of volt-amperes reactive).

If you read voltage across the AC line with a voltmeter the display is a value proportional to the peak voltage in the AC cycle. If you read amps through the AC line with an ammeter the display is proportional to the peak value of amps during the AC cycle. Multiply the two readings together and you have the kVA.
But note that each of these two meters have no way of knowing what the other meter is doing or when the peak occurs for the other meter. If the peaks are not in phase (that is if the power factor is not 1.0) then the kVA is not equal to the kW and your multiplied reading is not kW. To read kW on a reactive load (when the power factor is not equal to 1.0 you need a single meter which can perform the instantaneous multiplication of volts and amps and integrate those values over one complete cycle – a watt meter. This is how the Kill-a-cycle and other power factor meters work – they take a kVA reading and a kW reading and then compute power factor.

Websites of interest:
Power factor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
www.watthourmeters.com - an online reference on US-made watthour meters

Landis & Gyr Meterman’s Handbook (may still be available from this meter manufacturer…)

[KGround]

Solid State High Voltage Sources for CFLs

Alternate sources of solid state high voltage power supplies for single wire discharge lighting:

1) Neon Transformers, Neon Power Supplies Page2
Information Unlimited has been working with single electrode neon for at least a decade. They sell several power supplies which operate from 120VAC or 12VDC and have sold single electrode neon lamps in the past. The Information Unlimited supply is the grey conformal coated unit shown in the attached photo. This unit from my stock is upwards of 15 years old, but it seems to be the Neon21 unit presently offered by Information Unlimited. This device lights the CFL brighter than any other device tested including my replication of the Imhotep circuit and the Ramsey Tickle-Stick mentioned below. The lamp appears to my eye to light at nearly full brightness. This supply will drive several lamps in parallel in one wire configuration, or in two wire configuration, but to my eye it appears that the amount of light produced does not increase as more lamps are added - that is, each lamp gets dimmer as more are added.
The folks at Information Unlimited were promoting neon systems in which the color could be changed by changing applied voltage and frequency at the time I purchased the power supply, but I don’t find any reference to that in a brief examination of their current web site – perhaps the effects were not sufficiently reproducible for commercial use.

2) Ramsey Electronics
Ramsey Electronics first sold these units as a high voltage power supply suitable for air ‘purifying’ ionizers and such. Now they say “80V pulsed output”. The units I have are several years old, but the current part number of the kit and the appearance in the photo is the same. The older unit I tested will produce a spark at least ¼” long, but at low enough current that it is hard to feel. It lights a single CFL in one wire mode at about the same level as my replication of the Imhotep circuit.

[KGround]

Some notes on the Imhotep CFL circuit discussion:

I came to this site because it was cited in an article by Steve Windlisch about power factor correction in US CFL lamps which has received wide circulation on the Internet. See my comments on that article in another post on this same thread.

Being inspired by the research done by the scientists here, I decided to dig around through the junk box and scrape together a replication of the Imhotep project. I also found some other solid state high voltage components which will light CFLs and which are discussed in another posting. These are my comments specifically on my Imhotep replication efforts to date..

1) I had a ‘coil buzzer’ circuit already built, left over from another project. That unit uses a more conventional circuit than the circuit of Imhotep. See the drawing ‘circuits’. In my buzzer circuit, the relay stands alone as a buzzer and
any load or no load can be connected across the relay coil. The relay will buzz regardless of load. Despite what has been said elsewhere in this discussion the basic circuit described by Imhotep WILL NOT buzz unless the load is connected.
The key point here (IMO) is that the Imhotep circuit has the load connected in series with the buzzer instead of in parallel with the buzzer coil. The key difference is that in the conventional circuit the ignition coil sees an open circuit at the buzzer when the buzzer is ‘off’, but in Imhotep’s circuit there is never an open circuit. Even when the buzzer contacts are open there is still a current path through the relay coil. Experimental evidence does indicate that the Imhotep circuit has some advantages in terms of current consumption:

Bubba Hotep Imhotep w/lamp in relay circuit Imhotep no lamp
10.5A 5.5A 7.3A sparking
5.1A 4.1A 1.4A no load
2.3A 1.5A 1.65A 1 wire CFL
1.61A 1.47A 1.59-1.34 2 wire CFL

I cannot explain the larger currents I recorded compared with those reported by others here, except that I have a really cheap digital meter which may be reading peak amps instead of RMS. Since my power supply is only rated for 2.5A at 12V, it seems unlikely that these are accurate RMS readings.

It remains to be seen which circuit provides the stronger energy recovery pulse. In the absence of experimental evidence, my guess would be that the conventional circuit will give a stronger ‘kick’ to the energy recovery circuit.

Note that all of the solid state circuits discussed here operate more like the conventional circuit than like the Imhotep circuit in that they switch the + lead to the coil and approach open circuit conditions when the output is switched off.

2) Values of my components:
Relay: Bosch automotive relay 0832204107 80 ohm coil
Coil: Klitz G52S primary 4 ohms secondary 12k ohms
Condenser: .5uf 360V automotive style, originally used with this coil
The low coil resistance compared to the components recommended by imhotep clearly contributes to higher current consumption in the conventional circuit, and may impair proper operation of the Imhotep circuit in some subtle way.

3) Light and Sparks: This coil puts out a hefty spark when connected in either configuration. Copious quantities of ozone are produced. In two wire mode the CFL is lit to what appears to be close to normal brightness by either circuit. With either circuit adding another lamp does not appear to result in greater total light output, but this is hard to judge by eye. With the Imhotep circuit including the lamp in series with the relay, the relay noise quiets down considerably when the two wire CFL is connected to the circuit. Current readings fluctuated to a much greater extent with the 2 wire CFL connected.
Remember, ozone is not particularly good for a person in chronic exposure at levels high enough to smell. It will also prematurely age any rubber parts you may have in your shop.

4) Resonance effects: There has not been much discussion here of resonance effects and tuning the ignition coil/condenser combination to any particular operating frequency. It would seem to be advantageous to create a parallel resonant circuit, consisting of the ignition coil primary and the condenser, which is tuned to the operating frequency of the buzzer. A parallel resonant circuit approaches infinite impedance at resonance. My preliminary attempts to gauge the effect of increased capacitance were unsuccessful since the relay contacts welded as soon as I connected a moderate size (4.5uf) oil filled motor run capacitor in parallel with the ignition coil primary. It might also be desirable to resonate at some higher harmonic of the buzzer frequency, but note that automotive ignition coils suffer significant losses above 1000 Hz or so. Resonance of the ignition coil secondary as inductor and CFL as capacitor may account for the reduced buzzer noise I and others have noted when the CFL is connected as a two wire device to the output.

5) Harmonics: The square wave signal applied to the ignition coil by either the buzzer or the solid state interrupters is rich in harmonic frequencies. It is not clear (at least to me) how much of the effect of lighting the gas in the CFL, especially in one-wire mode is due to higher frequency effects and how much to the fundamental.

6) A note on capacitors used in these circuits: Any capacitors used in these circuits (including the arc quench capacitor across the relay coil) need to have a voltage rating exceeding the maximum voltage of the spikes by a good safety factor, otherwise the capacitors will be quickly destroyed. Note that the automotive condenser which was originally specified to operate with my coil is rated 0.5uf at 360V, even though this was intended to operate from a car 12V system. The same applies to any solid state components used to switch highly inductive loads – they will see the full voltage of the spike which is generated when the coil is switched off, and must be rated accordingly.

7) I do realize that the whole point of all this is the energy recovery circuit, which I have not tested at all yet due to lack of a suitable battery, and which has been deleted from the circuit diagrams I provide.

[jibbguy]

Actually, i've only written one single article on this subject. You may have seen the same one in different places; or other articles i've written that have nothing to do with it.

How your power is billed, Apparent or Real, is determined by your local power company. And there are ones in the U.S. that do charge Consumers by Apparent Power... As is still the case with my old home town in NE Ohio.

Also, there is serious question as to the accuracy of really reading Real Power by old-style mechanical meters. These in the most part were designed over 40 years ago and the technology to do this accurately is about 25 to 30 years old now. Looking at the schematics of the old G.E. mechanical models it is hard to see how they could do so; there are 10's of millions of these mechanical models still in service all over (the ones with the old turning disk).

But you would be correct in that if your meter reads in Real Power, and is a newer digital model, that you are not being charged NECESSARILY more for poor PF. But there are other factors: Like how far away your meter is from your home (trailer parks, condos, and apartments can be a significant distance away). If so, the line losses will be somewhat greater when there is poor PF. Also, i am currently investigating how some models of meters read the 4-wire setup, with 1 Common 1 Neutral, 2 Hots (split 115v adding up to 230V).

Since i wrote the piece, i have gotten some other info: Energy Star finally got back to me regarding PF, and they verified that they do not use it as a criteria for awarding the Energy Star logo to devices. And i got emails back from a total of 7 manufacturers of appliances, and none have PF Correction either. I also got some private messages from Engineers who have worked in the field and were wondering about this for their whole careers; never understanding why it has been so ignored.

I also later found a website that is for the CFL manufacturer's association. They have standards set for different "Quality Tiers" (prices); and for all of the 120V models (over 20 brands/models.. All apparently built in China and India), the best PF was .6 and most were .5 or .55 .

Also, as i am waiting for a friend to loan me some electronic test gear in the mail, i am still planning a minor correction about the phase shift of CFL's; in that at least in some cases there is current-leading Capacitive phase shift, caused apparently by the ballast and not Inductive current-lagging as was stated (although the Inductive shift is still true for appliances using AC motors). Also, that because of the cheaply-made circuits being balanced on the head of a pin as far as impedance goes, it would be very difficult to PF Correct them ourselves, and a total circuit re-design would be needed. Since we know that 230 VAC models sold in Europe can do this, then we know that in mass production it would not be overly costly to do so. Once i get a better handle on the waveforms myself, i will correct these errors.

Another person recently told me that waveform distortion is causing the poor PF. This is not so: The current (I) waveform need not be sinusoidal, only in phase with the V . "Harmonic Distortion", something different entirely, WILL cause poor PF but that is not an issue here.

I thank you for your interest Please check out the "Free Energy and Open Source Energy Movement" articles: There are subjects of significantly greater importance there. You can see them all here at Peswiki (User contributions - PESWiki.

Perhaps the most important thing about that CFL article is how we can modify them for much greater efficiency ala **~Imhotep~**'s circuit (which keeps getting constantly improved by the other great experimenters here and at Overunity); to be nearly-Free Energy devices. This will have impact in the Third World... Or even with us here in the "first" if it keeps getting better and better as it has... It could prove to be really significant

[thedude]

i think it changes the balance of the circiut have you tryed parrell thedude did some stuff with that, watch him stuff too i find his funny.in one hes peeled the shin off his finger riping off tape from his wheel and now keeps getting little shock on his little pinkys(sorry dude but its funny)lol
good luck

My skin was thin... it grew back. :P lol!

I really would love to get back to contributing here. My cat ( named "Dell", appeared in my first SSG video ) passed away yesterday and I'm having trouble focusing for the moment. I'll be back and hopefully able to add to the discussion here soon.

Looks like there are some new opinions on the block, great so see more and more joining in here. Lots to read, so for now that is all i will do.

Thanks to everyone here, keep it coming.

[KGround]

How your power is billed, Apparent or Real, is determined by your local power company. And there are ones in the U.S. that do charge Consumers by Apparent Power... As is still the case with my old home town in NE Ohio.

Also, there is serious question as to the accuracy of really reading Real Power by old-style mechanical meters. These in the most part were designed over 40 years ago and the technology to do this accurately is about 25 to 30 years old now. Looking at the schematics of the old G.E. mechanical models it is hard to see how they could do so; there are 10's of millions of these mechanical models still in service all over (the ones with the old turning disk).

I would be interested to hear more about that little town in NE Ohio and how they manage to charge for apparent power. Would you care to divulge the name of the utility company ?

The design for mechanical meters is more like 100 years old, with the technology remaining essentially unchanged since the beginning. In essence the rotating aluminum disk acts as an induction motor. (in a single phase meter) two coils drive the disk, one connected across the line (voltage) and the other in series with the line (current). The induction disk performs the multiplication of (instantaneous) volts X (instantaneous) amps and the revolution counter (the dials you see) perform the integration. Over the years there have been a few lawsuits challenging the accuracy of these meters and in all cases the meter technology has been upheld as inherently accurate. Basically if the meter is built correctly and is not worn out or tampered then it will read real power accurately. Unlike modern electronic meters, the mechanical meters have no failure modes which work in the electric company's favor. As far as I know there has been no way to even measure apparent power consumption on a continuous basis until the advent of the modern electronic meter.

I'll continue the discussion as long as you want, but we should probably do it elsewhere, as it really isn't directly pertinent to Imhotep's lighting circuit...

[Aaron]

PFC posts

I'm not sure if Imhotep minds these detailed power factor correction posts in this thread but since it is such a deep intense topic that could take on a very big life on its own, why not someone start a : Power Factor Correction
thread? That would be a good title for it.

The work on the radiant oscillators and lighting CFL's is an incredible project and I wouldn't want to make it a challenge for experimenters to have to find the relevant posts.

IF Imhotep wants me to, I can move PFC posts to a new thread.

[amigo]

...snip...

The most obvious reason is that all digital equipment operates by taking samples of data at a specific rate. Most of these sample rates are relatively low for normal meters, and therefore miss the peak events, or only capture them once in a while, in a high frequency environment like this. If your oscillator is running at a fixed rate, you should be able to see a secondary wave moving through the data as the sample rate of the meter and the oscillation rate of the system interact. It looks random at first, but then you can see it.

...snip...

Peter

Hi Peter,

Couldn't we use fast ADC for sampling and how much bandwidth do we really need? Most of the effects are sub-MHz since I'm yet to see a circuit that goes above 50KHz if at all, unless someone's running a real Tesla setup with 1us-level impulses.

As you know there are many ADCs, pretty affordable at that as well. Many of them will do 5-20Ms/s without issues, perhaps we could hook one up to a micro-controller and output values to a LCD display for real time measurements, or log to the USB port...

[**~Imhotep~**]

I'm not sure if Imhotep minds these detailed power factor correction posts in this thread but since it is such a deep intense topic that could take on a very big life on its own, why not someone start a : Power Factor Correction
thread? That would be a good title for it.

The work on the radiant oscillators and lighting CFL's is an incredible project and I wouldn't want to make it a challenge for experimenters to have to find the relevant posts.

IF Imhotep wants me to, I can move PFC posts to a new thread.

Because the pf correction applies to all electronics and not just the irol I think that would be a great idea Aaron that way it doesnt confuse the new scientist coming and replicating the circuit. Excellent idea

[**~Imhotep~**]

My skin was thin... it grew back. :P lol!

I really would love to get back to contributing here. My cat ( named "Dell", appeared in my first SSG video ) passed away yesterday and I'm having trouble focusing for the moment. I'll be back and hopefully able to add to the discussion here soon.

Looks like there are some new opinions on the block, great so see more and more joining in here. Lots to read, so for now that is all i will do.

Thanks to everyone here, keep it coming.

No problem mate, Shiva has 2 cats that she is very attached to herself, a spunky little female and a little male. We thought we lost the male a few months back but 3 months after he disappeared he showed back up with mild amnesia and skin and bones. But she nursed him back to health and hes out and about now like nothing happened. Shiva always gets concerned now when he takes off on his wild adventures for a few days at a time. Loosing a pet is like loosing a piece of the family. We send our condolences .

[Lidmotor]

Simple IROL for the simple people

Thedude my condolences also on the loss of your cat. I lost a dog last year and it was hard. Imhotep and Aaron please do consider keeping this thread going straight ahead as an IROL project. Specifically consider the people like myself who know somethings but are a little "electronics challenged". I am starting to get messages from people on Youtube who have seen the videos and want to build this but don't even have a clue where to get the parts or where to begin. I'm sure many people come here looking for the answers.
Thanks Peter for explaining about the digital meters and how they work. Also for telling about your work with JB and what you discovered. I see this project as a possible proof to the world of some interesting phenomenon. People have a hard time relating to a bunch of spinning magnets on a wheel but show them a standard CFL that lights up on miliamps and can run for hours on a couple of AA 12v battery packs and they get real interested.

Lidmotor

[Soldyur]

New 2 the forum

Hello,

I just wanted to say that I am in the process of building an IROL. Ashtweth brought this great useful discovery to my attention and sent me some stuff. I wrote Lidmotor on the youtube after watching his videos and realizing he is in the U.S. I want to build self contained units for an agricultural village that I am building here in Mexico. This is a need for us down here. I have been looking up the prices of solar panels and found some cheap 5 watt panels on ebay that I might order. I am waiting a minute to see what all you smart jokers come up with. All I can do is get a list and a schematic and take it to my electronic friend to get it cranked up. So not much to contribute besides that I will put this to good use down here with the Aztecs and Totonacos. I will put together the original and go from there. Thanks for letting me and others benefit from all the work put into this. One quick question? What is the final word on the buzzing relay is the 555 better and does not buzz or what is the best way at this point?

Jason

[hh1341]

My cat ( named "Dell", appeared in my first SSG video ) passed away yesterday and I'm having trouble focusing for the moment. I'll be back and hopefully able to add to the discussion here soon.

Sorry to hear about Dell, Dude.

I too have a cat in my life that I love dearly.

Carl