Imhotep's Radiant Oscillator Video

[ren]

Nice. Interesting use of PNP and NPN, not many others tried that out yet.

Your light looks about as bright as mine gets @ similar amp draw. My globe is a 24watt globe, and I have to push close to its original specs to get comparable light. By comparable I mean, you cant look at it without it burning a "ghosting" image into your retina

But you still must consider the fact that the globe originally runs off 240v @ 8 watt, and you are able to light it with 1/20th of the potential at approximately the same power levels. And recover some in the process. That has to count for something. Considering the alternative is an inverter, which Id imagine would drain 600ma or more just at idle, but then again I havent had alot of hands on time with inverters so I cant be sure.

Enjoying the zaps? I got a few good shocks myself in the beginning. Your length of spark can vary due to the conditions present. I have been able to get up to 30mm arcs, but have to push a fair amount of current to do so.

[sucahyo]

@ren, ok.

I have build another circuit that has the same characteristic as yours. It is high frequency too, not sure how high, but you can hear the frequency.

The circuit is capacitor discharge circuit like the one I mention in

http://www.energeticforum.com/renewable-energy/showthread.php?t=3730

I use the second one where I replace the charging battery with car coil with neon in secondary. I never imagine that this circuit would be powerfull enough to zap me using long spark. See attachment, notice the one with blurred finger, see the spark length that zap my finger. The car coil also scream really loud and audible directly.

It light up the CFL as bright as it originally is. It is a 8 watt CFL though, and lighting it up as bright as original with 0.6A 12V is not really efficient (7 watt).

YouTube - Capacitor discharge CFL lighter

The wireless neon lighting is also possible and light up the neon bulb very bright. The part where I draw my hand quickly is when I got little sting from the neon terminal that I hold. Maybe the spark jump trough the glass. The longest spark I measure is about 2 cm or close to 1 inch. Maybe just ordinary spark length for anyone, but experiencing it by hand sure is surprising .

[ren]

I see.

I understand the point Red Eagle made regarding high frequency and dwell time, however, my experience with my simple circuit has shown me that reduced dwell time (on time) does lower amp draw, but at the cost of illumination. Push 300ma @ 100hz gives pretty much the same light as 300ma @ 6kHz. But if you set it draw 300ma @ low frequency and raise the frequency without adjusting dwell your light output will decrease, but your amp draw goes down. I can get the globe to glow dimly at less than 50ma with careful tuning, but I wonder what the point is besides a night light for my little girl

Of course this is a very simple circuit, and probably fails to show exotic behaviour others have claimed/seen.

I have noticed too that charging is stronger when the frequency is lower (amperage adjusted to eliminate that variable), however I rarely charge anything on the backend, it just doesnt cut the mustard anywhere near a 1 to 1 charge. This has been noted before by others too. I was actually thinking along the lines of Lidmotors latest experiment and using it to run a series of LED's and/or charge much smaller batteries more efficiently.


In regards to "sweet spots" I tune according to output light. Pushing 200-300 ma gives good light @ low power, and from about 500ma on it increases again. So I guess there are sweet spots. There is no reason to push, say 600ma, if the same light can be had for 500.


Regards

[sucahyo]

@Lidmotor, interesting experiment .

@ren, my circuit goes as low as 25Hz or so (as I hear). The recovery part will have higher voltage, brightest light, faster motor at around 50 Hz, or maybe around 1000 ohm base resistance. Lower or higher will make the light dimmer. The amp draw always increase more at lower frequency.

So, on my circuit, there is sweet spot for efficient lighting, lowest amp draw but brightest light.

Your experience seems the opposite of what redeagle had:

http://www.energeticforum.com/renewable-energy/2255-imhoteps-radiant-oscillator-video-76.html#post42715

[ren]

You'll have to come over one day and show me how to use it :-)

Be happy too, PM me your schedule over the next few days mate. Im going to be down your way (work) over the next few days.

[Inquorate]

@ ren

You'll have to come over one day and show me how to use it :-)

[ren]

I had 3 555 timers die in a puff of smoke, one burst into flames, another 2 just stopped working. About a fraction of a second after I turned it on... But your ignition coil looks different to mine, who knows. :-)

lol gotta love the magic smoke.

This shouldnt happen however. Spontaneous combustion of your 555 upon connection to a suitable source (no higher than 18v) is most likely to incorrect wiring and/or direct short causing gobs of current to flow through something that it shouldnt.


I have had a very stable platform for sometime now with my PWM and single transistor circuit. Over 200 light hours clocked up on SG Radiant charged batteries with a variable amp draw (100ma-1amp) depending on lighting level desired. It doesnt heat up or skip a beat. (Ben, its the same as the one I gave you, with 2n3055 )

Lid has had some success with 555's.

@ Sucahyo, I found that varying the pulse width at any given frequency on mine allows you to adjust brightness at the cost of higher amp draw. If you adjust frequency higher amp draw will decrease, but so will light. All in all, it seemed to me that high or low frequency would give the same amount of light given that amp draw was taken into account. Just what I found, experimenting between 100Hz and 7kHz.

[Lidmotor]

CFL circuit and Joule Thief joined

@ Everyone ---- I thought that I should post this video here rather on another thread because it envolves a CFL charging circuit. I took a modified Aromaz circuit and attached a Super-cap powered JT circuit to it. The JT is really a parasite on the main CFL circuit drawing just enough energy to keep it's cap full. It is removable and doesn't affect the main circuit. When the JT is removed it feeds on the energy stored in it's 10F cap until it goes back to the main circuit to draw blood.
I also put a "bulb charging" circuit on the main circuit that gathers energy off the CFL. All I have it do now is flash a neon at about 100volts. I couldn't figure out where to put that HV energy.
The whole thing runs on 12V at 50ma or less.

YouTube - CFL and JT combination lights

Cheers,

Lidmotor

[sucahyo]

I had 3 555 timers die in a puff of smoke, one burst into flames, another 2 just stopped working. About a fraction of a second after I turned it on... But your ignition coil looks different to mine, who knows. :-)

Wow, I guess I was lucky. Did you already put resistor between 555 and transistor? I think it would reduce current passing transistor and 555.

I reduce BEMF by using high pot value for resistor between 555 and transistor. And I start the circuit using zero resistance for 555 duty cycle pot, I use this to get high COP.

Nice idea for the diode Mutten, do the diode connect from source negative to source positive like EV gray did?

But I think I'll see how long this 555 can live without diode....

[Mutten]

I put a 1n4007 diode going from the 555 ground ( pin1 I think ) to the battery. I was running the coil and driver from the same battery.

I haven't smoked this one yet, and its been about 2 weeks.

diode helps to protect the 555 from coil backspikes.

[Bodkins]

I've never had 555 timers that lasted long enough to find out :-)

I just trigged the base of the 2n3055 with the 555 0n a different power supply it safer to do it that way

[Inquorate]

Any frequency

I had 3 555 timers die in a puff of smoke, one burst into flames, another 2 just stopped working. About a fraction of a second after I turned it on... But your ignition coil looks different to mine, who knows. :-)

[sucahyo]

I've never had 555 timers that lasted long enough to find out :-)

It dies right away while the coil is screaming at any frequency you feed it ? Mine almost then ...

[Inquorate]

'On' time

I've never had 555 timers that lasted long enough to find out :-)

[sucahyo]

555 circuit success

.



I finally able to run a 555 driven 2n3055 today. Got happy with a lot of BEMF using battery and car coil, lighting up fan, 5Volt light bulb and CFL.

I don't realize that the battery voltage is drop much, until I power the circuit using computer power supply. The BEMF is so powerfull that it light up 5volts so bright to the point of burning up the filament. Have to remember to be more carefull next time.............

I add 10K potentiometer at transistor base now to control current. Still use 555's twin potentiometer to make ON signal as low as possible at high frequency.

Anyone using PWM, do you optimize the COP using ON signal as short as possible or by using 50:50 duty cycle and using frequency as high as possible?