Simple voltage regulator oscillator

[jonnydavro]

Hi I was listening to a power supply buzzing away and I wondered if i could use this unwanted characteristic of some voltage regulators to oscillate ,to pulse a coil and this is what i came up with.
I used a TS 2950 3.3v voltage regulator, a coil and an led and it worked.The input voltage is quite important to get the TS2950 oscillating,it needs to be between 1.35 and 1.5v when using the circuit in its simplest form but the input voltage range can be widened by adding a cap and resistor.
By using a 1:1 bifiar coil,you can also charge a battery or cap but what is interesting about this circuit is it will run on microamps and the output voltage when using the bifilar coil is a lot higher than the input voltage or output of the voltage regulator.I have not done much experimenting with this yet but i would be interested to hear what you think.
Here is a vid and circuit diagrams.Jonny



YouTube - Voltage regulator oscillator

[altrez]

Very interesting

[jonnydavro]

Thanks Atrez.I left the circuit running and 12 hours later,both the run and charge batteries had gone up.
Here is a pic of the meters,12 hours after I made the vid.The left meter shows the run battery and right is charge.In the vid you can clearly see the voltages are lower so something strange may be going on here.Jonny

[altrez]

I agree I plan to replicate soon. It looks like part of the pice to a much larger puzzle.



-Altrez

[Lidmotor]

It works

@ Jonny
I found a 3.3v regulator ( NTE1904) at a local electronics store and got it to work using a Bedini SSG trifilar coil. The regulator would only oscillate at about 1.6 to 2 volts and the LED had to be lit up off the coil secondary. At least that is a start and at least it worked. I will play with it more tomorrow. I will also order the correct regulator. They are dirt cheap from Mouser.com over here.

Lidmotor

[jonnydavro]

@ Jonny
I found a 3.3v regulator ( NTE1940) at a local electronics store and got it to work using a Bedini SSG trifilar coil. The regulator would only oscillate at about 1.6 to 2 volts and the LED had to be lit up off the coil secondary. At least that is a start and at least it worked. I will play with it more tomorrow. I will also order the correct regulator. They are dirt cheap from Mouser.com over here.

Lidmotor

That is great Lidmotor.It is good to know that it will work with other regulators .
The TS2950 is an ultra low drop out regulator,it was this that drew me to that one.Adding the small 4.7 electrolytic cap and resistors make the operating voltage band wider.Using larger caps turn's the LED into a flasher.Frequency is changed with the variable resistor along with current draw.
Can't wait to see how you get on.Have fun.Jonny

[Lidmotor]

Replication video

@Jonny
I got the circuit running all kinds of things today and finally used it to drive one of my low voltage pulse motors.

Here is the video of it:
YouTube - Voltage regulator oscillator by Jonnydavro.ASF

I ordered some more 3.3v voltage regulators today. This is a great way to oscillate a coil!!!

Thanks for sharing this.

Lidmotor

[jonnydavro]

@Lidmotor.Thankyou so much for trying this and putting your ideas into it
The voltage regulator you used looks like it works really well and it may work with lower voltages if you put a small cap across the battery,I used a 4.7uF electrolytic.
The large 1:1 bifilar coil I used was the one I use for my pendulum and when I first ran the circuit,the coil was under the pendulum so i gave it a push and off it went but to find out from you that it will spin a rotor is the icing on the cake
After I made the vid,I left the circuit running and its still buzzing the speaker now and the run battery has not gone down but up a bit and the charge battery has gone up significantly,this is after 40 hours of constant running.The circuit is drawing 84uA and running a speaker and charging a battery.This seems highly unusual as looking at the data sheet for the TS2950,the Quiescent current which is the current needed to run the regulator and is not available to the output is 75uA but this is when the regulator is running in normal stable mode, however we are not running it under normal conditions,we are running it in oscillation or resonance and this seems to be a whole new ball game as I am getting a constant output of 2V from the bridge rectifier from an input of 1.47v at 84uA where 75uA are used up to run the internal circuit So i think there is a lot more going on here.
I have also noticed it will charge a battery which is at a higher voltage than the run battery.
Here is a pic of the meters after 40 hours.Left is run,right,charge.Thanks.Jonny.

[altrez]

@ Jonny
I found a 3.3v regulator ( NTE1904) at a local electronics store and got it to work using a Bedini SSG trifilar coil. The regulator would only oscillate at about 1.6 to 2 volts and the LED had to be lit up off the coil secondary. At least that is a start and at least it worked. I will play with it more tomorrow. I will also order the correct regulator. They are dirt cheap from Mouser.com over here.

Lidmotor

Hello Lidmotor,

Do you mind sharing that mouser part number?

[Lidmotor]

Part Number

Hello Lidmotor,

Do you mind sharing that mouser part number?

The Mouser part# for the TS2950 is 821-TS2950CP33. I didn't order that one because it was not in stock and I didn't want to wait a long time. Instead I found an interesting one at Electronicgoldmine and I am going to try it. That one costs 25 cents and is a 1.2volt regulator that will work all the way down to 10 micro amps. That part# is LM385Z-1.2 and item #G18102. I am still looking around for the TS2950 (or equivalent) that I can get locally or order without waiting a month. Radio Shack sells a 5 volt regulator that I got to work but only at a higher voltage. If you just want to see the effect and get started --run down to your local RS and get one of those.

@Jonny
I think that this oscillator might run and Exciter of some kind.

Lidmotor

[Lidmotor]

Oscillator running a magnet on a mirror

@Jonny @ All
I got the oscillator running a spinner magnet today and found that the magnet would run next to a small air core coil with the coil vertical. I thought that is was strange so I made a quick video of it--

YouTube - Jonny's Voltage Regulator Oscillator-- part 2.ASF

I got my parts from Electronic Goldmine and neither one of the voltage regulators worked. . The low voltage one was just a zener diode thing and the other part was a 5volt regulator that would only work at higher voltages.
I guess that I just lucked out getting the 3.3v one that worked that first day.

Anyway it is a fun idea Jonny but has it's limitations. Mine will not run any kind of exciter circuit and will only work in a very narrow voltage range. I am still wondering what the best use for it is. I'll try to track down the regualtor that you used and try that one.

Cheers,

Lidmotor

[jonnydavro]

@Lidmotor.HiGreat experiment.
A long way back in the early days of the one mag Bedini when I was first testing the diametric ring rotor,I came across similar behavior.I too was astounded by the variety of coil positions which this rotor will trigger the coil in and made a vid.I wonder what the coil would do if it was suspended by a string and free to move with the magnet?
YouTube - One magnet no bearing Bedini motor.Coil orientation test
I am so glad that you chose to use the NTE1904 and found that you can spin a rotor as i have tried with the TS 2950 and it won't spin a rotor or do any exciter stuff with a trigger coil but it will kick a pendulum and light leds on uA and will even run an identical VRO with the unnaturaly high output from the secondary which i still can't get my head round and I have had it running on 16v but these voltage regulators IC'S are all built different so there will be plenty more things to find out but thats why we post these circuits,to explore and see what happens and occasionaly you get a wow moment.
P.S.Don't forget to get some 4.7uF 50v electrolytic caps for the TS2950 circuit.I am going to try your Nte 1904 circuit.Have you scoped this yet?
Thanks for spending a bit of your time on this,I Know you are busy with other things.Jonny

[Lidmotor]

Blast from the past

@Lidmotor.HiGreat experiment.
A long way back in the early days of the one mag Bedini when I was first testing the diametric ring rotor,I came across similar behavior.I too was astounded by the variety of coil positions which this rotor will trigger the coil in and made a vid.I wonder what the coil would do if it was suspended by a string and free to move with the magnet?
YouTube - One magnet no bearing Bedini motor.Coil orientation test
I am so glad that you chose to use the NTE1904 and found that you can spin a rotor as i have tried with the TS 2950 and it won't spin a rotor or do any exciter stuff with a trigger coil but it will kick a pendulum and light leds on uA and will even run an identical VRO with the unnaturaly high output from the secondary which i still can't get my head round and I have had it running on 16v but these voltage regulators IC'S are all built different so there will be plenty more things to find out but thats why we post these circuits,to explore and see what happens and occasionaly you get a wow moment.
P.S.Don't forget to get some 4.7uF 50v electrolytic caps for the TS2950 circuit.I am going to try your Nte 1904 circuit.Have you scoped this yet?
Thanks for spending a bit of your time on this,I Know you are busy with other things.Jonny

Thanks for posting that video. Those were fun times when we were learning what whould work with the diametric ring magnet rotor. The reason that I thought this coil/rotor position in my video was interesting was that the coil is single wire wound and there is no feed back coil. Somehow the spinning magnet is supplying a feedback signal BACK through the drive coil. Without the small radio to tune the motor to this one sweet spot, the effect is almost impossible to get.
I have not looked at it on the scope yet. Hanging the coil by a string would be a fun experiment but I think that the coil and magnet would just wind up into a knot.
I am pretty busy with the Bedini Light project. I have made a bunch of "homemade " batteries before but none of them perfom like the ones we are now building. John has really helped us out.

Lidmotor

[jonnydavro]

The reason that I thought this coil/rotor position in my video was interesting was that the coil is single wire wound and there is no feed back coil. Somehow the spinning magnet is supplying a feedback signal BACK through the drive coil.

Hi Lidmotor,That is a good point.I do not know what the trigger mechanism is and would love to hear other experimenters thoughts on this as to improove something,we have to understand it .
I am following the earth light thread and I got the mg ribon and activated carbon water filter like you used and a couple of small carbon rods to do small scale tests but have only got as far as winding one of these small rods with an experimental setup and had it sitting in a tube of tap water to see how it goes and so far after 4 days,there are no signs of the mg eroding and it runs the votage reg osc but I must say it is good to see John Bedini so involved with a group of experimenters,all working together for the same goal.Jonny

[quantumuppercut]

hello jonnydavro,

I wonder if you do not have the negative of the charging battery/rectifier back to the negative of the running battery, what is the voltage boost? Probably much less than 2 volts but I wonder. Neat stuff, thanks.

QU