3 Battery Generating System

[Turion]

Battery analyzer

This is the battery analyzer I have been using. It is by no means an expensive one.

[Turion]

Brushes

M12,
Unfortunately, that is a question I cannot answer. I never had a brush problem with the MY1016 when I was using them. But I never ran one that long either. I usually burnt them up. I soon moved to the MY1020 which is a bigger motor. No problem there either.

The My1016 stock or modified could not break the magnetic lock to start my generator and I burnt up lots of them. The MY1020 could start it about three times before it was also toast.

Once I solved the magnetic lock problem I put out enough energy that I didn’t NEED a modified motor and not having to wind them all the time was a great relief!! So I haven’t used a modified motor in quite some time. Just a stock motor with a 555 timer to get me the pulse I need. I can afford to waste energy in my circuits now because of what I get out of the generator.

On a small setup you just CAN’T afford to waste anything.

[m12]

lifetime of carbon brushes

Hi Turion,
According to your experience, to how many hours do you estimate the life of carbon brushes of the modified motor Mat MY?
Personally, I experimented with a ZY1016. When I bought it, I did not know that its collector had 20 poles instead of 16 as on the MY.
For good results, I found the solution that consisted in reducing a little the thickness of the carbon brushes, but the two that receive the collapse of the coils are now completely worn, after a hundred hours of operation only.
The other two carbon brushes are still good.

cordially
m12

[Turion]

Info

I did a little test today on two of my 12 volt batteries. Wired them in series and ran an 80 watt load for 3 hours and 10 minutes until battery voltage dropped to 12.5 volts. Don’t want to go lower than that. I also put the battery analyzer on them when they were fully charged and again when I was done.

Gonna run the same 80 watt load using the principles we have been sharing and see how long it lasts. Will run the battery analyzer tests on it also. Just for fun. Who knows HOW it will turn out. It all begins with understanding the principles, and THAT begins when you have a working circuit. Which requires a working modified Matt motor. Harp, harp, harp. That’s all I do.

[Sawt2]

Sawt2,
Nice winding there. Just noticed you used single wire instead of bifilar winding. Don't know what difference it makes. I copied Matt's motor modification to exact as possible to get same results. He helped me very much answering my questions.

Not being negative in any way. Just my two cents of observation. Interesting to see your results.

wantomake

[wantomake]

Looks good

Sawt2,
Nice winding there. Just noticed you used single wire instead of bifilar winding. Don't know what difference it makes. I copied Matt's motor modification to exact as possible to get same results. He helped me very much answering my questions.

Not being negative in any way. Just my two cents of observation. Interesting to see your results.

wantomake

[ilandtan]

I do IT. Working for a MIL contractor, I became a "real boy" started using PUIAS(Princeton LINUX - because it was closest to RHEL). I was able to do everything that I use to do in Windows, because I ran Windows 7 VBOX as a sub host. LINUX was just the protected wrapper, I could snapshot the WIN VM so If I felt any intrusion or anomaly I could roll back. The trick is to separate your data, and have network backups, while knowing what had to live where to function. Once you did that, you had a more powerful operating system without the direct access to kernel worries and praying zero day vulnerability would make you toast. ---jmtc

[Sawt2]

[wantomake]

First New Year post

My first post of new year.

Sorry to hear about the meltdown Matt. Sure you'll be back real soon. My son-in-law wanted to switch me over to Linux but decided not to as I'm not the IT type. Plus my relentless calls would have made him crazy. LOL.

My modified Matt motor days are passed as I hope to move on to better days in the shop.

Will see what this year brings.

wantomake

[Turion]

Update

You guys should know that Matt has had some technical difficulties, which required a whole new operating system installed from scratch on his computer. And since it is now a Linux machine and he NEEDS to be able to run some specific kinds of programs, he now has to figure out how to run similar programs in Linux. So he is swamped with trying to get all this figured out just so he can climb back up to the baseline he was on before everything went to crap. He may not be responding for a while.

On another note. If you haven't built a MODIFIED MATT MOTOR and begun to learn how these systems work and WHY we believe they are so important, you really need to do that. One day you will be kicking yourself that you wouldn't pay attention when you had the chance. That day is fast approaching.

[axxelxavier]

Alright give me a couple of days.
Matt

Ok, I will wait patiently.
I the meantime, I've been played with 3BGS with small 7 Amp Alum batts, load hooked to a booster (set to 36 volts), and then differential voltage (20 volt) to a REMF charger, charging the fourth battery. The results was somehow disappointing, which is normal, I think. The charge in third battery was inconsistent, not like the charge done before with the modified motor. This test failed big time, but I was aware of failure possibility.
Now I'm testing 3BGS using an inverter, wich give me some usable light at 800 mA current draw (inverter + 5 Watt led lamp). First cycle was very promising, BUT, I have to say now I'm using 40 Amp deep cycle batteries, and, it seems like resting time helps a lot charging the third batt.
Right now I'm running the second cycle, and the result looks, also, promising. Battery charged first time looks stable, and the charging process of the third battery seems to be effective.
After finishing all the cycles of the test, I will post results with diagrams.
By the way, light in the room is powered by inverter :-)


L.E. I updated this post with some Excel charts.

Short conclusions: main goal was achieved - third battery is charging for real with inverter.

Note 1: batteries was discharged only to 12 volt, though specs allow to be discharged down to 10,5 volt (FCD12-40AT batteries).
Note 2. all three batteries was not fully charged.
I manage to run batteries in 3BGS configuration for 35 hours, at 800 mA load, but this does not prove anything special, so far.
Anyway, in next test I'm just discharging the battery with inverter and led lamp, to see how long the load will last in real world.
I'm going to make a complete test using 3BGS configuration with fully charged batteries, down to 11 volts, only when my automatic switcher will be ready.

Best regards,
Teodor

[Matthew Jones]

Alright give me a couple of days.

Matt

[axxelxavier]

So the cheapest way to go is to localize every battery with the smallest Arduino you can get away with

I already have some Arduino Nano's laying around, and I'm going to try with those first.

It takes 6 fets per battery to be able to put the battery in any position in the system. You need 2 high side fets and 4 low side. You can do this simply with all the same parts for both low side and high side.

Do you have a schematic on this? I would like to try to use mosfets, instead of relays...

The whole thing is a big undertaking. Expensive too, but its the only way your going to get everything under total automation.

I already spended big bucks on my trials, not to mention all boards who end up in „magic smoke”. That's the price of knowledge, I suppose...

The schematic of mine is in a notebook so I have to convert it. Make sure you are up to the task.
If you wanna try on your own you'll need:
To be able to interface between 2 Arduino independent of each other through a digital Isolator. You will find the needed info on the arduino forum.
You'll need to be able to read voltages from a battery with an ADC from the arduino.
I can give the switching pattern and parts. You have to build a board for each battery.
Basically what happens is each board can hook to 1 of 3 positions. The high rail, the low side rail or resting. Each board is powered locally by the battery its attached too, and again each battery has its own control system and measurement system, a master controller manages up to 16 batteries in the system and that can be expanded radically.
Let me know if your interested.
Matt

For sure, I am VERY interested. At the beginning, I had the same idea as yours, to make local boards for controlling each battery, but my lack of information about electronics - to be more specific, about how to control those local Arduino's with a central one, make me stop.
My dream is to make an autonomous switching system, powered by each battery itself, with a small current draw.
There are techniques for low power consumption in Arduino which I already tested, and I intend to combine this with low power current draw switching of n-mosfets.
In the meantime, I will learn about arduino's i2c communication and digital isolators.
Best regards,
Teodor

[Matthew Jones]

You mention: „I have many Fet controlled 3 battery switchers that run from an arduino”. How did you managed to solve the common ground issue, for both voltage readings and for switching connections?

Best regards, and A HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Teodor

So the cheapest way to go is to localize every battery with the smallest Arduino you can get away with, which would be something like a ADA Trinket, or maybe just a little bigger, but something along that line.
It takes 6 fets per battery to be able to put the battery in any position in the system. You need 2 high side fets and 4 low side. You can do this simply with all the same parts for both low side and high side.
Now the little arduino's will interface to one big arduino central to the system and they will talk via SPI or I2c through a digital isolator. The Central Arduino will make the conclusions on what needs done based on the batteries current position and voltage.

The whole thing is a big undertaking. Expensive too, but its the only way your going to get everything under total automation.

You can also go the isolated ADC route if your real good with the arduino. The reason I would not use them is I don't believe there are Libraries that support it but there are plenty of libraries for TI adc's just not this isolated version. So you have to be able to write a library in C to run and interface that ADC.

https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/texas-instruments/ISO7341CDWR/296-47263-1-ND/7688273

The schematic of mine is in a notebook so I have to convert it. Make sure you are up to the task.

If you wanna try on your own you'll need:

To be able to interface between 2 Arduino independent of each other through a digital Isolator. You will find the needed info on the arduino forum.
You'll need to be able to read voltages from a battery with an ADC from the arduino.
I can give the switching pattern and parts. You have to build a board for each battery.

Basically what happens is each board can hook to 1 of 3 positions. The high rail, the low side rail or resting. Each board is powered locally by the battery its attached too, and again each battery has its own control system and measurement system, a master controller manages up to 16 batteries in the system and that can be expanded radically.


Let me know if your interested.

Matt

[bistander]

Spoonfeed?

Turion,

Asking for proof of claim is not insisting on being spoonfed. And why is posting facts, references to the science and asking reasonable questions not helpful? But instead of engaging me and discussing the concepts, you go on these rants. I have a great deal of experience in exactly the types of systems you're doing. You fail to recognize that and refuse the help I offer.

Why have none of these "positive results seen by too many people" been posted in a fashion where we can examine the methods and data? Show me one other who has built and documented your single battery dual converter system? I think I'm the only one. Isn't that helpful? Wasn't I helpful when another member asked about converters? Didn't I even help Matt understand better those converters?

Face it. You get hurt because the correct explanations and facts I post often contradict what you have posted. You could learn from that but instead you attack me. You should appreciate me.

And yes, bring your iceberg into port and show us more than the tip.

Regards,

bi