3 Battery Generating System

[blackchisel97]

WOW ! Nice score there - I'm guessing you got them for a good price or better? I'm looking for some more of these myself so if you got any hints on where to find them for a good price please do tell.

ewizard,Beside golf courses, try RV dealers. Most RV batteries are deep cycle and there is usually 2-6 in a bank. I'm talking those from the "housing" bank, not the starting battery. They're meant to power furnace, fridge lights etc. They maybe sulfated due to improper winter storage but never abused. Dealers trade them for the new ones and get $10 -15 rebate on the core. I'm trying to make a deal locally with one guy. I can restore some in exchange for some. He is interested.

Treadmill had AC motor in it. I have to wait.
Cheers
Vtech

[Turion]

Hey guys,

These little tiny 2.3 amp hour batteries worked for my 2 dead "wing" batteries. I was able to get the loads to balance and draw down nothing off the primaries. Just to let you know, I had the load all balanced and it ran for quite a while and then the motor sped up, and I had to quickly throw the switch and add a load to the motor to slow it down again. I still need to get some smaller 12 volt lights installed in my board to act as loads. The smallest I have is 25 amp. I was running a 50 and a 25 amp off the generator as load, balanced with I don't know what on the AC side when I finally lost the balance and my inverter went to red light. So I have to start over. I am charging up my primaries and will do a really accurate run in the morning of beginning voltages, amp draw, loads, balancing and the whole works. I know some of you have been waiting for that.

Now that I know you can use smaller batteries for the two dead batteries, it makes a big difference Those may be easier to come by and will surely be less expensive.

Dave

[blackchisel97]

Thanks Dave
Those batteries seems to be the "wings" of a dipole of some sort. At least this is the way I see this setup. I have to wait for my motor to get another setup done. Brushless isn't doing the job. I believe the trick is in the spark gap - commutator and brushes. My small setup with RC motor and 6V batt's was working just as you described in your first post but it is a pain to work on such small scale.
Thanks for taking time to share your tests.

Vtech

[Turion]

3BGS schematic 6 Test 4 - YouTube

Did another run. My dead batteries, which would NOT charge on a conventional charger, and which both showed zero volts, are now showing 12 volts. So apparently I have fixed them. This is getting to be a pain in the butt.

This morning I was able to start the setup with no resistors at all connected. This afternoon I had to start with 4 100 ohm 1 watt resistors, and could immediately disconnect them when I got it running and replace their draw with loads.

I began with a small load and began to add loads to both the DC side (which is the top row of lights on my light board) and the AC side (which is the bottom row of lights on my light board. I kept trying to balance the loads so I could show you guys how I try to do that. When it runs "out of balance" for a while, the whole thing will shut down and it did that to me on this video.

Gotta make dinner for the wife (she works....I don't... so I cook!!) so that will be it for me today. Tomorrow I will add some larger light bulbs to the AC side and try to balance a larger load. I want to try the two diodes again now that I have removed the kilowatt meter and see if I can get it to work with those. If I can, and can balance some larger loads, I will move on to the bigger motors.

Tomorrow is another day!!

Dave

[LutherG]

Battery score

WOW ! Nice score there - I'm guessing you got them for a good price or better? I'm looking for some more of these myself so if you got any hints on where to find them for a good price please do tell.

Hi ewizard,

I got them for $25 apiece plus old cor of any kind trade-in. So I offloaded some batteries I couldn't use and got these... I searched in the Yellow Pages for Batteries - Surplus and found them. I got my last set of AGM batteries from them, then traded them for the golf cart batteries. Now I'm putting together a monopole to condition them.

Regards,

Luther

[fathershand]

Progress!

3BGS schematic 6 Test 4 - YouTube

Did another run. My dead batteries, which would NOT charge on a conventional charger, and which both showed zero volts, are now showing 12 volts. So apparently I have fixed them. This is getting to be a pain in the butt.

This morning I was able to start the setup with no resistors at all connected. This afternoon I had to start with 4 100 ohm 1 watt resistors, and could immediately disconnect them when I got it running and replace their draw with loads.

I began with a small load and began to add loads to both the DC side (which is the top row of lights on my light board) and the AC side (which is the bottom row of lights on my light board. I kept trying to balance the loads so I could show you guys how I try to do that. When it runs "out of balance" for a while, the whole thing will shut down and it did that to me on this video.

Gotta make dinner for the wife (she works....I don't... so I cook!!) so that will be it for me today. Tomorrow I will add some larger light bulbs to the AC side and try to balance a larger load. I want to try the two diodes again now that I have removed the kilowatt meter and see if I can get it to work with those. If I can, and can balance some larger loads, I will move on to the bigger motors.

Tomorrow is another day!!

Dave

Way to go, Dave.
I like the news about the small wing batteries.
Thanks for posting!
Tony

[Turion]

I think if you look at the schematic the way Matt has this set up, the "wings" are to isolate the bad battery from the two batteries in series. He is placing the three (bad) batteries in series between the two good batteries. It's a dang creative circuit if you ask me.

Tomorrow I want to play with those diodes some.

Dave

[fathershand]

Series and Parallel and Naming

I think if you look at the schematic the way Matt has this set up, the "wings" are to isolate the bad battery from the two batteries in series. He is placing the three (bad) batteries in series between the two good batteries. It's a dang creative circuit if you ask me.

Tomorrow I want to play with those diodes some.

Dave

The bad batteries are in series as you say. They are also parallel with the good batteries.

I want to hear your results from the diode test. I haven't gotten my bad batteries yet, but I will soon.

Dave, could you please label your batteries for the video? It helps to see the labels when trying to see what is going on. Maybe we should call the bad batteries something like accumulators. What about A1, A2, A3, etc.? We could call the good batteries, primary, such as P1, P2, P3, etc.

Keep up the good work, everyone!!
Tony

[citfta]

Hi guys,

Well I just smoked my inverter this morning. I let the voltage get too high and got a loud bang from the inverter and it quit. I took it apart and found a blown up cap which was what I was expecting. I put another cap in and it is now working fine. I know some of you have said you have killed some inverters so this may be an easy fix instead of buying a new one. If you know how to solder on PC boards you can probably fix your inverter for only a couple of bucks. The over-voltage just causes the cap to explode. This is a small 400 watt inverter made by Coleman from Walmart.

Carroll

[Turion]

My one bad battery is not bad enough, so I am dead in the water for testing until I come up with another bad battery.

So it's off to the battery store for me. I have learned that you will if you try to make this work without two really, really, permanently dead wing batteries.

Dave

[fathershand]

More Bad Batteries - Accumulators

My one bad battery is not bad enough, so I am dead in the water for testing until I come up with another bad battery.

So it's off to the battery store for me. I have learned that you will if you try to make this work without two really, really, permanently dead wing batteries.

Dave

Dave, the accumulator was tested using the new method?
If so, what was the voltage after resting from the run?

Also, please label your meters and tilt them just a little upward for the video. It gets confusing trying to keep up with everything happening in your videos. There are so many different variables.

Your last video was very good!!

Thanks
Tony

[Turion]

Yes, it was tested using the new method. I had two bad batteries that showed zero volts that I just hooked into the system yesterday. Neither of them would start the motor (in the battery three position) no matter how long I let it sit. Neither of them would light up the light using a good battery, a light and the "bad" battery. But now. after doing four different runs with the system, one of them is gaining voltage. This setup just restores batteries. The other one is up to one volt also, but seems to be holding there.

EDIT: I found fifteen dead batteries today....all with less than one volt. Maybe at least a couple will work for this. I'm not going to have the time to talk much about this anymore. I need to spend my time in the basement working on it. You guys who have built it should be getting close to figuring it out. It is dang simple if you have the right batteries (which I said on the first page!!!!!) and Matt's diagram flat WORKS if you do. Finding the right batteries is not easy. I never said it would be, but it is worth it. From there, it's up to you. I am taking apart batteries to see what I can do to create a bad battery, and also trying to build a solid state version of this. I've given you guys everything I know. I'll still check in from time to time, because I KNOW the potential this has. I have seen it, and I will get there. The question is, will YOU? Don't let this become a place where only one or two people do all the work and everyone else sits back and watches, because then they will get discouraged and this thread will die. And that would be a terrible, terrible shame.

Dave
Battery video for those interested in batteries 3BGS Dead Battery - YouTube

[clueless]

"Rain, rain go away, come again another day."

The rain yesterday and today forced me to gain perspective, patience, and persistence. Not a bad thing. I covered everything in a tarp to keep it dry. It will be sometime on Thursday before I can resume any tests.
I spent 4 hrs with a buddy yesterday and now I understand the physcial layout of the control circuit and can replicate what Matt has shown.
I also borrowed from him an older inverter that doesn't shut down with either low or high volts. It is electric not electronic.
Tommorow is supposed to be sunny and if so I be back at it.
Tonight I had a thought no has mentioned ( at least I don't think anyone has) and if anyone is inclined maybe they can test this. I will when the weather clears but it needs to be eliminated or included. As I understand we are shooting for a balance on the motors and the draw on the "bad" battery(s) so as not to draw down the good batteries.
From what I've seen and the way I understand it we are focused on forward draw/energy; that is from the 2nd motor ( as a generator) going forward and from the "3rd bat" connected to an inverter again going forward. I guess you could look at is as a pulling effect.
Has anyone considered the possibility of what would happen if you placed a similar load across bat #1? Would that force motor#1 to increase backwards force to compensate for that draw.
I have seen voltages increase from the 2nd motor acting as a generator when the load on bat 3 was increased.
I wonder if anyone has thought that energy can be used during and after why there is a rule that says you can not use energy before it reaches the first motor (so to speak.)
It is something I will try but may take me a few days before I am ready. Meanwhile if anyone of you are setup where you can try it, the results might be interesting.
I also like the idea of threes and this looks at; before the motor, the motor (generator) and after the motor (invertor). Or then again I might be "crazy".
-rg

[fathershand]

Latest Test

I was able to find 2 bad batteries today. After further testing, only one was dead. So, with the 7AH battery that I already had and the additional one, I started a test with 2 bad batteries instead of three.

The diodes were in the circuit. The voltage across the bad batteries was .25V and wouldn't go any higher until I removed the diode on the negative post. The voltage jumped to 60V, and the motor still didn't start. After a while the voltage started falling and after a few minutes, the motor started.

I only ran it a while, but will get a good run tomorrow. Since I only have 2 bad batteries, and the schematic calls for three, I had to figure out how to connect the battery load, i.e., the inverted replacement.

Tomorrow I will get a good run.
Tony

[Turion]

fathershand,
You can use a low voltage battery as the middle battery (of the three bad batteries...or what was battery three in the original 3BGS) as long as you keep enough load on it to to keep its voltage from going higher than what the inverter can handle. Put a meter on it and keep adding loads to the inverter to keep its voltage low...8-14 volts. OR, hook the 100 ohm, 1 watt resister across battery 3. (Or two or three or four of them in parallel as Matt did) That will do it. Once you have that adjusted so the voltage in battery three is stable, you have to balance the load on the motor (or on the generator attached to the motor) with what is going on with battery three. Keep adding small loads to the generator and watch the voltage on battery three. Everything you do to the motor affects it, and you have to keep it in the 8-14 volt range for the inverter. Slow and easy...small steps. Adding a load to the motor means adding a load to the inverter.

Dave