Bedini Capacitive Discharge Chargers

[Aaron]

discharge info

Hi all,

You can certainly use higher voltage discharges if you want.

I've done up to 90v from caps triggered by neon bulb triggering a scr.
If voltage is too high with not enough current..example...I was using a
600v cap .1 or .01 uf...so it fills up fast...at high frequency discharge of
voltage like that...it will make the batts rise in voltage, but won't power
much...it is electrostatic voltage charge.

You need at least the bare minimum amount of current to get the lead
ions moving in charging mode to my understanding.

Those caps in the vid are 30,000 60volts...made by Aerovox or something.
Anyway, I got those from ebay about 6 years ago or so for about $5 each.

A neon/scr circuit can replace an entire 555 circuit but again, if the trigger
voltage is high and not enough capacitance to give a good burst, it will be
a very fluffy charge.

If capacitance is too high to get the voltage rise in the caps that you want, then the discharge frequency might be too slow and again, this won't charge a battery very well. I used a bike wheel motor with the 2000 turn trifilar charging 180,000uf to about 2-3 volts over the battery and triggered by mechanical switch on pully and it took about 2 seconds to get to a few volts above the battery...and that works fine as long as the capacitance seems to be high enough. On that example for example, I would charge the batt like a 12v 7ah gel cell for 1-2 hours then I would turn off the circuit. The voltage would continue to climb and climb for up to an hour with no additional input. According to Bearden, that is the momentum of the lead ions still moving and that may or may not be accurate. Either way, the effect is very real.

[Jetijs]

I tried the neon bulb triggering once. It went well, but after a while the neon bulb became dimmer, I could see that the inner surface of the bulb became dark as if the bulb has blacken with somke from the inside. Then I stopped this test.

thanks guys for the quick response, so no 555 is needed in this setup either?
the local surplus store here has a half dozen or so big caps like the ones in aaron's video, think i might have to go shopping today

[lighty]

Basically instead of using the optocoupler to trigger the SCR they use a neon bulb instead. As the cap reaches enough charge to jump the gap in the bulb, it triggers the SCR. The bulb acts as a spark gap.

Indeed, and AFAIK the neon bulb conducts at about 100V and over. That's why I think the discharge voltage is higher.

[Ewhaz]

Basically instead of using the optocoupler to trigger the SCR they use a neon bulb instead. As the cap reaches enough charge to jump the gap in the bulb, it triggers the SCR. The bulb acts as a spark gap.

how does the neon bulb switch work? i have seen the 555/opto schematic and the mechanical pulley/contact switch, but never heard of a neon bulb switch. i am curious

[ren]

jet if its the same one Im thinking of he puts the mulitmeter on the caps. One of them fills fast to 16 v and the other one was a little slower but still @ 16 v. This is the monopole that has a large coil either side of a vertically rotating acrylic rotor. There is an aluminum timing wheel off to the side which dumps the charge every second or so into the batteries. I believe it is the one triggered by a hall switch?

[Jetijs]

In the dvd I saw him (Mr. Bedini) using those huge electrolytic capacitors with one of the models with mechanical comutator. These capacitors looked like those used for car audio systems. They are rated 1-3 farads and 24V max. If I recall it correctly, he used two of them in series. So we can assume he never went over the 48V at least with that small model.

[lighty]

I always thought that Bedini dischargers were set to release at least several tens of volts higher voltage than the battery voltage?

[Aaron]

cap discharge

Discharge the cap at about 2 volts over what is in the battery. You could do a few more volts over with no problem.

The if you reduce the capacitance (uf's), the volts will climb higher faster. But even so, you can make it trigger whenever you want with mechanical switch. With 555 circuit, you would have to adjust discharge frequency based on how often the cap gets to about 2 volts over the batt for whatever particular setup.

[ren]

lol, I feel your pain there mate. Although counting the turns on my coil was preferable to twisting the 3 wires together.

I have seen a little coil winder someone made with a pedometer hooked up so a magnet triggered it every revolution. Made alot of sense to me, AFTER I finished winding!


Another question back on topic .(getting sick of them yet? ) With cap dumping into a battery, what is the desirable voltage level in the cap for say a 12 v battery? Obviously you dont want it at 300000 volts or anything, but is double the voltage of the charge battery (i.e. 24v in this instance) beneficial? Or is that going to be dangerous? I have seen some people suggest this, I note that JB only filled his caps up to about 16v.

Is this voltage regulated by capacitor sizing or is the discharge into the charge source timed so that the caps cannot increase over this amount?

[Aaron]

coil info

yes, with 3rd wire on top, it would be longer. I just counted turns. One coil was 1000 turns each wire and the 2nd bigger one I did was 2000 turns... I counted each and every excruciating turn! lol

John B doesn't count the turns...rolls out the length...twists them all together and winds on spools.

[ren]

Interesting. Thanks Aaron for your prompt response. It seems to me that the coils in the EFTV part 2 (the ones on the capacitor bank monopole with timing wheel) are rather large. As in much larger than 900 - 1000 turns. Perhaps this is because they are wound with the last winding on top? Perhaps they are just plain old BIG coils, and I should stop drooling.

Interesting to note you achieved excellent results, I believe that a winding ontop of another is similar to a transformer? Did you measure your wire into 3 equal lengths? Because if the third was wound ontop of a larger diameter then counting turns would result in a much larger length for the final winding, no?


I see what your saying about the scr. Its like a one way gate waiting for someone to open the latch. I think I will try a timing wheel first, theres much to learn even there, and then in time I will move on to a timed circuit. So much to learn!

Thanks again for your insight and advice.

S

[Aaron]

circuit info

Hi Ren,

The bigger coils I used are trifilar with the trigger and power wound first in the correct direction. Then on top of that, I wound the 3rd wire in reverse. Actually, I believe John's intended way was to wind all 3 at the same time in the same direction.

It was my misunderstanding and the dot at the bottom showed it was out of phase as in catching the collapse. However, I have seen amazing results doing it my way. If they were wound the same, I'm sure there would be a difference but not sure what.

I don't know all the technical differences between an scr, transistor, etc... all I know is that there is an input and output and the connection is made when a base/gate/trigger receives power. Also, there are differences in switching times, which can be identified on spec sheets...faster the better it seems. SCR seems to be more like a diode with a trigger.

Of course there is the inverse...input and output connection is there unless the trigger receives power to turn off the connection as in a PNP transistor.

I think for practical purposes mechanical/analog is best. You can always cut a piece of copper but you can't always have a 555 at your disposal if the entire electronics industry disappears.

I think you'd have no problem with the 555 circuits. As long as you just connect all the right connections together you got it.

[ren]

aaron, I am interested in the cap discharge circuit but I have a few questions.

Firstly you mentioned that your third winding that goes via FWBR to cap is wound in reverse. I saw this on one of Johns notes but it didnt sink in until I looked at it again the other day. Do you have any theories as to why this third winding is in opposition? Have you tried a regular trifilar to see if there is much difference? And is the winding wound with the other two or ontop? Trying to visualise the winding method and if it is with the other two Im thinking I will have to get the missus to help wind one

And secondly, I am trying to get my head around the scr. My understanding is that it is similar to a transistor? Do I trigger the scr to close the circuit much the same way in which I trigger the transistor to fire? Since I am still learining electronics and 555's are a little out of my league at the moment I would have to do this with a timing wheel I assume.