Bedini Ferris Wheel Regauging Motor

[txaggie00]

Les and John K, thank you for the replies!

We are going to run to the electronics store and pick up the suggested parts. I have a couple of quick questions. Are the coils supposed to be energized when the hall is over the magnet or the reverse? The way we have it right now, when the hall is over (using this term loosely) the magnet the coil switches off. Also, are we correct to use the south pole of the magnet for the hall switching? Do you recommend using the north? Les, we have tried different transistors for the hall (I think in the video we were trying the 93 b/c the 2955 was getting warm) and had it reversed (PNP vs NPN) once like you were saying, but we quickly found out that when that happens, the 94's get hot pretty quick, and since those never even get warm, we knew we had something wrong. Also, John K, we are going to try the 4.7V zener for the cap dump, but we both thought that JB had said to charge the cap to twice the battery voltage and that's why he went with the 75VDC, 90VDC surge capacitor. Did we misunderstand what he was saying? It's certainly nice to see ~35V get dumped into the charging batteries !

Thanks for your help!
Scott

EDIT: @John K. You may be interested in one of our little side projects involving a Renaissance Charge Rejuvenator. I can PM you the details if you're interested.

[John_K]

Hey guys,

I mentioned in the latest video, that Scott just posted, that I would post a schematic...

Here it is!


Thanks, Brent

Hi Scott & Brent,

Thanks for the HD video, very nice!

A couple of things - firstly, you are charging up the cap too high before dumping and wasting a lot of energy in the process. Ideally, the cap should be charged to 63% of it's capacity (47.25V). This is around 10V over the top of the battery voltage. So a 4.7V zener instead of the 36V. This should get you dumping 3 times per second.

Your hall transistor might be getting hot because you have a 12V zener on it. I was using a 15V zener and it was working fine and the MJE2955 I was using did not get hot at all.

I would also ditch the FWBR and replace it with a single STPS8H100D, which is a 8A 100V Shottky rectifier diode. Make sure the positive of the cap goes to the cathode of the diode. It only has a 0.7V forward voltage drop and switches real fast.

Apart from that, great work. You guys are really close!

Oh, also if you want slow the RPM down try to adjust the either the coil gap or the hall timing. You should be able to get it to slow down by adjusting the hall so it retards the timing in relation to the coil to rotor magnet position when the coil fires, so the coil does not give the rotor much of a push.


John K.

[Les_K]

Hey Everyone!

Just wanted to post an update. We have separated the 3 circuits and gotten rid of the clip leads. We changes a few things as well and "think" we have it right. The paralleled transistors are still really cool, but we are having some timing issues and wanted to see if you guys had any ideas. The transistor for the hall is getting pretty warm. Not hot, but warm enough to warrant some questions. We have noticed that the timing of the hall is absolutely critical for everything. A couple of notes about that. We are using the south side of the magnets for the hall. I know we need to get some bigger timing magnets, maybe 1", and also have a bigger diameter. Any suggestions? It's taking roughly 15 seconds for the cap to charge up to about 77 V and dump, but it is dumping about 30 V. A far cry from from dumping 3 times per second. We are really eager to get the slaves done and finally get rid of those darn clamps.

Anyway, here is the video update!

If you guys have any suggestions, we are all ears! Thanks so much for all your help!

@John K,

Thanks for your suggestions. I am going to pick up some 10mm blue LEDS in the morning. We still have the circuit on breadboards, but I totally agree with everything you said! Once we have the circuit nailed down (We hope we don't have to wait until the conference), we will probably get a PCB done at PCBExpress.

Thanks,
Scott and Brent

EDIT: Wanted to post a picture of the setup.

I changed from the MPSA06 to a 8599 and had something like what you are seeing. check you pinout of the 8599. Because it is a PNP and the MPSA06 was NPN. The emitters are not in the same place. in the video it is not firing anything like mine and in your earlier vid it was firing much better as well. As far as the magnet spacing for the hall I have found it very important as well. I am not saying I have it the way it is supposed to be but I can tell you what I have found so far.
I had 3/4 inch magnets at about one inch apart. and it was pulling a lot of current and when I posted the scope shot John K said it was not quite right so I went to 1/2 inch magnets at the same distance from center as the first ones. They are much better and easier to control. When I calculated out my design I discovered that you can go closer to center with smaller mags and further out with larger and it makes no difference. Draw it out, you will see what I mean. Except in the physical size and specs on the specific hall you are using. I got some 3120 halls from mouser that have the same data as the 3020 halls JB had been using.
As to visual responses My meter will kick as high as three amps at first and then as it speeds up it will settle at a lower 700ma to one amp. I have a 75 volt 90 volt peak, 12,000uf cap and it charges within the second cycle of the wheel using tree lights as a load ( I am waiting on parts for the pulser). I tried a 300uf 250 volt cap with no load and after two pulses it was at 250 volts. I stopped the wheel quickly!
I have no idea how high it would have gone. I don't have any higher voltage caps to play with. So a word of caution on that. Anyway make sure the emitter is connected to the 220 ohm resistor or in my case I am using a 680ohm.

Hope that is helpful
Les

[BrentA929]

"Junior" schematic

Hey guys,

I mentioned in the latest video, that Scott just posted, that I would post a schematic...

Here it is!


Thanks, Brent

[txaggie00]

"Junior" 1GT update

Hey Everyone!

Just wanted to post an update. We have separated the 3 circuits and gotten rid of the clip leads. We changes a few things as well and "think" we have it right. The paralleled transistors are still really cool, but we are having some timing issues and wanted to see if you guys had any ideas. The transistor for the hall is getting pretty warm. Not hot, but warm enough to warrant some questions. We have noticed that the timing of the hall is absolutely critical for everything. A couple of notes about that. We are using the south side of the magnets for the hall. I know we need to get some bigger timing magnets, maybe 1", and also have a bigger diameter. Any suggestions? It's taking roughly 15 seconds for the cap to charge up to about 77 V and dump, but it is dumping about 30 V. A far cry from from dumping 3 times per second. We are really eager to get the slaves done and finally get rid of those darn clamps.

Anyway, here is the video update!

If you guys have any suggestions, we are all ears! Thanks so much for all your help!

@John K,

Thanks for your suggestions. I am going to pick up some 10mm blue LEDS in the morning. We still have the circuit on breadboards, but I totally agree with everything you said! Once we have the circuit nailed down (We hope we don't have to wait until the conference), we will probably get a PCB done at PCBExpress.

Thanks,
Scott and Brent

EDIT: Wanted to post a picture of the setup.

[John_K]

Thanks Les and John K!

We have gotten the wheel to self start, but for some reason the cap doesn't dump correctly when we do that.

Hi Scott,

Try replacing the 2 little red LEDs for a couple of big (10mm) super-bright ones. Blue ones look cool!

Cleaning up the circuit is probably one of the best and cheapest ways to improve performance. On another project I ditched the bread board and soldered all the components together and gained about 20% in performance!

I was saying to Bit's the other day that I wonder how many people have had an OU setup, but didn't know it because of poor connections, clip leads etc. I wonder how many were so close but gave up because of a crappy solder joint or a dodgy clip lead.


John K.

[txaggie00]

3GT "Junior"

Thanks Les and John K!

We have gotten the wheel to self start, but for some reason the cap doesn't dump correctly when we do that. We are putting a bigger transistor in for the hall. It is actually the one that John K has in his schematic. We are separating the circuits (hall circuit, coil transistor circuit and cap dump circuit) and cleaning up all the wiring (getting rid of the leads and wiring everything with a bigger gauge wire. Will post some pictures, schematics or video when we get it running better. Our friend that works for airgas is looking in to possibly break up a 50 lb box of rods so we can purchase the 15 lbs we need instead of either buying another 50 lb box or 15 - 1 lb tubes, which would be rather pricey! It looks like it may take some time to get them. I would have guessed back in December when we started this project, that we would have been done by now and running some tests. Hurry up and wait seems to be the trend though. We are so close!

Thanks,
Scott

[Les_K]

Thanks John,
I wasn't sure as that has been a bit of a gray area. I ended up making a second magnet wheel. The first had 3/4" magnets just slightly over one magnet apart. The new one has 1/2" at about 1-1/2 magnet spacing apart. There is a big difference when the hall is on the outside diameter of the magnets compared to the inside. It almost seems the field is not circular as I thought but more of a pie shaped field even though the mags are round.

The machine starts out by pulling almost three amps. then settles down at about 400ma. when I went to twenty four volts my rpms went up to about 38 and then it settled in on about 1 amp.

Putting a small set of lights as a resistive load and measuring the watts the machine is about 70% efficient. I know that is not a good test as it won't pick up the radiant like going into a battery but it is fun to see.

I don't know what a CH is but if it is cold boiling a battery in minutes I can't wait to find out more. And while your at it...(Cold boiling) check your Joule theif. Mine went way OU around cold boiling batteries.

Les

[John_K]

Hi Les,

Looks great on the scope. I think the timing is pretty close.

@Scott & Brent - awesome work!

I'm still waiting on parts so I've been a bit quiet on this thread.

I haven't given up


John K.

Scott awesome!
Finally got all my coils on and have been playing with timing.
Haven't got the cap pulser to work yet so still just running some lights..
But here is a scope shot of the timing. you can see the magnet pass (green) and then just as it is going down the circuit is fired. It shoots up and then you can see the spike coming off the back. The yellow is the hall switch. in relation to the circuit.

It self starts, rolls back a few inches and then kicks forward very nicely. I am only running at 12 volts for now until I can get some more MJL's in to match beta. I have tried changing the 220 resistor to 680 but it still warms up after a few minutes. since both transistors warm up the same they are a pretty good match.

Les

[Les_K]

3GT update on timing

Scott awesome!
Finally got all my coils on and have been playing with timing.
Haven't got the cap pulser to work yet so still just running some lights..
But here is a scope shot of the timing. you can see the magnet pass (green) and then just as it is going down the circuit is fired. It shoots up and then you can see the spike coming off the back. The yellow is the hall switch. in relation to the circuit.

It self starts, rolls back a few inches and then kicks forward very nicely. I am only running at 12 volts for now until I can get some more MJL's in to match beta. I have tried changing the 220 resistor to 680 but it still warms up after a few minutes. since both transistors warm up the same they are a pretty good match.

Les

[txaggie00]

Beta circuit

Thanks Patrick!

JB posted the link to the circuit back on page 33. We made both variations of the circuit (NPN and PNP). We ordered about ten of each and luckily found 4 of each that were really close, if not exact, to each other (With that circuit, the NPN's ranged from 4.14-4.17 mA and the PNP's ranged from 7.68-7.73 mA). We have not had an issue with any of them heating up at all. They're actually all quite cool to the touch.

Thanks,
Scott

EDIT: Also, we used a 12VDC wall wart to power the circuit.

I'm very interested in the ckt you put together to match the transistors, any chance you could post that?

[minoly]

@All,

Wow, this thread got quiet (EDIT: Just saw that Mark posted! Beat me to the punch). Anyway, Brent and I wanted to keep you guys posted on "Junior". We finally got the rods in last Thursday. We blew through the 50 lbs of rod and we still need more. We were able to finish the core for the main coil (It weighs 148 lbs altogether) and have enough to finish one of the slave coils. Since we got the main coil done, we were a little eager to hook everything up and see her spin.

Here is the video of it.
Bedini 3GT "Junior"


Thanks,
Scott

Very nice, you are making some excellent progress! I'm very interested in the ckt you put together to match the transistors, any chance you could post that?

Patrick

[txaggie00]

Everyone take spring break early????

@All,

Wow, this thread got quiet (EDIT: Just saw that Mark posted! Beat me to the punch). Anyway, Brent and I wanted to keep you guys posted on "Junior". We finally got the rods in last Thursday. We blew through the 50 lbs of rod and we still need more. We were able to finish the core for the main coil (It weighs 148 lbs altogether) and have enough to finish one of the slave coils. Since we got the main coil done, we were a little eager to hook everything up and see her spin.

Here is the video of it.
Bedini 3GT "Junior"


Thanks,
Scott

[Rl2003]

It got quiet around here??

Here is my latest change.
I removed the timing wheel with the magnets and replaced it with an optical switch.
I did not change anything to the circuit, but I think I will replace the 15v zener and
resistor to a better match for the switch.
The timing wheel has a 1/8 inch gap and you can see the scope shot and the milli
amps in the videos.
This has worked well for my set up because the wheel is slighty out of round.
Very slighty, but since the halls are so sensitive to any miss-alignment it caused
a fluctuation in the out put.
I will also play with the gap of the timing wheel. I think I will try a 1/16 inch gap next.
Also a note that I can not get this to self start with 12v. Only when at 24v.

Mark

YouTube - GT3 v2 22.2gp

YouTube - GT3 v2 23.3gp

[Ron Chase]

Sample material analysis

JB,

Check your energetic forum email. I have the material analysis results for the samples you sent.

Thanks, Ron