Water Sparkplug

[little_old_lady]

In my own tests, a 4uF cap charged to 240V w/out a booster cap barely produced the effect. 8uF was a little better and 30uF was very obvious.

I had never heard of the marx generator, but it is in a similar vein.

Due to the complexity involved in such a setup it hardly seems worth it. Perhaps with a low impedance battery we could dump HV discharge into we could recover power without reducing amps. The question will become can a battery handle the HV discharge? If there is cold electricity involved, will it manifest itself like the Bendini SGG (which I have also replicated) with improved battery capacity? Perhaps all of my concern with recapturing input energy is misplaced at this point in time. If we are seeing unusual "power" from the diode setup then all of my assumptions about the efficiency of "exploding water" can go out the window. If we can truly run an engine on water and produce 10x or more output power than the input power then simplicity wins the day!

I remember in one of the original videos on the WSP someone was using telephone wire and was unable to measure what should have been very high currents flowing through his wire to the spark gap. At times he had "negative current" coming from his source battery and his wires never got hot.

Perhaps I will take some time and do a study on the effect of different resistances on the spark. So far it seems like we want min resistance. Perhaps a carbon resistor could magnify any "cold electricity".

Any suggestions on how to quantitatively measure the "power" of the effect?

Perhaps a light & sound sensor? Hopefully something that would be cheap enough for everyone to adopt.

This would greatly help us benchmark different techniques. Enough theory on my part... time to do some tests and get some more data points.

[gmeast]

firestorm

Hi everyone,

This is just an update on Firestorm wear. I have included a photo of my #2 plug. Right now the mixture is set lean ... in fact too lean ... but it had to be done. The pic shows no carbon and each of the "bands" on the dome where spark bounces around actually look almost shiny in person. There is no unusually localized wear or hot spots. In fact, when comparing measurements to the baseline data, mostly just the narrowest portions are wearing and approaching the wider spaces (within the same band) ... equalization. There is about 0.003 gap wear (ave) ... 400 miles.

Greg

[Aaron]

@ Little Old Lady

The input cap only needs to be a few uf's. I used 47 because at the time that was about the lowest uf cap I had on hand and Peter and I were doing duplicate circuits just to compare.

The hv diode annode is directly connected the + on the primary of the ignition coil and the cathode is directly connected to the secondary output of the same ignition coil. It is the shortest cleanest route.

4uf is about the smallest I would personally do (for the cap discharge into the car coil), which is fairly standard on CDI modules anyway that already keep up with high rpm applications so power isn't an issue for that. And those caps are easily up to 400v.

This vid shows 47uf discharges at the speed necessary to run a lawn mower at normal operating speed and it didn't draw very much. Of course that is one sparkplug. YouTube - Plasma CDI (capacitive discharge ignition) 50hz
That is without booster caps of course. You can do that same thing with a few uf's but the effect is of course smaller but still there. With this ignition, we could not stall the lawnmower by turning the gas jet all the way in.

Having a power supply to keep a booster cap charged up in parallel to the plug is where the challenge is. That doesn't make the effect, it just increases the effect. In the video, I was using something like 330uf at about 400v maximum as I turned up the variac to charge that cap bank. Nasa was using about the same capacitance but 'preferrably' a few thousand volts...that is the power they used to eject the plasma into the combusion chamber off of their igniter plugs.

It doesn't seem to take much to eject it...it is the Lorentz force that repells the plasma away from the plug and a lot less power than what Nasa used is obviously capable of doing it. My bursts were irregular shaped and Nasa's were nice torus/donut shaped "smoke rings". I don't see how the shape matters as long as it just gets ejected far enough. I have no idea what this would look like under compression.

The Suckewer patents basically get around plug wear with multiple discharges per cycle like an MSD (multiple spark discharge)...with each successive pulse, that Lorentz force little by little pushes and ejects the plasma away from the plug. Nasa did it with one gigantic brute force burst.

So your calculations are more relevant to the booster cap and not the front side 47uf cap, which will work just fine at any engine speed with 4uf/400v caps and a typical cdi circuit as far as I know.

What do you want for booster caps? I've use 330uf/400v and 1000+v at about 20uf and the effect is similar...couldn't tell much difference. But I think I would go the higher voltage low capacitance route for the booster caps.

For 100% water mist, I don't know. Peter and I hooked my hot humidifer up to the lawnmower intake and couldn't tell a difference...I think hot steam is definitely better than cold mist though. With a large enough plasma in the combustion chamber and hot steam and hho, I think it could run an engine but that is just my opinion.

Your parallel/series setup sounds like a Marx Generator...is that the idea?
marx generator - Google Search

Yes, this is anything but conventional...just some hypothesis and almost theories...well maybe some theories. It is evident that Nasa and the others with patents don't know the function of the diode...they think it totally prevents HV from mixing with the LV source. They think the hv jumps and the LV just follows and that's it.

[little_old_lady]

So you were dumping 160V across the ignition coil designed for 12V... did you have a HV diode between the positive of the 160V cap and the HV side of the ignition coil? If you did then it would imply that the coil would shut off as soon as the spark appeared causing the rest of the 160V to join with your "booster" cap in the discharge.

You mentioned that the ultimate goal would be to fill the entire chamber with plasma to run very lean fuel mixtures. How much force do we think a 100% water mist would produce under such a situation?

If my calculations are correct then you are dumping 8.6 J of energy per spark (.5*47uF*160^2 + .5 * 100uF * 400^2) at 3000 RPM in a V6 that would require 154.8 KWH per Hour or a 200 HP engine to produce that much source power. Assuming you successfully explode water with each of those sparks then, in theory, you could power a 280HP engine. (Please help me if my math is wrong)

I think if we want the kind of "charge/discharge" rates and recycling of power then we will want to build two capacitor banks that can quickly switch from parallel to serial. You discharge the serial bank in to the parallel bank across the spark gap and then switch banks and their serial/parallel state. The trick will be doing this in a way that can handle the high amps and high voltage required.

Am I missing something obvious with the serial/parallel capacitor (aside from the fact that unless we also send the current through an inductor we will lose 50% of the power in a cap to cap charge). I figure an inductor is out of the question because it would limit current flow.

Your pictures suggest that there is something going on outside of conventional electronics, have we any theories about how, why, and where we are getting "cold electricity" or some other non-traditional form of power into this circuit?

[Aaron]

pic comments

Hi Gourdman and Little Old Lady,

That flame happened about once a second so I was able to take a picture. I literally had to snap about 50 pics and got the flame 3 times so that flame is the real thing and not photoshopped.

The wire no longer conducts end to end. I'm almost convinced the entire plasma burst is made of of the contents of potential that left the secondary of the ignition coil.

This is about 1/3 the size of what I already got off of a sparkplug:
YouTube - Water Sparkplug | Plasma Ignition| Booster Caps
That vid shows bursts up to the size of a golf ball or at least ping pong ball literally.

The problem I believe in doing this is that there will be a lot of plug wear but it seems Greg is finding that isn't an issue with the plasma plugs.

The other problem is getting those booster caps charged up fast enough to keep up with what the engine needs. But I think that may not be an issue with the right circuit.

I don't know if it is necessary to get the burst that big but it has been shown that this plasma actually grows under compression. The NASA patents show that they were ejecting donut shaped plasma burst far into the combustion chamber so extreme lean mixes have no problem igniting. I would imagine that a burst that completely fills the entire combustion chamber is the max that this concept can possibly go and would seem to be the ultimate goal with this ignition method.

The schematics for that cdi discharge into the coil with the relay timer and the single diode was already posted in this forum. It was charging the cap, isolating it from the power supply then discharging it to the ignition coil for the purposes of showing that the LV source necessary for the basic effect didn't come from the LV source that charge the cap and could be done with just a cap.

Anyway, what is impressive to me is Greg's results because he took this further than anyone else in the public domain. I think this work in this thread is one of the most important project on the entire internet in the energy field because it is giving real results that are possible with off the shelf parts (except for modified spark plugs)...but results were had without them.

[little_old_lady]

I got the impression that he photo-shopped the image to better convey what he saw because it "didn't come out well on camera". (Not complaining about the photoshop because the image was just a form a visual communication).

Aaron, would you be willing to share more about your particular setup? It sounds like the effect lasted quite a while if you were able to run and get your camera and take a picture. Does the wire still conduct electricity or did it break?

[gourdman]

WOW Aron that's an impressive flame. I wish we could get that to come out the end of a sparkplug.
Do you have any Idea where the current from the flame was flowing to, or was it caused by the wire being consumed.
I sure hope this can be replicated. It really looks outstanding.
Great work capturing it on film.

Gourdman

[Aaron]

Interesting Plasma Burst

I was doing a few experiments with the Gray Tube using a variation of the basic water sparkplug effect.

The HV output from the coil going to the HV rod in the tube....broke down a weak point in the wire and SWELLED up the insulation and popped out a hole and spit out this plasma jet. It was a very narrow stream like a gas jet then it got bigger as it hit air resistance.

What is apparent is that this does not seem to be igniting the gasses in the environment....that entire flame looked exactly like it came from whatever flowed over the wires....the compressed and "ignited" Heaviside flow (aether). That entire thing burst out from the inside of the insulation. The narrow jet got bigger and bigger as it blew the hole in the insulation bigger and bigger. At first...it was a tiny pinhole shooting it out in a stream like a sewing needle diameter, then it widened out.

The camera didn't do it justice so I drew a rough sketch of what it actually looks like.

At first, there was total continuity in the wire...no problems...then suddenly...it just burst out of the insulation.

[little_old_lady]

After learning about the relationship between current discharged through water and the over-unity shock wave that can be generated I started contemplating how best to harness this power. If I recall correctly, the mechanical energy generated was 40% greater than the electrical energy used to create the water explosion. This number implies that a 12 HP engine running on 100% water would only generate 4HP of net electricity.

My current understanding of power could be summed up as delta Q / delta T or charge moved per unit time. To explode water you need to move a large volume of charge in a short amount of time. Normally, this charge is moved to the negative side of the capacitor and is "canceled out" leaving 0 net charge in the circuit.

Let us instead imagine a situation where we have two capacitors, one with high voltage/low capacitance, the other with a very high capacitance. We should be able to move a large amount of charge from the HVC to the LVC in a short amount of time and recover the vast majority of the "charge". The charge can then be "pumped" back to the HV side over a longer period of time.

Following such a scheme we would only need to supply enough new power to overcome the losses.

I am not proficient enough with circuit design to layout the implementation details of such a system(particularly when using HV and High current), but I wanted to throw it out there for all of the bright minds on this board to think about. If I am missing something fundamental then please educate me.

It appears that the vast majority of work thus far has been to reduce fuel consumption in existing vehicles with relatively little estimation of how much electrical power would be required to use 100% water. Those whom have gotten engines to run with near 100% water appear to barely keep the engine moving, let alone generating surplus torque. (No one that I have read about has been able to duplicate S1r's car/generator).

Are there some other experimental results with electrical power in vs mechanical power out of a pure water explosion system?

[grizli]

Hi grizli,

Thanks for you comment. A choke would work too. There is only 12 - 40 watts of power in the circuit. A resistor was easier to use and tune for freq ... simple RC. Later I may study the effects of a choke. The point is to charge the CDI cap fully between plug discharges but not so fast as to overload the transistors doing the charging in the oscillator. At 400 VDC it's an awfully big hole to fill (even 1 uF) and it will fill very fast if it isn't limited or choked somehow.

You can get non-resistor plugs ... just not at the general stores. Race supply, off road and other performance stores will have them. they can be obtained online too ... sparkplugs.com ... tee hee.

I did not lean the fuel. I will be doing that next round of testing. In fact it will be required because the carb will begin to go rich as I add the amount of steam (inert gas) I want to.

My oscillator is running at around 80 HZ. Freq is not important as long as we pump. It's important for the oscillator components chosen though.

Thanks for comments and input,

Greg

Well, Thank you for answers...

So WITHOUT leaning mixture so much improvement.. I presume you press throttle less now or get more rpm with the same throttle...
very good... I wonder will thre be improvement with water fumes withour new spark plug?!
About sprak plug : Can resistor be pulled out? and what is common spark plug resistance

if plug is made from special compound.. I wonder how to weld it that berillium - copper
I presume that's common comound that makes copper strong and is used generally.. also presume that it can be found , dont know where to look for,(what kind of industry)

using high frequency oscilator and ferrite core maybe would be much better , for example sg3525 logic and current limiting feedback.... will have to chack that I have schematics already maybe somewhere

[little_old_lady]

Other Observations

The above quoted research said that the arc fills the "whole gap" which would explain the increased performance of Firestorm spark plugs because the "area of the gap" is much greater. The increased area also minimizes the probability of misfire due to condensation of the electrodes (if even the smallest area is dry we will get the initial spark).

It also appears that we want the largest possible gap (possibly requiring a very strong ignition coil) This would enable the most water to be "in the path" of the arc and help prevent damage to the plug from high currents. Now if the FireStorm plugs really do fill the whole chamber with plasma then this detail might not matter, but I was assuming current would take the path of least resistance. We also witnessed that under pressure the size of the plasma ball grows dramatically.

I do not know how this latest "theory" explains the coolness of the electrodes after heavy usage, unless the heat generated by the current is absorbed by the water. But it is clear with the latest VexUS circuit that what is going on with the WSP has nothing to do with the gray tube.

Am I completely off course here?

[little_old_lady]

I apologize if this information is already known to the group (I have read so much I don't remember where it all came from). Anyway this page provides useful information regarding the background theory behind exploding water. Scroll down to the section regarding "Longitudinal forces in dense plasmas".

With another arrangement [19], Figure 2.17, current pulses in the range 10-25kA were used. The maximum force observed amounted to 430kN, equivalent to a pressure of 27'000 atm. If the water was free to move it would be expelled, emitting intense white light. When captured, it was found to be only lukewarm.

What is the cause of the explosions ?

Thermal forces due to Joule heating of the water seem unlikely, as the same amount of energy dissipated could cause explosions in one case, and discharge silently in another. The energy needed for thermal explosions has been debated [11, 25]. A related subject is the cause of thunder. Peter Graneau has suggested that thunder may be driven by electrodynamic explosions, and not by thermic heating of the air [22]. An interesting question would be if the water content in the air affects the intensity of the thunder.

Superheated steam has been suggested to drive a thermal explosion. The energy available may be too small for this to happen, as the discharge then would have to be confined to a small filament in the water. The latter is contradicted by the fact that the arc tends to fill the whole gap [25]. More important though is that no steam has been detected in any experiment, although a great deal of the water can convert into cold fog and mist.

The production of fog and mist has made Peter and Neal Graneau suggest that the chemical bonding energy may be altered. Recent measurements also indicate that the energy released substantially exceeds the energy supplied by the arc [28, 29]. Their theory is that the bonding energy of very small droplets may be less (i.e. more negative) than that of liquid water. The difference in energy would then be released during the conversion into fog. Investigations indicate that only the smallest droplets explode, a fact supporting the theory.

There is a nice little graph that shows the "explosion" threshold at different capacitances and voltages.

Based upon this information it appears to me that the WSP is little more than a switching device for a high-current discharge through water. The "over-unity" of such an explosion is well documented. The explosive power seems to be directly linked to current; therefore, we want to maximize the voltage and minimize the resistance of the discharge. It also appears that we want to balance the duration of the high current (possibly multiple rapid-fire short pulses because once all of the water droplets in the arc path are exploded, sending current through air isn't helping us.) This suggests using short, thick, multi-stranded coper wires and NOT using the vehicle ground and instead provide a direct "shorter" link to the ground of the capacitor.

Based upon the above research it is clear to me that we do not need steam, only a super fine mist. (The steam we see is really just a fine mist). In fact, if we had another switching device then we could use liquid water directly. The only reason a mist is needed is to prevent pre-mature shorting of the cap which is triggered by an even higher voltage inductive spark.

Once again I apologize if this information has been covered before.

[gotoluc]

It seems obvious to me that the spherical head on the firestorm is the best approach (it follows Tesla's advice); however, it is also clear that if we want this design then we will have to build them ourselves.

My question is, does anyone have any good instructions on how to DIY for Firestorm design plugs?

Hi little_old_lady,

I will soon start a new topic for Robin David to show everyone how Robin build's his Firestorm style spark plug which have been supplied to Greg for his VW and also to Ash in Ozzieland.

At this time Robin is building a new set of Firestorms and is taking many pictures and also notes of the steps which will all be shared once he provides them to me.

Please stay tuned

Luc

[gmeast]

plug mat'l

What metal is top of plug : copper ? copper with platinum coating ? hmm

it can be done but how to galvanize platinum hmm

The dome and cage are beryllium-copper.

Greg

[gmeast]

freq

I have some questions about the circuit , and before all please answer me about leaning air fuel ration: did you do that on Bug ?(cant find that in pdf)

Why you use only 3uF discharging capacitor ?


maybe you could put series inductor that would work as choke(for neon bulbs) on the AC oscilator imput instead wasting energy on resistor ? According to pdf you used 60 hz power inverter (oscilator output)

So every spark plug on the market has resistor in the center rod ? whats its resistance ?

Thank you
Very nice work on the Bug

Hi grizli,

Thanks for you comment. A choke would work too. There is only 12 - 40 watts of power in the circuit. A resistor was easier to use and tune for freq ... simple RC. Later I may study the effects of a choke. The point is to charge the CDI cap fully between plug discharges but not so fast as to overload the transistors doing the charging in the oscillator. At 400 VDC it's an awfully big hole to fill (even 1 uF) and it will fill very fast if it isn't limited or choked somehow.

You can get non-resistor plugs ... just not at the general stores. Race supply, off road and other performance stores will have them. they can be obtained online too ... sparkplugs.com ... tee hee.

I did not lean the fuel. I will be doing that next round of testing. In fact it will be required because the carb will begin to go rich as I add the amount of steam (inert gas) I want to.

My oscillator is running at around 80 HZ. Freq is not important as long as we pump. It's important for the oscillator components chosen though.

Thanks for comments and input,

Greg