Use for the Tesla Switch

[citfta]

You're welcome

Hi again David,

You're welcome. I'm glad I could help a little. I suggested looking up the data sheet with a search because different companies sometimes include different info on the data sheets. So you may find one that has the info you want when another one does not. By the way that numbering system for the pins holds true for almost all DIP (dual in line pin) chips. But it is still a good idea to check if you have any doubts. I am charging up some batteries now and hope to start testing in the next day or so on my Matt TS. As you probably already know we can sure learn a lot from Matt. Hope to see your test results soon.

C Ya, Carroll

[Matthew Jones]

Was Outa town

Hey all
I was outa town doing some work. Just wanted to let every know in case anymore questions have popped up. Anyway I am back won't be leaving again for a while.

@Carroll

Can't wait to see some result. Anything you need let me know.

Cheers.
Matt

[Turion]

Matt,

I have a question. In the diagram of the Sziklai pair build it shows The stamp connected to the pos and neg of battery 3. Is this to power the stamp? I know that Vdd on the stamp is power and Vss is ground. They are supplied power on my board (BASIC Stamp Homework Board) by the 9 volt battery which has built in connectors on the board. Are we removing the 9 volt battery and using the 12 volt batteries as the power supply? This is what I ASSUME we are doing, but I want to make sure. This would be logical since we are trying to complete circuits with these batteries, but I am taking no chances.

I worked all day painting my house before the rains start this week, so Up late working on my build and.......AHHHHHHH!!!! At 2:00 in the morning, just as I was ready to try and run this, I broke the pin off of one of my only two h11d1's and it is too short to solder to. So I ordered 10 of them second day air. But now I won't be running it this weekend. Don't have enough diodes (55 on order) to do the MJL21194 version, since I need four for the bridge, and that is all I have. And it takes six. Soooooooooooo I went ahead and ordered 4 of the CLA315-ND relays, and will just do the simple version to start. I plan on doing BOTH of the other small versions, but was trying to get one built and running with parts on hand. Seems it is not to be. But I will get there. At least now I can go to sleep. Only did the primer coat today, so tomorrow will be spent painting again.

[citfta]

Safety suggestion

I have a simple safety suggestion for those of you that are actually building Matt's TS. If you are using anything larger than the little 12 volt 7 ah batteries that a lot of us use for testing then you need to add some safety measures. Even those little batteries can cause a fire if you short out the wiring. When building your switch add some inline fuses on each of the power wires going to the batteries. I am talking about the kind of fuses you can get at any auto parts store. I would put one in the wire at the top that connects from the positive of one battery over to the positive of the other battery. I would also put one in each of the wires at the bottom going from the transformer to the negative side of the bottom batteries. These three fuses should protect your wiring from a fire in case you still have a problem after following all of Matt's safety checkout procedures. If you are using 10 AWG wire then use 30 amp fuses. If your wire is 14 AWG use 20 amp fuses. You can get slow blow fuses if the switching surges cause random blowing of the fuses. I am using 14 AWG wire and 20 amp regular fast blow fuses and have not had any trouble so far. I am using fast blow fuses to protect my transistors in case something is not right. Keep in mind that even a small lawn and garden type tractor battery can easily cause 14 AWG wire to burst into flames under a shorted condition. Matt is not going overboard in all his cautions about double checking everything. I almost melted my ring on my finger when I got it between the hot post of a small battery and the frame of a small tractor. I still have the scar on my finger from 35 years ago.

I did get mine up and running last night. I didn't have time for a lot of testing because my batteries all need to be charged up. I did run it long enough to see a rise in voltage on the top batteries and a drop in voltage on the bottom batteries. My transistors got warm to the touch but nothing was running hot. My scope showed good switching with the transistor version of the switch. I will be busy with family and church obligations for the next couple of days and will report more on my testing when I can get back to it.

Be safe, Carroll

[Matthew Jones]

Matt,

I have a question. In the diagram of the Sziklai pair build it shows The stamp connected to the pos and neg of battery 3. Is this to power the stamp? I know that Vdd on the stamp is power and Vss is ground. They are supplied power on my board (BASIC Stamp Homework Board) by the 9 volt battery which has built in connectors on the board. Are we removing the 9 volt battery and using the 12 volt batteries as the power supply? This is what I ASSUME we are doing, but I want to make sure. This would be logical since we are trying to complete circuits with these batteries, but I am taking no chances.

I worked all day painting my house before the rains start this week, so Up late working on my build and.......AHHHHHHH!!!! At 2:00 in the morning, just as I was ready to try and run this, I broke the pin off of one of my only two h11d1's and it is too short to solder to. So I ordered 10 of them second day air. But now I won't be running it this weekend. Don't have enough diodes (55 on order) to do the MJL21194 version, since I need four for the bridge, and that is all I have. And it takes six. Soooooooooooo I went ahead and ordered 4 of the CLA315-ND relays, and will just do the simple version to start. I plan on doing BOTH of the other small versions, but was trying to get one built and running with parts on hand. Seems it is not to be. But I will get there. At least now I can go to sleep. Only did the primer coat today, so tomorrow will be spent painting again.

You can power the Stamp from 9 volt or just hook the positive and negative to a battery as diagrammed. The 9 volt batteries will go dead pretty. Maybe 4 hours of run time in them, maybe a little more.

The voltage regulator on the board can handle up to 16 volt so your find if you use a battery in the system.

Matt

[mklimesh]

Parts

Picked up a 5000 watt transformer, its 55 lbs (+_+)
https://www.popularelect.com/Product...1#.Tmu6Fvpy2xd
and 100 mur1520 diodes for the big build.
Anyone find a good place for #6 square wire?

I have one of the RS transformers for the small build but took apart another one that was a bit bigger and had bolts for alignment. Made a form now need some time to wind it.
I'll start with the opto driven Darlington MJL21194's then try mosfets.
I set up a picaxe 20X2 for the switching.

I also picked up a Triad Magnetics VPS10-17500
Digi-Key - 237-1250-ND (Manufacturer - VPS10-17500)
It has 2 separate secondaries so I'm interested to see if we can use a factory built transformer for this.

Mike Klimesh

[Matthew Jones]

WOW!!

You can use other wire if you can't find it. I am really using 2 strands of 14 awg for each leg of the transformer and it work well. You just gotta wrap tight.

This guy here has nice deal on some mosfets and drivers
Power MOSFET FDA032N08 235A 75V 3.2mΩ 375W TO-3P | eBay

FOD3180 2A High Speed MOSFET gate driver optocoupler x2 | eBay

He's got alot more if your taste is for other things. His prices and service can't be beat.

Can't wait to see some of your builds. If you need anything ask.

Matt

[LutherG]

Got transformer ready to rewind

Hi Matt,

Working on my build. I've got my transformer disasembled and ready to rewind. 20 awg wire is on the way along with stamp. I have 18awg onhand though and am thinking about trying that. I should have this thing assembled very soon.

thanks again,

Luther

[ren]

hi guys.

Been looking over Matts document. Keen to try a solid state relay version.

Just got a question. Looking at the schematic with the SSR's I can see how the SSR puts the two left hand batteries in series, but not the two right hand batteries in parallel. It would seem to me that only 3 batteries are in the circuit at any given time. What am I missing? Or is the simple switch designed like this?

Regards

[jerdee]

Voltage Potential

Just got a question. Looking at the schematic with the SSR's I can see how the SSR puts the two left hand batteries in series, but not the two right hand batteries in parallel. It would seem to me that only 3 batteries are in the circuit at any given time. What am I missing? Or is the simple switch designed like this?

Hey Ren,

The circuit is designed to not charge the bottom battery on each side. Matt is taking advantage of the spill factor from top batteries. So yes, he is only charging top battery on each side...not parallel as thought.

What he has found is that the top battery will keep the lower battery at a maintained charge due to the spill factor. This prevents batteries over all draining as fast as two in series going to parallel. Think about it...much less voltage drop across all switches and diodes due to only TWO SWITCHES USED!!! This is very important for Matt's replication. So to answer your question...YES..the switch is designed specifically for this.

Also diodes play a major roll here! The more diodes in parallel for bridge the larger the surface area ...which translates to less voltage drop across load.

It's all about maintaining the highest voltage potential.

Jeremy B.

[jerdee]

Self Adjusting To Load

I've been thinking of ways to control the pulsout command and have come up with something that I wanted to share. Wanted to share this code as it was mentioned in the PDF that we can create an algorithm which self tunes according to the load.

Of course the load range will need to be determined prior to using this code. Although the code has a maximum and minimum pulse width range that can be set to prevent run away as well as overflows and underflows in integer math. Picaxe does not use floating point argggg

But the idea is to allow possibilities of running loads that vary. I'm using a picaxe 18M and pulsing pins 10 and 11 while utilizing pin 18 as for voltage sensing. The MCU is set to 16Mhz so for this code each pulsout command = 2.5us. You can do the math quickly to find what ranges you should set for your load.

My thought is to store multiple ADC values from pin 18 and use an averaging system to prevent overshoot or undershoot on load. I receive my ADC signal from a voltage divider network to keep input below 5V. I also use a 50v 1uf cap across this network to allow consistent voltage readings for ADC input.

I have been testing this code and tweaking it for best response but have not placed it on TS yet. So response time as well as number or ADC samples will most likely need to be adjusted. The idea is to sense voltage over time on load and increase or decrease to tune. I want to repeat that this is not completely tested...but at least it can get us all thinking in this direction when we need loads that vary!!

I will add % of ADCavg1/2 average changes into code to get better response from faster load changes soon. Right now the code is designed to follow small changes....but wanted to get this out to those that want to test this idea.

Follow direction in the code to set ranges. Again...this is just to help us all learn more about what our possibilities for running loads that vary. More to come. Thoughts on changes are welcome.

Hope this helps,

Jeremy B.

[Edit: Switched ADC from 10bit to 8bit.]
______________________________________
`Self Adjusting Pulsewidth to Load Requirements
`by Jeremy B.
`Using Picaxe18M MCU
`Version 1.1
`Date: 10/03/2011

setfreq m16 `Clock set to 16Mhz. Pulsout command = 2.5us

symbol adcavg1 = w7
symbol adcavg2 = w8
symbol pulseval = w9
symbol pulsemax = w10
symbol pulsemin = b24
symbol response = b25
symbol percentchg = b26

`Set ranges for code below. Please tune per Matt's request with simple code first...This willl tell you
`what load ranges you would like to set.
pulseval = 2000 `Initial pulse width (2000 * 2.5us = 200Hz)
pulsemin = 1500 `Minimum pulse width value to prevent underflow integers (1500 * 2.5us = 267Hz)
pulsemax = 4000 `Max limit pulse width (4000 * 2.5us = 100Hz)
response = 1 `Pulses before next adc sample. This will speed up or slow down the response time.
percentchg = 8 `% pulse width adjustment

Main:
readadc c.1,w1 `pin 18 read into word 1 through 3 for adcavg1.
for b23 = 1 to response
pulsout b.4, pulseval
pulsout b.5, pulseval
next b23
readadc c.1,w2
for b23 = 1 to response
pulsout b.4, pulseval
pulsout b.5, pulseval
next b23
readadc c.1,w3
for b23 = 1 to response
pulsout b.4, pulseval
pulsout b.5, pulseval
next b23
readadc c.1,w4 `pin 18 read into word 4 through 6 for adcavg2
for b23 = 1 to response
pulsout b.4, pulseval
pulsout b.5, pulseval
next b23
readadc c.1,w5
for b23 = 1 to response
pulsout b.4, pulseval
pulsout b.5, pulseval
next b23
readadc c.1,w6

adcavg1 = w1+w2+w3/3
adcavg2 = w4+w5+w6/3

if adcavg1 = adcavg2 then goto main
if adcavg1 > adcavg2 then goto increase
if adcavg1 < adcavg2 then goto decrease

increase:
if pulseval < pulsemax then
let pulseval = pulseval * percentchg/100 + pulseval `% increase
endif
goto main

decrease:
if pulseval > pulsemin then
w11 = pulseval * percentchg/100 `% decrease
let pulseval = pulseval - w11
endif
goto main

[Matthew Jones]

hi guys.

Been looking over Matts document. Keen to try a solid state relay version.

Just got a question. Looking at the schematic with the SSR's I can see how the SSR puts the two left hand batteries in series, but not the two right hand batteries in parallel. It would seem to me that only 3 batteries are in the circuit at any given time. What am I missing? Or is the simple switch designed like this?

Regards

Jerdee got it right. Like I told someone above you can set it up to switch all 4 batteries in an out and when your done all 4 batteries will be dead. Or you can set it up this way and hopefully come out with 2 charged and 2 dead.
Either way you will have done only so much work and it will be just about equal.

Really the goal with this switch is to learn. Later it can be converted to a better thing. Easily. But on a large scale this one will go for very long time, with a rather large load.

@Jerdee

I would like to hear about the results of this. I have been using Parallax Propeller to do something similar. Its a little different because I can use Floats. But it does work well. No fiddling around.

Matt

[Bit's-n-Bytes]

I've been thinking of ways to control the pulsout command and have come up with something that I wanted to share. Wanted to share this code as it was mentioned in the PDF that we can create an algorithm which self tunes according to the load.

Of course the load range will need to be determined prior to using this code. Although the code has a maximum and minimum pulse width range that can be set to prevent run away as well as overflows and underflows in integer math. Picaxe does not use floating point argggg

But the idea is to allow possibilities of running loads that vary. I'm using a picaxe 18M and pulsing pins 10 and 11 while utilizing pin 18 as for voltage sensing. The MCU is set to 16Mhz so for this code each pulsout command = 2.5us. You can do the math quickly to find what ranges you should set for your load.

My thought is to store multiple ADC values from pin 18 and use an averaging system to prevent overshoot or undershoot on load. I receive my ADC signal from a voltage divider network to keep input below 5V. I also use a 50v 1uf cap across this network to allow consistent voltage readings for ADC input.

I have been testing this code and tweaking it for best response but have not placed it on TS yet. So response time as well as number or ADC samples will most likely need to be adjusted. The idea is to sense voltage over time on load and increase or decrease to tune. I want to repeat that this is not completely tested...but at least it can get us all thinking in this direction when we need loads that vary!!

I will add % of ADCavg1/2 average changes into code to get better response from faster load changes soon. Right now the code is designed to follow small changes....but wanted to get this out to those that want to test this idea.

Follow direction in the code to set ranges. Again...this is just to help us all learn more about what our possibilities for running loads that vary. More to come. Thoughts on changes are welcome.

Hope this helps,

Jeremy B.


______________________________________
`Self Adjusting Pulsewidth to Load Requirements
`by Jeremy B.
`Using Picaxe18M MCU
`Version 1.0
`Date: 10/03/2011

setfreq m16 `Clock set to 16Mhz. Pulsout command = 2.5us

symbol adcavg1 = w7
symbol adcavg2 = w8
symbol pulseval = w9
symbol pulsemax = w10
symbol pulsemin = b24
symbol response = b25
symbol percentchg = b26

`Set ranges for code below. Please tune per Matt's request with simple code first...This willl tell you
`what load ranges you would like to set.
pulseval = 2000 `Initial pulse width (2000 * 2.5us = 200Hz)
pulsemin = 1500 `Minimum pulse width value to prevent underflow integers (1500 * 2.5us = 267Hz)
pulsemax = 4000 `Max limit pulse width (4000 * 2.5us = 100Hz)
response = 1 `Pulses before next adc sample. This will speed up or slow down the response time.
percentchg = 8 `% pulse width adjustment

Main:
readadc10 c.1,w1 `pin 18 read into word 1 through 3 for adcavg1.
for b23 = 1 to response
pulsout b.4, pulseval
pulsout b.5, pulseval
next b23
readadc10 c.1,w2
for b23 = 1 to response
pulsout b.4, pulseval
pulsout b.5, pulseval
next b23
readadc10 c.1,w3
for b23 = 1 to response
pulsout b.4, pulseval
pulsout b.5, pulseval
next b23
readadc10 c.1,w4 `pin 18 read into word 4 through 6 for adcavg2
for b23 = 1 to response
pulsout b.4, pulseval
pulsout b.5, pulseval
next b23
readadc10 c.1,w5
for b23 = 1 to response
pulsout b.4, pulseval
pulsout b.5, pulseval
next b23
readadc10 c.1,w6


adcavg1 = w1+w2+w3/3
adcavg2 = w4+w5+w6/3

if adcavg1 = adcavg2 then goto main
if adcavg1 > adcavg2 then goto increase
if adcavg1 < adcavg2 then goto decrease
goto main

increase:
if pulseval < pulsemax then
let pulseval = pulseval * percentchg/100 + pulseval `% increase
endif
goto main

decrease:
if pulseval > pulsemin then
w11 = pulseval * percentchg/100 `% decrease
let pulseval = pulseval - w11
endif
goto main

Very nice job Jeremy. Are you finding the "ReadADC10" is giving you better accuracy? Sometimes this may get to fussy on reading the voltages. Did you set the dividers to give you 2.5V out at optimum?

Great work.

Jeff

[Matthew Jones]

Over Unity Research dot COM

This answer is to address a few issues the guys at "Overunity Research .com".

Physics Prof. Writes....

Thanks Matt -- I must say, Matt responds to questions and is genuine.

This I don't quite understand, though:

1. "First claim:
You can get up to 4x - 8x more work done for the amount of power power used in the batteries if the load is appropriately sized and the circuit is tuned."

This sounds like OU to me, but perhaps Matt has a different definition of OU? because he says:

2. "Second claim:
This is not OverUnity. This just a simple potential based circuit that allow you to reuse energy until it escapes in either heat or entropy actually kills it. But because we are capturing the potential and reusing it we can moderately say the transformer is generating to some level."

OU is one of those terms that is not used correctly. Overunity could be anything that puts out more power under the classic terms of use in Electrical Engineering. The single largest problem with conventional engineering is the GROUNDED circuit. So the use of overunity is only applicable when using a grounded circuit.
We all know the Heat Pump. An efficient Heat Pump is an overunity mechanism if the COP is above 1. And they usually are between 1.5 and 6.5.
I have a geothermal heat pump that rates a COP of 5. Water Furnace.
With the heat pump you input 100 watt seconds /joules of electricity into a system and you can receive up to 650 watt seconds/Joules of Thermal energy. You basically used the 100 joules of electricity then through it away to ground. Even after you through away the 100 joules you still received 650 joules of thermal energy.
So in other words You used a grounded circuit and still received more out than in.
That is the definition of OverUnity. It does not need to self run it just needs to put out more than you put in in one form or another.

But in a potential based system we do not use a ground. And we are depositing our energy back into a battery that is wild variable for collection and storage. So how are we supposed to measure our efficiency? And if we are not throwing the energy away when we are done how then can we ever determine whether its overunity or not.
This should also answer the next post in your thread from Hoppy...

Hoppy Writes....
The charge & discharge curve shapes will most likely be different when load testing on and off the TS. Very careful data logging would be required to get an accurate comparison of energy both discharged and replaced back into the batteries during re-charge. Matt does not explain his method and procedure in enough detail to satisfy me that his load testing is accurate enough to be certain that there is in fact an overall gain from the environment as he claims. A much wider discharge voltage band between LTP and HTP would be required to obtain a meaningful performance comparison.
Hoppy

So for starter I never claimed an Environmental Gain. That is something entirely different and I do not understand why you would insert that into your comment unless you were trying to misinform or you did not understand what I wrote. This a common problem. People do not read what is wrote, they imagine they read something else. If you choose to live in a Fairy tale then skip the next part.

If you want to truly measure the power discharged, used and collected you have to first have way to money to be any good for yourself or others.
You would need impedance and capacity meters on all 4 batteries. You would need at least 8 channel 200 mhz (on all 8 channels)scope that can interact with the capacity meters.
Lets look at 1 cycle. You take power from 24 volt battery. Discharge it on a wire through an inductor then deposit it into the plates of a 12 volt battery. 1 cycle.

First we need to know how much power we pulled exactly. Thats not too hard. (For example) We know the battery is at 24.5 v standing and then we pull the current for 2 ms and between this time the battery drops to 24.4 v. Our current is 10 amp. So we can reasonably say we pulled 244.5 watts for 2 ms.
This power then went through the inductor and changed slightly. We know we can measure this and like pulling the load from the battery its not an issue. Its an easy measurement.
But the power changed to 230 watts or 23 volt at 10 amp. Now we are going to deposit this in a 12 volt battery.
Well here is were the issue comes in.
*What is the internal resistance in the battery?
*What is the capacitance of the battery?
*What amount actually can be absorbed in the plate and what amount will just actually turn around and exit when we switch the cycle?

I doubt seriously anyone can measure that and accurately give that answer. More than likely it will be based on assumptions. In fact I know it can't be measured.
SO whats our options at this point since NO MATH EXISTS to measure this.

Well the best we can do is look at the load and watch the clock.

I have a heard alot of bright ideas for logging and data collection but really put the vector math to potential based system is not reality.

But maybe somebody has a better idea. I would love to hear it.

Matt

[ewizard]

Well Matt if you are still pulling a load after many months and your batteries still can be shown to have the same capacity than that's a winner in my book. I haven't kept up to speed on all the details here but I agree it would be difficult to measure with instruments in anything less than a very expensive engineering lab. So the time factor over months can be strong evidence. Average lead acid battery life I've found to be around 5 years or a little longer if treated well. I think a test running with new batteries for 6 months to a year would be very well taken.