Use for the Tesla Switch

[ErikN]

scalar charger/scr update

Thanks for the welcome Inquorate!

I checked the battery voltage this morning and it had stopped at 4.6. I was able to pull some more power from the battery with the headlight for a about 10 seconds and ran it down to 4.2v.

I decided to increase the voltage (drive current) to the optos, since the nice spike was gone. Attached is the scope shot I'll let run today. First 30 minutes have brought it back to 4.44V.

Notice how thin the spike is when then SCR is fired? It goes up and down the screen through the opto signals. (I didn't get a picture with only the A-K shots.)

Remember how John says we don't want to let the current flow? I now understand this means fast ON and fast OFF with virtually NO time between the two.

I'll report back later tonight.

Erik

[Bit's-n-Bytes]

Thanks for the welcome Inquorate!

I checked the battery voltage this morning and it had stopped at 4.6. I was able to pull some more power from the battery with the headlight for a about 10 seconds and ran it down to 4.2v.

I decided to increase the voltage (drive current) to the optos, since the nice spike was gone. Attached is the scope shot I'll let run today. First 30 minutes have brought it back to 4.44V.

Notice how thin the spike is when then SCR is fired? It goes up and down the screen through the opto signals. (I didn't get a picture with only the A-K shots.)

Remember how John says we don't want to let the current flow? I now understand this means fast ON and fast OFF with virtually NO time between the two.

I'll report back later tonight.

Erik

Hi Erik, Welcome. In previous you mentioned you were only running at 9hz. You may want to try around 300hz.

Thanks

Bit's

[Helijason]

Recomended Scope

All,

I'm looking at buying a scope. What should I be looking for?

Dual trace?
10 MHz or more?
Other features?

Thank you!!

[Inquorate]

Scope

All,

I'm looking at buying a scope. What should I be looking for?

Dual trace?
10 MHz or more?
Other features?

Thank you!!

More than 20mhz, dual trace if possible. mine is 50mhz dual; got it on ebay for $650 au

Oscilloscope

Happy hunting

[blackchisel97]

All,

I'm looking at buying a scope. What should I be looking for?

Dual trace?
10 MHz or more?
Other features?

Thank you!!

I would definitely look for 2 channels and 20MHz up, depending on your budget. I would also prefer well known manufacturers rather than unknown ones. I like Tektronix myself.
Just my 2 cents.


Vtech

[Bit's-n-Bytes]

Progress update

Here is a pic of the "Digital" controller. Almost finished, just waiting on the opto's. Should be able to join the "battalfield" testing this weekend.

Thanks

Bit's

[Helijason]

Oscope

I would definitely look for 2 channels and 20MHz up, depending on your budget. I would also prefer well known manufacturers rather than unknown ones. I like Tektronix myself.
Just my 2 cents.


Vtech

Thanks, any other big name oscope manufactures?

Jason

[ErikN]

Just battery recovery voltage

Hi Erik, Welcome. In previous you mentioned you were only running at 9hz. You may want to try around 300hz.

Thanks

Bit's

Thanks, Bit's. Nice looking board!

I was running it at 300hz, but used a lower frequency to see the wave more clearly.

After work tonight, the battery voltage was only 4.47 and there was little to no power stored in the battery. This is clearly the resting voltage of the battery after it recovered. It's back on a real charger tonight so I don't loose it.

Right now I'm not nearly as confident I understand, because I can't get the voltage to rise above it's resting voltage. Although switching the caps and not loosing voltage is a start.

Erik

[ldissing]

Right now I'm not nearly as confident I understand, because I can't get the voltage to rise above it's resting voltage. Although switching the caps and not loosing voltage is a start.

Erik

@Bits : Nice boad

@All :

My thoughts: If you want to duplicate JBs results, you must do what he does. You must use an inductor in parallel with the bulb.

A battery is not an ideal voltage source, i.e. it has internal resistance. It also has some reactive part. A capacitor can be likened to a battery. And it doesn't go the other way around exactly, but it has capacity...

So, if you want to make the load appear to mimic the battery, you need some resistance and an inductance to counteract the + reactance of the battery. I.E. the inductance is a negative reactance and the capacitor a positive reactance. The inductor is to cancel the positive of the battery (or maybe it is the capacitors, I don't know for sure). It is all about admittance and making the load = to the batteries internal parts. The load must match the batteries internal parts. Now, the frequency will make a difference if they are not perfectly matched, and you probably will not be able to do that unless you are JB OR you have a bunch of inductors, bulbs, and capacitors and even then, it is a guessing game for those who do not know a lot about batteries (that includes me).

I believe that you must also have SOME amount of dead time, where the load/capacitors/batteries can oscillate at the batteries frequency. JB said he used a 40% duty cycle. It will be different for different setups, which is why JB can not say...use this inductor, use this bulb, use these capacitors. It's all in the battery you use that determines these component values. A brand new flooded lead acid is the best kind of battery to utilize, then an older flooded lead acid, after those, it all becomes harder. Nickle metal hydrides are probably also a good types of battery to use. I'm not saying you can't use AGMs or sealed lead acid (brand new is best), but it will be harder to obtain the results that JB has posted.

JB has been doing impedance matching for 30+ years. I doubt anyone knows more about batteries and matching the impedance of batteries than him. There may be a few that can match him, but not many.

Sorry to post again, but I believe the inductor to be important.

(In JBs post, he used 470uf caps, 1000uh inductor and a #47 bulb), When the inductor is in series with the caps charging, it is almost = to the capacitors (470*2 = 940uF) canceling the reactive component almost entirely. When the caps are charging the battery, the inductor is almost 5 times the capacitors (235uf vs. 1000uh). If I have found the correct bulb and parameters, it is 150ma at 6.3 volts, which is, if my calculations are correct, ~42 ohms in resistance, when FULLY lit and the voltage is 6.3V. At less voltage, it will light less bright and will be less than 42 ohms).

Leroy

[blackchisel97]

Thanks, any other big name oscope manufactures?

Jason

@ Jason
I would consider HP, wouldn't buy BK. It all depends on application you're going to use for.

@Bit's
Nice board Can't wait to hear how it performs.


Vtech

[StevanC]

I congratulate the nice looking board!

[lamare]

My thoughts: If you want to duplicate JBs results, you must do what he does. You must use an inductor in parallel with the bulb.

A battery is not an ideal voltage source, i.e. it has internal resistance. It also has some reactive part. A capacitor can be likened to a battery. And it doesn't go the other way around exactly, but it has capacity...

I would definately agree with the inductor being important, because that is most likely what creates the spikes. And as far as I understand this stuff now, the electric field that causes these spikes, is able to create a non-permanent electret inside both a capacitor or a battery. I believe that to be the case, because some people reported batteries and/or capacitors (re)gaining charge *after* the charging process was stopped. I cannot think of any other explanation for that than this electret effect, which is exactly the same as what is known as "dielectric relaxation". It appears this effect is related to the strength of the electric field -- the voltage -- that is applied to the cap/battery.

This dielectric relaxation effect is a well known effect that you can normally observe when you charge a capacitor and discharge it quickly with a shortcut. Then, it is pretty normal that the capacitor will spontaneously recharge to something like 10% of the voltage it had before shorting it out.

So, I put my money on this mechanism to be the key in this circuit as well as the schoolgirl circuit, because the strength of this dielectric relaxation effect appears to be directly related to the strength of the applied electric field. Now when you charge a cap/battery with a spike, you apply a very strong electric field, albeit for a very short time. Still, this appears to be enough to significantly increase this relaxation effect, sometimes to such an extent that capacitors and/or batteries that have been "radiantly" charged still spontaneously recharge, sometimes up to half an hour after the charging process has stopped....

BTW: Today my components came in. I'm going to build a 4 battery switch using 9V 200 mAH NiMh batteries.

[ldissing]

Inductor in Series

Of course, when the inductor is in series with the voltage source, it behaves as a low pass filter, allowing low frequencies through. The same for a capacitor in parallel wit a voltage source.

So, in the circuit analysis, the inductor and resistor in parallel, would constitute one impedance and the capacitor is then in series with that impedance. So, it is a low pass filter and you could not use a high frequency, which is basically what JB is saying....9 Hz works, 635Hz works, but go up to 20K or 100K or 1M hz and it would not work. It is a low pass filter. The frequency has to be low enough to allow the capacitor(s) to charge to 12V fully or at least nearly so.

Now, when the capacitor becomes the source, we have the same but in reverse. The capacitors when the series transistor fires, makes the capacitor the source (higher voltage), so the inductor and resistor are an impedance in series with the battery.

The other VERY important part, is the voltage of the bulb. Notice the JB did NOT pick a 12V bulb. He picked a bulb that was 6.3 volts.

After the first cycle, the capacitors should be at 6V, because once the capacitor has exhausted its power, the two in series are at 12V roughly. Now, when they are put back in parallel, each one is 6V. 12v battery - 6V = 6V left for the bulb.

The capacitors after charging are at 12V, so in series, these are 24V. 24 - 12 v for the battery = 12V left. 12V - 6.3V = 5.7 v left as excess potential to send to the battery...i.e. charging it. If you were to use a 12V bulb, then you have no excess potential to "charge" the battery.

So, the inductor is important as both a low pass filter for these low frequencies, and it is a negative impedance both ways, when charging the capacitor and when charging the battery. The bulb allows the excess potential to get to the battery...charging it.

JB is a sharp one!

Last post on this subject (the inductors and bulb) from me!


Leroy

[John_Bedini]

Tesla Switch/Scalar Charger

Bit's,
Been real busy at work but I have been following everything.
Your board look's real good. I might get sometime off here to help some more. Yes the inductor is important but it is hard to tune I use the light across it to see what is going on.

If I can get a break I'm going to run another battery load test. The big batteries are a different chemical make up. My switch must be very big to do this I will post what I do on the switch. If you isolate the caps in the scalar charger and look at the sparking on the terminals you will see a much different color spark when the switch goes into series operation and discharges.
JB

[ldissing]

Bulb

Bit's,
Yes the inductor is important but it is hard to tune I use the light across it to see what is going on.

If you isolate the caps in the scalar charger and look at the sparking on the terminals you will see a much different color spark when the switch goes into series operation and discharges.
JB

JB,

So, you are saying that the bulb is important as a visual indicator only? That is fine, I just want to think about this (and test) in an appropriate way.

I think that you said in another post that you could use no load at all, just back popping the battery for several hours. If I remember right, you said that the battery would probably be hard to charge on a regular charger if you did this.

So, the inductor is going to put up of voltage spike to stop the flow of current either way and of course, it wants to keep the current flowing too, which help to charge both the caps and the battery. BUT, the inductor still needs to be right, to get the impedance matching.

Q1: This impedance matching needs to go both ways, am I correct in this?

Q2: It needs to be correct when filling the caps..i.e. getting rid of the capacitor reactance and then when going back to the battery also?

Q3: Or, it is just to cancel the capacitors positive reactance?

Q4: Or, it is just to cancel the batteries internal impedance?

Hopefully my "terms" are somewhat correct for capacitors and batteries in terms of reactance, impedance, etc.

I'm near an electronics surplus warehouse right now, so I'm going to buy up a bunch of different inductors so I can advance my testing of both the scalar charger and 4 battery TS.

Thank you for your response in advance,

Leroy

P.S. Received my power diodes...still no testing possible...I'm on the road!