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My thought on Battery Freq. and TS
Hi guys,
I ‘re-discovered’ this thread a few weeks ago and was shocked to see how much had gone on in here since nali2000 started it so long ago! I was watching it then when it began but got distracted by ‘life’ and didn’t check back in till just a few weeks ago!! In the meantime I’ve been trying to ‘cram’ to get caught up with all that you have been doing! Whew, what a task that has been!
I am very impressed with the level of work you all have contributed and wanted to congratulate you all on the great spirit of cooperation that I’ve seen here. It’s not too often that I’ve seen it last for so long in some of these threads, so congrats!
As I’ve been interested in the TS for a long time and really would like to succeed in replicating one myself, I thought I’d share my thoughts, observations and the direction that I am going to be pursuing with my own build to see if you can concur or offer your critique of my ‘theories’.
During my ‘cram’ time these last few weeks I was struggling to get a grasp on the theory of operation of this circuit and, like you, have been trying to ‘decode’ the statements made by Mr. B. in re how this thing works. As I was reading a post by Idissing (#2083 – THANKS!!!) from back in early Feb. talking about the operation of the series switching transistor and the subsequent waveform detected there across the CE legs I had an ‘AHA’ moment! Bear with me as I try to explain…
The statement has almost always been put forward that the load on a TS MUST be inductive, and that the circuit is simple but the tuning is the hard part, right? That says to me “Resonant TANK” with touchy impedance matching! If the Load is inductive and the batteries are capacitive and inductive then we should be able to tune it into resonant operation and thus get the power output amplification afforded by that scenario. The hard part of achieving this, as I see it, has been the variable/unbalanced impedance in the batteries, which is perhaps why Mr. B. wanted everybody to pursue the slow charging type switching in the beginning to help balance out their batteries and reduce this dampening effect on the ability of the TS to resonate properly. Remember Mr. B said that he ‘started out’ slow so he could see what was going on in there… he did NOT say that he always kept it that slow to my recollection.
The batteries all eventually reach a charging plateau and level off in the charge that they receive in this ‘slow charging’ fashion but do not produce the OU characteristics that we are expecting in this circuit, right? Why is that? Well, perhaps it is at this point that they all have fairly matched impedance, and NOW we need to switch our ‘switching’ to get the whole circuit in resonant mode. Now the question remains is what freq the Batts will ‘like’ to resonate at with the particular inductive load we have on it?
If the (hand-drawn) waveform that Mr. B gave us is an indicator of what to look for and ‘chase’ then it is probably a key or clue to the understanding of the TS operation. That particular waveform occurs in the series (CE in transistor version) switching legs between 2 batteries, right Leroy? It exhibits a positive spike and lower hump initially and then devolves into a larger negative spike with an almost identical shape (but larger and inverted). If this wave form is happening by turning ‘ON’ that transistor and the resulting waveform occurs as the batteries ‘react’ to the switch… wouldn’t this be the batteries telling us what frequency they ‘like’ the best or where their natural resonant frequency lies? Wasn’t that waveform in the range of 20 – 40 c/uSec?
Furthermore, Bits got more success recently when he changed his switching timing on the picaxe to smaller impulses/delays AND doing a FULL CYCLE of all 4(or 6?) switches before ‘resting’ which seems to substantiate this theory slightly (am I correct here Bits? Wasn’t that the 6 transistor circuit you were running at the higher ‘frequency’?).
It seems to me that the hard part of this circuit as an analog or digital version is completely different than what would be faced with a coil and/or mechanical switch (matching impedance and loads to resonate). With the analog and digital versions we will have to ‘simulate’ how a resonant coil would react in a tank by providing the switches to give the right ‘kicks’ at the right time to keep the circuit in resonance and building a standing potential wave between the batts. The ‘kick’ being that negative spike reaction of the batteries which is larger albeit inverted (negative? or radiant?) than the input spike. And thus all of the switching component characteristics would definitely be a factor of consideration (speed, current handling, etc.) as well as the sequencing.
Once the batteries' impedance are closely matched, my thoughts are that the parallel switching timing should be related to the final sine-wave that we would want at the outputs, while the series switching timing would be a subset of that timing related to the batteries reaction wave that Mr. B drew out for us. In other words there would be a very short delay between switching “ON” the series transistor and switching “ON” the parallel one(s), and that the on time of the parallel switch(es) would be longer before switching to the rest position and then reversing the switch. This is hard to describe in words so you can see a rough sketch in the attachment below.
I am thinking (to be confirmed by building/testing one of these) that we’ve been focused on obtaining BATTERY CHARGING instead of obtaining resonant AC OUTPUT and that this is backwards. We should get the best AC OUTPUT possible first (with good strong resonating oscillations) and then the battery charging will happen as a byproduct of the circuit resonating properly or we could always switch back to ‘slow charging’ mode if ever needed.
I don't know but perhaps all of this has been obvious to some of you guys, or is completely WAY off base. But I do hope to either prove or disprove these ideas on the bench soon. (@ Bits: Do you have a circuit up here for the 6 transistor version you were using? I’d like to give the picaxe a go.) I’m not versed in the component side of electronics or EE and will have to rely heavily on you guys that are, but with my experience working with Acoustic (Sound) waves which seem to have much in common with electrical ones, and a little electronics experience I hope to (eventually) succeed. Just gotta figure out how to work with ‘em (waves) in circuits as opposed to in the air (eg. how to tune a circuit as opposed to tuning a room)!! I’ve seen a room do some incredible ‘natural amplification’ at certain resonant frequencies and I’d sure like to be able to do that electrically, though usually I'm trying to kill 'em in a room!!
Anyway, I would highly value all of your thoughts on the above, as you are all WAY ahead of me in this and as Mr. B. said… “Brilliant Minds”!!!!
I hope in at least some small way to add value to this endeavor and, of course, will post any results whether good or bad as soon as I get them! I’ll be a little slow getting ramped up for this as I currently only have 1 day a week at home, but will continue to keep plodding forward toward success!
Thanks again, to all of you, for all that you have contributed to my understanding of these things and all of the prior work that you have done and shared here!
groundhog!
Hi guys,
I ‘re-discovered’ this thread a few weeks ago and was shocked to see how much had gone on in here since nali2000 started it so long ago! I was watching it then when it began but got distracted by ‘life’ and didn’t check back in till just a few weeks ago!! In the meantime I’ve been trying to ‘cram’ to get caught up with all that you have been doing! Whew, what a task that has been!
I am very impressed with the level of work you all have contributed and wanted to congratulate you all on the great spirit of cooperation that I’ve seen here. It’s not too often that I’ve seen it last for so long in some of these threads, so congrats!
As I’ve been interested in the TS for a long time and really would like to succeed in replicating one myself, I thought I’d share my thoughts, observations and the direction that I am going to be pursuing with my own build to see if you can concur or offer your critique of my ‘theories’.
During my ‘cram’ time these last few weeks I was struggling to get a grasp on the theory of operation of this circuit and, like you, have been trying to ‘decode’ the statements made by Mr. B. in re how this thing works. As I was reading a post by Idissing (#2083 – THANKS!!!) from back in early Feb. talking about the operation of the series switching transistor and the subsequent waveform detected there across the CE legs I had an ‘AHA’ moment! Bear with me as I try to explain…
The statement has almost always been put forward that the load on a TS MUST be inductive, and that the circuit is simple but the tuning is the hard part, right? That says to me “Resonant TANK” with touchy impedance matching! If the Load is inductive and the batteries are capacitive and inductive then we should be able to tune it into resonant operation and thus get the power output amplification afforded by that scenario. The hard part of achieving this, as I see it, has been the variable/unbalanced impedance in the batteries, which is perhaps why Mr. B. wanted everybody to pursue the slow charging type switching in the beginning to help balance out their batteries and reduce this dampening effect on the ability of the TS to resonate properly. Remember Mr. B said that he ‘started out’ slow so he could see what was going on in there… he did NOT say that he always kept it that slow to my recollection.
The batteries all eventually reach a charging plateau and level off in the charge that they receive in this ‘slow charging’ fashion but do not produce the OU characteristics that we are expecting in this circuit, right? Why is that? Well, perhaps it is at this point that they all have fairly matched impedance, and NOW we need to switch our ‘switching’ to get the whole circuit in resonant mode. Now the question remains is what freq the Batts will ‘like’ to resonate at with the particular inductive load we have on it?
If the (hand-drawn) waveform that Mr. B gave us is an indicator of what to look for and ‘chase’ then it is probably a key or clue to the understanding of the TS operation. That particular waveform occurs in the series (CE in transistor version) switching legs between 2 batteries, right Leroy? It exhibits a positive spike and lower hump initially and then devolves into a larger negative spike with an almost identical shape (but larger and inverted). If this wave form is happening by turning ‘ON’ that transistor and the resulting waveform occurs as the batteries ‘react’ to the switch… wouldn’t this be the batteries telling us what frequency they ‘like’ the best or where their natural resonant frequency lies? Wasn’t that waveform in the range of 20 – 40 c/uSec?
Furthermore, Bits got more success recently when he changed his switching timing on the picaxe to smaller impulses/delays AND doing a FULL CYCLE of all 4(or 6?) switches before ‘resting’ which seems to substantiate this theory slightly (am I correct here Bits? Wasn’t that the 6 transistor circuit you were running at the higher ‘frequency’?).
It seems to me that the hard part of this circuit as an analog or digital version is completely different than what would be faced with a coil and/or mechanical switch (matching impedance and loads to resonate). With the analog and digital versions we will have to ‘simulate’ how a resonant coil would react in a tank by providing the switches to give the right ‘kicks’ at the right time to keep the circuit in resonance and building a standing potential wave between the batts. The ‘kick’ being that negative spike reaction of the batteries which is larger albeit inverted (negative? or radiant?) than the input spike. And thus all of the switching component characteristics would definitely be a factor of consideration (speed, current handling, etc.) as well as the sequencing.
Once the batteries' impedance are closely matched, my thoughts are that the parallel switching timing should be related to the final sine-wave that we would want at the outputs, while the series switching timing would be a subset of that timing related to the batteries reaction wave that Mr. B drew out for us. In other words there would be a very short delay between switching “ON” the series transistor and switching “ON” the parallel one(s), and that the on time of the parallel switch(es) would be longer before switching to the rest position and then reversing the switch. This is hard to describe in words so you can see a rough sketch in the attachment below.
I am thinking (to be confirmed by building/testing one of these) that we’ve been focused on obtaining BATTERY CHARGING instead of obtaining resonant AC OUTPUT and that this is backwards. We should get the best AC OUTPUT possible first (with good strong resonating oscillations) and then the battery charging will happen as a byproduct of the circuit resonating properly or we could always switch back to ‘slow charging’ mode if ever needed.
I don't know but perhaps all of this has been obvious to some of you guys, or is completely WAY off base. But I do hope to either prove or disprove these ideas on the bench soon. (@ Bits: Do you have a circuit up here for the 6 transistor version you were using? I’d like to give the picaxe a go.) I’m not versed in the component side of electronics or EE and will have to rely heavily on you guys that are, but with my experience working with Acoustic (Sound) waves which seem to have much in common with electrical ones, and a little electronics experience I hope to (eventually) succeed. Just gotta figure out how to work with ‘em (waves) in circuits as opposed to in the air (eg. how to tune a circuit as opposed to tuning a room)!! I’ve seen a room do some incredible ‘natural amplification’ at certain resonant frequencies and I’d sure like to be able to do that electrically, though usually I'm trying to kill 'em in a room!!
Anyway, I would highly value all of your thoughts on the above, as you are all WAY ahead of me in this and as Mr. B. said… “Brilliant Minds”!!!!
I hope in at least some small way to add value to this endeavor and, of course, will post any results whether good or bad as soon as I get them! I’ll be a little slow getting ramped up for this as I currently only have 1 day a week at home, but will continue to keep plodding forward toward success!Thanks again, to all of you, for all that you have contributed to my understanding of these things and all of the prior work that you have done and shared here!
groundhog!
(they can be stored "dead short" indefinitely (!!!!) !!)
) and found what I showed in the picture. Could be a software flaw, or not. We'll see.
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