Re-Inventing The Wheel-Part1-Clemente_Figuera

[conradelektro]

Hi

I'm wondering if the resistor "R" are in fact a series of inductors, rather than heat producing solid resistors?

Regards

John

Very interesting thought! One would get a back EMF kick whenever the commutator switches from one of the resistors = inductors to the next.

And may be, these many back EMF kicks stemming from switching the resistors = inductors are producing the OU effect?

My thought (continuously increasing / decreasing current, see my last post) is based on the idea, that the original inventor wanted that but could not produce it with a commutator. But we can do that now with a full bridge motor driver (chopper circuit that can even reverse the current).

But the continuous current increase / decrease could in fact kill the effect. The many back EMF kicks from the resistor = inductor switching could counter act the back EMF from the primaries and in this way lessen the Lenz losses in the primaries.

In case the resistors are in fact coils (inductors), the question arises "where is North and South in these coils"? Since the original inventor carefully denotes North and South in the primaries but does no say anything about North and South in connection with the resistors, it is doubtful that the resistors are inductors.

Any resistor is also a inductor at high frequencies, but at 50 Hz this artefact would not matter.

I therefore tend to hold the opinion, that a continuous increase and decrease of the current in the primaries was the intention of the inventor, which he could not realise at the beginning of the 20th century (because transistor switching and therefore high frequency chopping was not possible).

Greetings, Conrad

[wonju]

@Wonju and Woopy

My question:

When stepping up and down the current through the two primary coils (in one coil the current increases, in the other coil the current decreases), should the current always return to zero between steps (which is the case when using a commutator)?

In practice the currents through the primary coils should not be zero. When the contact is in one side of the resistors the current is maximum for that primary coil and minimum for the other primary coil connected at the other end of the resistors. I am not sure yet, but it might be desirable for the primary currents not to be zero because it might be a way for locking the induced secondary magnetic field away from the primary coil inducing it.

It is visible in Woopy's scope trace that the current returns to zero between steps (when switching through the resistors). And I indicated with a read line as it should be according to my thought (see the attached scope shot done by Woopy).

If the commutation of the primary current is make-before-breake, then, the primary current is never zero.

My thought:

The current in the primaries should increase/decrease continuously.

This can be realised by using a microprocessor

and a 2-Phase Motor Driver like the TCA3727 (can drive both primary coils, 6 steps = 5 resistors)

or two 1-Phase Motor Drivers like the LMD18245 (each LMD18245 drives one primary, 16 steps = 15 resistors).

In the attached data sheets see pages 13 and 19 for the LMD18245 (Quarter Step Drive with Torque Compensation) and pages 14 and 18 for the TCA3727 (mini step operation).

There are of course many different motor drivers and more modern ones than the ones mentioned by me (which I have by chance since some years).

It seems that in Wonju's Arduino project the current will also return to zero when switching through the resistors?

Greetings, Conrad

Yes, there are many schemes for generating the two quadratic primary voltages. But, you do not want to interrupt the current of the primary coils, otherwise, spikes and transient overvoltages might be an issue.

Wonju

[wonju]

Very interesting thought! One would get a back EMF kick whenever the commutator switches from one of the resistors = inductors to the next.

And may be, these many back EMF kicks stemming from switching the resistors = inductors are producing the OU effect?

My thought (continuously increasing / decreasing current, see my last post) is based on the idea, that the original inventor wanted that but could not produce it with a commutator. But we can do that now with a full bridge motor driver (chopper circuit that can even reverse the current).

But the continuous current increase / decrease could in fact kill the effect. The many back EMF kicks from the resistor = inductor switching could counter act the back EMF from the primaries and in this way lessen the Lenz losses in the primaries.

In case the resistors are in fact coils (inductors), the question arises "where is North and South in these coils"? Since the original inventor carefully denotes North and South in the primaries but does no say anything about North and South in connection with the resistors, it is doubtful that the resistors are inductors.

Any resistor is also a inductor at high frequencies, but at 50 Hz this artefact would not matter.

I therefore tend to hold the opinion, that a continuous increase and decrease of the current in the primaries was the intention of the inventor, which he could not realise at the beginning of the 20th century (because transistor switching and therefore high frequency chopping was not possible).

Greetings, Conrad

I have to disagree on this one. If you read the paper you will notice that the reason for the over unity is the cancellation or minimization of the Lenz’s law. In our case, I do not understand how the “back EMF” is responsible for the OU. I see many people using this term for justifying over unity but I still do not see it. Please, enlighten me.
On the other hand, the resistors should not be inductive. The main objective is to generate the primary quadratic voltages. The use of resistors is just one way of getting it.

Wonju

[woopy]

Hi all

just 2 cents more

i would like that you really observe in detail, the scope traces of the 2 primaries

So first to Conrad ,

where do you see a fall to zero in the voltage at the end of each step?

And second
In this setup, the 12 segments of the comutator are separated by 1 mm distance so that the Finger (Brush ) is always, or connecting one segment, or connecting 2 adjacent segmenst, so at no time the brush is disconected from the system . so no flyback spikes possible.

It seems to me that the voltage drops a small value at the beginning of the process(1 to 3 ramp step ) and than less an less up to the 6 to 7 step where it does not fall at all
.
Than in the decreasing voltage stage, it fall sharply for 2 steps and than almost ring at zero voltage level for the last steps.

So the process is not regular, it seems not to be a triangle step up and down.

Please take the time to look deeper in those trace

Please comments welcome

thank's

good luck at all

Laurent

[conradelektro]

Ideal current trace

@Woopy and for all who are interested:

I attach a drawing which shows a commutator with 16 steps and an ideal current trace (measured over a shunt if it were for real).

This ideal current trace can not be realised with a commutator only with a full bridge coil driver like the LMD18245.

Assuming a commutator which reaches over the gap between the steps (as the one Woopy uses) some perturbations of the ideal trace will occur because the commutator shorts a resistor when moving over the gap between steps.

Therefore one sees this zig zag curve in Woppy's scope trace:

- when at step N a certain current flows

- when between step N and step (N+1) the current increases because a resistor is shorted

- when at step N+1 the new current flows (which is defined by the new resistor sum, but lower than in the between situation)

My conclusion:

- A commutator will not do the trick nicely and will produce a zig zag current trace.

- Only with a full bridge coil driver (e.g. with the LMD18245, one for each primary) one can produce something like the ideal current trace as depicted in the attached drawing.

Now comes the question:

Is this zig zag current trace necessary or is it an unwanted side effect when using a commutator?

I think the inventor intended the ideal current trace but could not do it at the beginning of the 20th century (because he did not have a chopping full bridge coil driver).

Greetings, Conrad

P.S.:

The chopping full bridge coil drivers were designed to enable multi step driving of stepper motors. To achieve the in-between steps with a stepper motor something like the ideal current trace from the attached drawing has to be created.

But with the LMD18245 (and similar drivers) one can even achieve a "full sinus". The current can be reversed and with a 12 Volt battery one can go from -12 Volt to + 12 Volt (like having a 24 Volt battery with a commutator).

One has to understand these coil drivers like the LMD18245 (please look at the data sheet, application examples) in order to understand what I am waffling about. It will be difficult to come up with a simple "hand made circuit" with transistors and resistors to replace a driver like the LMD18245. This is the reason why one invented these coil drivers.

Some years ago, when I was writing software (firmware) for smoothly driving stepper motors (which do nor rattle) it took me quite some time to understand these coil drivers (like the LMD18245). So, do not give up too soon. It is not evident at first sight why one needs them to create a current trace like the ideal one depicted in the attached drawing. Only in the 1990-ies useful and low cost motor coil drivers which could reliably drive several Amperes at 50 Volt (with a sinus like current trace) became available. They are little electronic marvels.

[wonju]

Conradelektro,

I think you made a valuable recommendation for using stepper motors drivers. I did some research on the subject and it looks like the stepper motor drivers are perfect for the application.

I am looking for a dual phase smooth change stepper motor drivers. These drivers can generate two sinusoidal voltages with 90 degrees out of phase. IT IS PERFECT!!!

It would be greatly appreciated if someone can share more information on this subject.

I JUST WANTED TO EMPHASIZE THE IMPORTANCE OF HAVING A BIPOLAR (DUAL PHASE) STEPPER DRIVER. IF THIS DRIVER CAN BE FOUND, THE FIGUERA'S GENERATOR CAN BE BUILT WITH THIS DRIVER AND THE ELECTROMAGNETS ONLY. AN AMAZING SIMPLE APPARATUS!

Thanks a lot!

Wonju

[Patrick Kelly]

Woopy

Hi Laurent,

I have only today discovered this forum. Congratulations on your very successful demonstration of Lenz-less operation. This Figuera design looks to have major significance. I hope you don't mind, but I have included two of your screen shots in my write-up (attached).

Patrick

[woopy]

Hi Laurent,

I have only today discovered this forum. Congratulations on your very successful demonstration of Lenz-less operation. This Figuera design looks to have major significance. I hope you don't mind, but I have included two of your screen shots in my write-up (attached).

Patrick

Hi Patrick

Congratulation for your great work (as usual) on the Figuera generator. And of course you can use my pix.

At all

Here another pix with the scope trace of the voltage and the current accross a 1 ohm shunt resistor on the same primary.
The voltage , as Conrad says , make some "zigzag" and is not regular and symetric, but the current trace seems relatively more regular and symetric, and seems slightly out of phase ??

I just tested the Arduino soft from Wonju, and it works great , and you can vary the frequency and the overlap time very precisely. Thank's again Wonju.
I think i will give a go to a circuit with transistors and the arduino to see the difference as off the mecanical commutator. Any simple shematic??

Of course i can't wait for a replication with the Stepper technic.

And now of course, how to build a bigger primary and secondary?

What is best, laminated iron C and H core or ferrite ? any ideas and providers, i hate working and specially winding coils.

OK back to workshop

good luck at all

Laurent

[rosehillworks]

voltage divider

At all
Here is how I hope to do this,


RIW1.png

[wonju]

FE From Back EMF

Very interesting thought! One would get a back EMF kick whenever the commutator switches from one of the resistors = inductors to the next.

And may be, these many back EMF kicks stemming from switching the resistors = inductors are producing the OU effect?

My thought (continuously increasing / decreasing current, see my last post) is based on the idea, that the original inventor wanted that but could not produce it with a commutator. But we can do that now with a full bridge motor driver (chopper circuit that can even reverse the current).

But the continuous current increase / decrease could in fact kill the effect. The many back EMF kicks from the resistor = inductor switching could counter act the back EMF from the primaries and in this way lessen the Lenz losses in the primaries.

In case the resistors are in fact coils (inductors), the question arises "where is North and South in these coils"? Since the original inventor carefully denotes North and South in the primaries but does no say anything about North and South in connection with the resistors, it is doubtful that the resistors are inductors.

Any resistor is also a inductor at high frequencies, but at 50 Hz this artefact would not matter.

I therefore tend to hold the opinion, that a continuous increase and decrease of the current in the primaries was the intention of the inventor, which he could not realise at the beginning of the 20th century (because transistor switching and therefore high frequency chopping was not possible).

Greetings, Conrad

If you are interested, six months ago I published a paper explaining my point of view for the conditions that a back EMF can produce Free Energy. In this paper, the spark gap and coil devices are seen as creating the same conditions for producing the Tesla radiant energy. Said conditions are critical and do not applied to a low frequency device such as Mr. Figuera's. You can find the thread here
http://www.energeticforum.com/renewa...-part-2-a.html

I would like to keep this thread within the scope of devices similar to Figuera's apparatus. Please, if you want to continue a dialog for radiant energy or back EMF type of technology, you may do so in those threads.

Thanks again for your valuable contribution related to using stepper motor drivers for generating the quadratic voltages.

Regards,
Wonju

[conradelektro]

DRV8834 from TI, less than 5 Euro

I think I found a very good IC for driving two coils with any current trace imaginable: DRV8834 from TI

DRV8834PWP - TEXAS INSTRUMENTS - DRIVER, MOTOR, DUAL H BRIDGE, | Farnell United Kingdom

One needs a microprocessor with at least two Digital/Analogue converters (Pins) and 6 I/O Pins.

An other drawback is the package of the DRV8834 (very small, pins close together, a pain to solder by hand)

See page 20 Fig. 12 in the data sheet (High-Resolution Microstepping Using a Microcontroller to Modulate VREF Signals)

The price is very low, less than 5 Euro.

Drive capability: 11.8 Volt, 1.5 Ampere (logic and D/A 3.6 Volt), very good for the TI LaunchPad MSP430

Of course, the program will be a bit evolved (D/A in combination with 6 pins in coordination), nothing for the faint hearted microprocessor programmer.

If some one knows how to solder such a small IC by hand, any suggestions are appreciated.

@Wonju:

For the moment I want to stay with the Fiquera transformer, very intriguing. I am glad you brought this device to my attention. It is an incredible and lucky coincidence that stepper motor driving is one of the experiences I had in my professional life. And I thought very long and hard about the creation of strange current traces in order to move a stepper motor very gently and without any rattling sound from one step to the the next (without loosing steps). It was not obvious at all to me at the time how hard it is to create a varying current. And I did not know till now, that it can be done crudely with a commutator and a resistor bank.

It is a big technological step from a commutator to a "microprocessor + full bridge chopper driver IC" (may be a technological over kill). Fiquera would not even have dreamt about this possibility. The more one has to admire the ingenuity of the inventors in the 19th century.

[conradelektro]

@Laurent (Woopy):

Great scope traces, which really showed me what is going on.

As always you went ahead with a very valuable experiment that teaches a lot. Your commutator is an example of good brinkmanship.

I can not see how one can do it with just resistors and transistors on an microprocessor (e.g. Arduino or LaunchPad). That would need a lot of circuitry.

Please consider the DRV8834 (if you can manage to solder such a small package). The program is also no easy thing and will take me weeks, but once it is done it allows for endless variations.

A further challange is high current and high voltage. Drivers for high wattage are expensive and may not be as versatile as the DRV8834 IC. May be one can use two coil pairs and two DRV8834 ICs to boost wattage. It looks like a pin from the microprocessor can simply be connected to two driver IC pins (of course to pins on different driver ICs with the same function) because the control pins of the driver IC have high resistance.

I plan to build the Fiquera transformer and want to try my hand on a program for the LaunchPad, but I am a slow builder.

May be you have an idea how to solder such a small chip as the DRV8834 by hand (all pins are very small and close together)? The price is so low, one could destroy a few before giving up.

Greetings, Conrad

[wonju]

@Laurent (Woopy):

Great scope traces, which really showed me what is going on.

As always you went ahead with a very valuable experiment that teaches a lot. Your commutator is an example of good brinkmanship.

I can not see how one can do it with just resistors and transistors on an microprocessor (e.g. Arduino or LaunchPad). That would need a lot of circuitry.

Please consider the DRV8834 (if you can manage to solder such a small package). The program is also no easy thing and will take me weeks, but once it is done it allows for endless variations.

A further challange is high current and high voltage. Drivers for high wattage are expensive and may not be as versatile as the DRV8834 IC. May be one can use two coil pairs and two DRV8834 ICs to boost wattage. It looks like a pin from the microprocessor can simply be connected to two driver IC pins (of course to pins on different driver ICs with the same function) because the control pins of the driver IC have high resistance.

I plan to build the Fiquera transformer and want to try my hand on a program for the LaunchPad, but I am a slow builder.

May be you have an idea how to solder such a small chip as the DRV8834 by hand (all pins are very small and close together)? The price is so low, one could destroy a few before giving up.

Greetings, Conrad

Conrad,

I would prefer to stay away from soldering ICs pins, etc. I was thinking about using a finished product such as this one:
Drives / Power Overview

or

Adafruit Motor/Stepper/Servo Shield for Arduino kit [v1.0] ID: 81 - $19.50 : Adafruit Industries, Unique & fun DIY electronics and kits

You can also find low cost units at ebay.

This is my approach,
If the stepper motor driver is rated for low voltage, let's say 30vdc, I will connect the primaries in parallel instead of a series connection. For example, I can connect three N electromagnets in parallel to one phase of the driver, and three S electromagnets to the other phase (at 90 degree).

What do you think?

Wonju

[conradelektro]

@Wonju:

I would gladly stay away from soldering (being a mathematician and software engineer, at least I was before retirement), but the kit you proposed (Adafruit Motor/Stepper/Servo Shield for Arduino kit - v1.0) does not allow for versatile current traces.

The absolute nicety of the DRV8834 are the AVREF and BVREF pins, where two D/A output pins from the microprocessor can set the current for coil A and B really accurately and with at least 32 steps between minimum and maximum. This is almost unbeatable.

Driving from -10 to +10 Volt gives a 20 Volt peak to peak Sinus at 1.5 ampere, quite a lot for a proof of principle.

Well, when you look for a kit, take care to find one with a possibility for many steps when setting the current (which is difficult to find).

I hope to overcome the soldering of the small IC. There are many persons in this forum who a very good craftsmen. May be they come up with a suggestion. I managed to solder the tiny quartz onto a LaunchPad because I found good instructions how to do it (the trick is to tape it to the board before soldering).

One way to solder such a small IC are so called adaptor boards (see attached photo).

Greetings, Conrad

[wonju]

@Wonju:

I would gladly stay away from soldering (being a mathematician and software engineer, at least I was before retirement), but the kit you proposed (Adafruit Motor/Stepper/Servo Shield for Arduino kit - v1.0) does not allow for versatile current traces.

The absolute nicety of the DRV8834 are the AVREF and BVREF pins, where two D/A output pins from the microprocessor can set the current for coil A and B really accurately and with at least 32 steps between minimum and maximum. This is almost unbeatable.

Driving from -10 to +10 Volt gives a 20 Volt peak to peak Sinus at 1.5 ampere, quite a lot for a proof of principle.

Well, when you look for a kit, take care to find one with a possibility for many steps when setting the current (which is difficult to find).

I hope to overcome the soldering of the small IC. There are many persons in this forum who a very good craftsmen. May be they come up with a suggestion. I managed to solder the tiny quartz onto a LaunchPad because I found good instructions how to do it (the trick is to tape it to the board before soldering).

One way to solder such a small IC are so called adaptor boards (see attached photo).

Greetings, Conrad

The Arduino version is a bad example. But, what about many others such as the SureStep (microstepping drives)
http://www.automationdirect.com/stat...estepdrive.pdf

Wonju