First time ssg , having trouble getting it to work.

[Nexgen]

Hello everyone,
To begin this is my first attempt at building a ssg and so far i haven't had much luck. I have done some research on other posts by people on their first attempts and tried some modifications to my setup to see if it would help. But nothing so far. My circuit is made of

a 10 k ohm 250 dc . 25w potentiometer
a 120 v ac neon lamp bulb
1. IN4001 diode
instead of the In4007 diode i found one that is a 1.5 a 1,000 v rectifier diode.
100 ohm 1/2 watt resistor
and a transistor

(Ive heard that a 100 ohm diode may not cause the bifilar to self oscilate, but i've also seen others use it and get it to self oscilate , any ideas if that may be one reason for it not working?)
I've tested the finished circuits continuity to be sure it is functional and not broken , the results showed it was working.

my coil consists of a plastic spindle 3 inches long with a soft iron core made of multiple rods. The coil itself has 26 guage and 22 gauge wire in a bifilar configuration with 280 turns. ( i know i need more than 400 turns but this first ssg is just a small version.)

And my wheel is just a skate wheel with 4 , 1/2 inch ferrous magnets from radio shack ( though i have tried 2 larger 1 inch ferrous magnets.
If needed I can post a picture of anything that is needed to clarify.

[Aaron]

Bedini SG

Hello everyone,
To begin this is my first attempt at building a ssg and so far i haven't had much luck. I have done some research on other posts by people on their first attempts and tried some modifications to my setup to see if it would help. But nothing so far. My circuit is made of

a 10 k ohm 250 dc . 25w potentiometer
a 120 v ac neon lamp bulb
1. IN4001 diode
instead of the In4007 diode i found one that is a 1.5 a 1,000 v rectifier diode.
100 ohm 1/2 watt resistor
and a transistor

(Ive heard that a 100 ohm diode may not cause the bifilar to self oscilate, but i've also seen others use it and get it to self oscilate , any ideas if that may be one reason for it not working?)
I've tested the finished circuits continuity to be sure it is functional and not broken , the results showed it was working.

my coil consists of a plastic spindle 3 inches long with a soft iron core made of multiple rods. The coil itself has 26 guage and 22 gauge wire in a bifilar configuration with 280 turns. ( i know i need more than 400 turns but this first ssg is just a small version.)

And my wheel is just a skate wheel with 4 , 1/2 inch ferrous magnets from radio shack ( though i have tried 2 larger 1 inch ferrous magnets.
If needed I can post a picture of anything that is needed to clarify.

Hi Nexgen,

Congratulations for trying to build the SG.

100 ohms is pretty low to get this circuit to self oscillate unless the coil might have way more turns that it needs with small wire or something like that since the coil itself already has a lot of resistance build it.

At 3 inches long coil, 280 turns with that wire might not be enough - if you can increase the turns to maybe 400 or so, that actually might be better - I doubt if your circuit is self oscillating at this point with that kind of coil with a 100 ohm coil in series with that adjustable pot.

Do you hear a buzzing or whining sound? If you do, your coil could be oscillating.

With my original roller skate wheel, the coil was maybe little less than 2 inches long and maybe a little over 1 inch in diameter with similar wire it made a coil that was close to the edge of the ends of the spools. With 3 inches, again, I think you need more turns.

With this size of build, you probably do not need the neon bulb in the circuit and you don't need the adjustable pot. Just do the coil with more windings and use a single 680 ohm resistor for starters.

Diode should be fine - for this size coil, 1N914's are fine.

And with this size of build, if you don't have an output battery connected to the output of the coil, you won't blow the transistor - just get it to run.

I hope that helps!

[Nexgen]

No , i don't hear a buzzing or whining when it is connected. I definately will make a new coil with more turns and replace my resistor with a 680 resistor. Once I do that and try it out I will post an update. Thanks for the help.

[Aaron]

Bedini SG

No , i don't hear a buzzing or whining when it is connected. I definately will make a new coil with more turns and replace my resistor with a 680 resistor. Once I do that and try it out I will post an update. Thanks for the help.

It sounds like your spool is big enough that you can just add more windings. Solder the new wire to the ends of the wire on the coil and put some electrical tape around the connections to insulate them. Wind more and maybe that can save you the time of making a new coil from scratch.

[Nexgen]

I ran out of my 22 guage wire, but I have another spool of 26 guage wire. Would It be ok to solder on to my 22 guage , a 23 guage spool of wire? would it be feasable to use the 23 guage on the 22 guage? If not I can buy another spool of 22 guage.

[ewizard]

I may not be the best authority on that question but I don't see why you can't mix the different gauge wires. One can just carry more current but should still work.

[Nexgen]

got it working!

Thanks a lot Aaron I followed your advice and replaced the 100 ohm resistor with a 680 ohm resistor, and I also added mroe wraps to 400 exactly. I tried it with my first battery ( a 6 v lantern battery with no response in the orientation that introvertebrate uses in his video). So i added an outlet pllug to the mix ( old phone charger) and switched out the bottom coil connections and I got a pulsing action going on! but its incredibly slow. It only pulses once every second or so . I didn't attach the potentiometer to this because I was just trying to get it going now I think ill attach the potentiometer. Hopefully itll give me some control of the pulsation so it will cause the wheel to actually get a full rotation without stopping.

[Nexgen]

Hey everyone,
So i got the ssg to work but when its connected to a secondary battery it only pulses once per second when not connected it is very fast. I haven't done a rpm test yet but it works which is good to know. I burnt out one of my smaller alegator clips i was using ( only had 2 small gauges , but i guess its expected) So ill buy thicker ones. But anyone know how I can get it to run faster when connected to a secondary? ( btw Im going to reatach the potentiometer back now that its working so I can control the speed).

[Nexgen]

Actually I just realized I wired it wrong when it started to pulse really fast , I attached the top of the 23 guage wire to the positive terminal and the coil began to get really hot. When its wired correctly it still only has the very weak once persecond pulsation which isn't activated by the magnet. Any tips? would adding more wraps help it pulse faster? (havn't attached potentiometer yet)

[Nexgen]

Ive added 200 more wraps to give my coil 600 wraps. But I found that the adapter I was using was causing the pulsation that I observed when attached in the reverse fashion.(I believe because it had a capacitor attached casing it to build up and release. Im clipping off the capacitor and redoing.) I will retry now that there are more wraps to see if I can get the transistor to activate.

[Nexgen]

O ya btw thanks a lot Ewizard for the tip it worked great!! But Im still having trouble getting the ssg to start. I'll post a video of what is happening soon . Thanks again everyone for giving me help.

[Nexgen]

Hey everyone here's an update video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjJWeVcn22Q

[Nexgen]

Yay Got It To Work

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rH3uPYw9_4
heres it running for 3 minutes this lil guy has quite an amount of speed to it so im impressed thanks all for your help.