Pulsed DC

[DavidE]

The dangers of AC are quite well known, but pulsed DC dangers seem much less well known.

Can anyone share their direct experience or reference information to get a better understanding of how to safely work with this type of energy?

Specifically in ranges of 100-250v.

Thank you.

[Ben2503]

The dangers of AC are quite well known, but pulsed DC dangers seem much less well known.

Can anyone share their direct experience or reference information to get a better understanding of how to safely work with this type of energy?

Specifically in ranges of 100-250v.

Thank you.

Pulsed DC is (almost) the same AC and just as dangerous. Special care must be taken if you use pulsed DC in combination with resonant circuits.

The capacitors can become very highly charged and touching them can be lethal.

It is good practice to short the capacitors after you removed the power supply and want to do work on a circuit.

[DavidE]

Ben,

Thank you.

If a GFI outlet was used for safety... do you believe it might offer the same or similar protection as with AC?

[Ben2503]

Ben,

Thank you.

If a GFI outlet was used for safety... do you believe it might offer the same or similar protection as with AC?

Hi David.
I don't know these outlets, so I am not in a position to advice you on that.
Perhaps somebody else is.

[DavidE]

I am trying to understand why this circuit does what it does. AC 120v in pulsed DC out to a 40 watt LED bulb. But when you try and measure how much AC current it uses... the meter shows zero watts, zero amps.

Maybe someone here can explain.



Note: AC in only uses the hot black wire and the ground wire as shown. The white wire is not used.

[prembold]

I am trying to understand why this circuit does what it does. AC 120v in pulsed DC out to a 40 watt LED bulb. But when you try and measure how much AC current it uses... the meter shows zero watts, zero amps.

Maybe someone here can explain.

Note: AC in only uses the hot black wire and the ground wire as shown. The white wire is not used.

David, Just my first thought, but your note is the significant clue.

The KillaWatt meter is designed to display power used between Hot (black) to Neutral (white) - not used.

The light is working because power is flowing from Hot (black) to ground (green),
but the meter is showing 0.0 because no power is moving from Hot to Neutral.

So you had the answer within you, glad to help you grasp it

[DavidE]

Prembold,

Thank you for your post.

So if I measure AC in I see 120v (expected), on the out DC side it measures at 220v (no load). From other experiments that I have done I have expected to see 2X the voltage when I go from DC to AC on the meter. This set up demonstrates different results. Where does the additional voltage on the pulsed side come from?

My point is not to defeat the power meter, but to grasp if there are other field energies created by the on/off nature of pulsed DC.

I have another circuit that is powered by 5v-30v DC, then it runs through a small coil and transistor essentially turning it into a pulsed DC circuit. This circuit will run LED bulbs (single wire power) as long as I also connect the load to a separate... for lack of better words "antenna." This antenna has no other connection to the circuit but to provide potential difference at the load.

So in many ways what is appearing here seems very similar. And that is why I am asking these questions. To better understand the elements that work together to attract and use "captured" ambient energy, no matter the source.

[DavidE]

Pulsed DC - Less source power needed, less heat produced at the weld, raising the pulse rate for better welding performance.

Pulse rate causing a different mix of forces to be utilized?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCqxSJB-xFg

[DavidE]

prembold,

You said:

The light is working because power is flowing from Hot (black) to ground (green), but the meter is showing 0.0 because no power is moving from Hot to Neutral.

Well that sounds logical... but I tested the hot wire (black) with a clamp style AC-Amp meter, under-load (LED light) it still shows zero AC amp draw. Why?

To be sure I tested other hot legs in my home under load, the meter is working fine.

[Ben2503]

prembold,

You said:


Well that sounds logical... but I tested the hot wire (black) with a clamp style AC-Amp meter, under-load (LED light) it still shows zero AC amp draw. Why?

To be sure I tested other hot legs in my home under load, the meter is working fine.

Do you have any specs or what is the type and brand of the lamps??.

[DavidE]

Ben,

About any 40 or 60 watt LED bulb. Cree, Utilitech, Feit, EcoSmart.

[DavidE]

Here is another example of pulsed dc interaction with the environment (with my limited understanding). This is a low power Single Wire Power circuit. I have powered up to 3 - 40 watt LED bulbs with it.

The brightness of the light seems directly related to some value inherent in the "antenna" connection. I first bumped into this effect by mistakenly connecting one leg of the light load to a ground wire in a 20' length of house wire. The house wire was just spread out on the floor, like an antenna section, it wasn't connected to the house. I later connected this same leg to the metal ductwork in my home and it worked even better.

Apparently, the only draw on the battery is to run the transistor. In some cases I have even noted that the battery gained a charge over prolonged test. Also pictured is an AV plug that would sense the ambient power in the circuit when it went into resonance. Even the plastic case of the battery will light the av plug single LED.

What seems obvious at some point is that there is at least two kinds of energy flowing through this circuit. One from the 12V DC power source and another from... beyond.

[Farmhand]

Batteries can conduct current on the surface of the battery case by way of
electrolyte seeping from the vents onto the case, the video below shows an
unused battery conducting to light an LED on the case. It shows up to 8 volts
or so DC potential across the case.

Case of battery conduction
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKeIzFabINU

If a HF circuit is being powered by the battery or the battery is receiving HF
pulses there can also be a conduction of HF noise via the battery case using
a diode plug or even just the LED, or back to back LED's will show AC or DC noise.


Lead acid batteries behave in certain ways under certain conditions, a good
battery when loaded by a moderate load will drop voltage initially because the
chemical action takes time to catch up with the current draw on it, in some
cases the battery voltage can rise back to it's initial voltage then if the load is
removed the battery can display a higher voltage than was originally displayed
before the loading was done, for some time after, if the load is removed at the right time.

Battery voltages can rise under normal use, and it does not mean there is
more charge stored in the battery.

Battery voltage bounce back under load.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrSO6ZzQ7F8

Your AC input looks to be rectified to DC, Boost converters raise a DC voltage
by switching DC though a coil so that the coil discharge charges a capacitor
to a higher voltage via a diode or by synchronous rectification.

.....

The single wire and "antenna" is a method of transferring energy via displacement current.
The "antenna" or plate is a capacitance and current flows through the load to
charge it, it charges via displacement current.

Single wire lighting with regular transformer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uGj7uQOOMA

Even though the power draw is very small it still consumes power to light a
light with one wire because the experimenters body or a similar small capacitance
is charged and discharged via displacement current.

Single wire power draw.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXE7z6UAYSw

Hope this helps a bit, happy experimenting and take care with the grid power.

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[DavidE]

Farmhand,

Batteries can conduct current on the surface of the battery case by way of electrolyte seeping from the vents onto the case, the video below shows an unused battery conducting to light an LED on the case. It shows up to 8 volts or so DC potential across the case.

I do not doubt what you say here. But in the case of the ambient circuit, the AV led actually lights as you approach almost any component in the circuit. So it is a wireless field, and almost everywhere on the circuit it can be detected. Prior to circuit resonance no, upon achieving the resonant point the energy appears.

Your AC input looks to be rectified to DC, Boost converters raise a DC voltage by switching DC though a coil so that the coil discharge charges a capacitor to a higher voltage via a diode or by synchronous rectification.

I am not making specific claims only reporting test data. Why does there appear to be no current flow on the hot wire side of the rectifier? The clamp meter test gave me a null reading on the black or hot AC wire. And if we cannot establish AC current, then at what point does 220v of pulsed DC enter the circuit?

HF noise

Is that like one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter?

When "noise" becomes energy that does work, I cease to frame it as something to be filtered or minimized in any way.

Thank you for the YouTube references.

[Farmhand]

This setup uses pulsed DC with a feedback oscillator and resonance to produce
some fairly impressive voltages with small input from a 12 volt battery at 14:00 minutes in the video
I show two LED's Back to back lighting from the battery rails when simply held in the hand.

Both receivers are connected by a single wire.

Two receivers and Armstrong oscillator
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJd8TNC75AI

I show on the scope when the mosfet switches the primary and the waveform
produced. This oscillator probably isn't typical of an Armstrong oscillator but is
based a lot on one.

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An inductive field produced by changing magnetic/electric fields can light up lights for sure.
As far as the noise or voltage spikes go in a circuit believe it or not the noise is not free, it is produced by our hand.

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