Question - Radiant Energy Battery charging using an aerial

[kapierenundkopieren]

Hi guys! I just have a link that belongs here:

Radiant Energy Diatribe

...and i wonder how much of the statements inthere ate true.
I already "baked" the coax a week ago and now i'm thinking of where to hang it.

There is an "extreme" statement:
"A treated piece of insulated wire strung out in the wind will act as a Van de Graaf high voltage generator. In some conditions, a 400-foot length of wire can generate 50 kilowatts and even on a bright sunny day with a breeze of 3-4 mph, it will average 10 kilowatts, according to Paul Clint's calculations."

What do you guys think about that?

Dann

[Farmhand]

Well I had an interesting time this afternoon, I didn't get much time but I got the earth stake in down the hill as far as the undrground cable would allow' then I put a 300mm x 300mm x 1.6mm aluminium plate about ten feet up a dead tree horazontal, all up about 10 to 15 meters vertical from ground stake to plate, got down and connected a very small pf 1kv cap and seen 43 volts flash on the screen of my meter a couple of times so I went and got a diode for the plate wire and a SCR cap pulser 470 uf 400v cap connected that and was very surprised to see 87 volts on the cap so I shorted the cap (which echoed through the valley like a rifle shot ) before connecting the battery (6v) the cap voltage then rose stedily to 5.5 volts so I disconnected the battery again shorted the cap and watched it rise again to 5.5v so I connected the battery and pfft back down to 2.7 volts

I can only assume I need to dope the plate negative ? To attract ?, (it is in a plastic wrapping with cardboard on one side), and size the cap better, (smaller and kv range).

I think I might try conncting the plate in series with one of my electric fence wire's in the hot sun for a while but which way ? positive to the plate then the wire to fence or the other way around ? It seemed to work very well at first then declined rapidly.

Anyway i'll try a horozontal suspended insulated wire in between a live and earth wire on the fence ( electric fence is bipolar ) when I time.

Cheers all

[Mark W]

I can remember reading somewhere that John Benini and one of his friends made one of these many moons ago. If I remember correctly they made a home made capacitor out of some large glass sheets and aluminium sandwiched in between them.

They dismantled it as they were very worried about their own safety. We must remember that this was a story and have no evidence that it is true. But as mentioned in my last post that my friend tried this a few years ago and managed to charge up a 12v battery using the sparkplug method.

I have not conditioned my cable yet, and was looking at doing this in the oven connected to a H V dc power supply, on thinking over this again would it be better to do this process in a vacuum oven, would there be any advantages, I understand that electricity is unable to bridge across a vacuum, but would there be any advantages in forming a better field within the material.

Mark

[Farmhand]

Hi Mark,

I can remember reading somewhere that John Benini and one of his friends made one of these many moons ago. If I remember correctly they made a home made capacitor out of some large glass sheets and aluminium sandwiched in between them.

That sounds like fun, i'm aware that capacitors can disable things with thier discharge so I always try to be carefull with them.

I've never tried to make one though and I have the aluminium sheet and glass so I might just try that, I suppose by trial I can work out the size I need by making a smaller one of same constuction. I could put it in a container of oil ? I love retro looking stuff hand made. There are always other ways to use it too.

I can't get the weather proof electric fence energiser apart to look inside but it seems to use a simple relay based capacitive discharge through a tranformer to acheive it's function. So maybe some energy recovery is possible from field collapse ? Anyone any idea's on that, it would be good to be able to recover that as well.

Lots of things to try but it's getting very hot here now so lightning season is near. Much more dangerous than capacitors.

Andrew

P.S. I just checked the voltage of the cap that I used today and it self discharged to 1.25 volts while reading the voltage the meter seemed to drain the cap slowly aswell. I was thinking it may have been still charged but thats not possible I havn't used it for a while. I'm still having trouble believing it was charged to that by a piece of aluminium.

[Jbignes5]

Hi Mark,



That sounds like fun, i'm aware that capacitors can disable things with thier discharge so I always try to be carefull with them.

I've never tried to make one though and I have the aluminium sheet and glass so I might just try that, I suppose by trial I can work out the size I need by making a smaller one of same constuction. I could put it in a container of oil ? I love retro looking stuff hand made. There are always other ways to use it too.

I can't get the weather proof electric fence energiser apart to look inside but it seems to use a simple relay based capacitive discharge through a tranformer to acheive it's function. So maybe some energy recovery is possible from field collapse ? Anyone any idea's on that, it would be good to be able to recover that as well.

Lots of things to try but it's getting very hot here now so lightning season is near. Much more dangerous than capacitors.

Andrew

P.S. I just checked the voltage of the cap that I used today and it self discharged to 1.25 volts while reading the voltage the meter seemed to drain the cap slowly aswell. I was thinking it may have been still charged but thats not possible I havn't used it for a while. I'm still having trouble believing it was charged to that by a piece of aluminium.

Anytime you make your own capacitors there is much danger over not knowing the limits of that capacitor. Be very careful.

Caps have a way of becoming polarized a tad bit. This is the same process that was mentioned before about conditioning the cable to be an electreet. All an electreet is, is a fancy polarized capacitor around the wire. If you decide to make one please treat it as a fully charged cap of unknown size. They both can be dangerous if not handled with respect.

[Mark W]

Hi Mark,

I just checked the voltage of the cap that I used today and it self discharged to 1.25 volts while reading the voltage the meter seemed to drain the cap slowly aswell. I was thinking it may have been still charged but thats not possible I havn't used it for a while. I'm still having trouble believing it was charged to that by a piece of aluminium.

If I can remember correctly John Benini’s capacitor was huge I think is was 8ft x 4ft I think that it was mentioned on the Fieldlines forum, but I have been unable to find it again. Anyway with a thing that size, no wonder they dismantled it !!!. anyway have you tried attaching any PTFE tape to the plate or may be better still, rap it in cling film to see if you have a better reading
It would be interesting to find out

[Farmhand]

If you decide to make one please treat it as a fully charged cap of unknown size. They both can be dangerous if not handled with respect.

I was thinking of a small one the right capacitance to charge a battery, my thoughts were that a handmade one might be more durable, with good discharge characteristics, able to absorb higher voltage spikes or surges, I make it a rule to disconnect the source and give the cap time to dissapate it's energy. A shorting of the battery leads while still connected to the source could damage the SCR maybe. I will be carefull.

If I can remember correctly John Benini’s capacitor was huge I think is was 8ft x 4ft

Wow that is big, I wouldn't do that i'm not that keen.

anyway have you tried attaching any PTFE tape to the plate or may be better still, rap it in cling film to see if you have a better reading
It would be interesting to find out

Yes I will try that I can probably laminate it with thick plastic if it looks promising. I just hope the wallabies don't chew my earth cable, they chew electric fence tape if the fence if left off, that will set me back I will have to bury it or put it inside poly pipe maybe.

I also just realised as I was changing the cap to a 15 Mf yellow cap that I need an output diode between the cap and the battery otherwise the battery seems to backfeed the cap, well it did while I was testing it with a SS energiser when I shut off the energiser the battery backfed the cap and the cap dissapates much faster than the battery, I also realised that I have a TRIAC and not an SCR oops, seems to work the same though. Maybe i'll have better luck next time, i'll set it up in the morning with a drained pre-conditioned battery.

Thanks

[Mark W]

I might have been wrong about the size, it could have been inches, but I have managed to find the link to the page, It is in comment number seven, anyway some interesting reading on the topic
Harnassing Static Electricity - Hypography Science Forums

[Farmhand]

Yippee the battery is charging

Hi all, I set up the arrangement this morning and the battery is charging, it was drained last night to 12.5 volts and within a half hour was .1 volt higher 12.6 volts and climbing the funny thing is that only 1.4 volts can be read on the cap which is the difference between battery and cap voltage when this pulser is used with an energiser. I measured the frequency which may be a phantom reading but it is always changing between .43Hz and 10.2 Hz or so. Can my cheap meters read properly at this low frequency ?

The setup so far is a plate "p" in a tree with insulated wire,diode, cap+, diode, battery+, battery -, SCR, cap-, diode, ground.

Seems to be working but I don't understand how, with only 1.4v on the caps unless the voltage is so fleeting it cannot be measured. It also seems to make a high pitched static sound I can't get away from. even after I disconnect it all the sound remains for a while, spooky.

I'll check it again soon to be sure it's ok, I think low frequency high voltage could give a nasty shock, especially through a cap pulser so be careful if you try.

So far looks good yesterday i had a big jumble of jumpers and was missing diode's I needed I think.

Cheers

[Farmhand]

I removed the diode to ground just to see if it was needed ( then imediately lost it ) and now the battery is back where it started. The ground seems to be positively charged, I put the negative probe of DMM to battery negative, positive probe to ground and get .8 volt, I put the postive probe to battery positive and negative to ground and get 11.5 volts. The Battery reads 12.2 volts I think thats why I need the diode to ground.

Tonight i'll rig up a spark gap and transformer, I have 12 to 240 transformers, i'm thinking a small spark gap and use the transformer 240 as primary, 12 side to cap pulser. And set the spark gap narrow.

I have some Air dry Polyester Insulation (spray can). Is this what I need to insulate the plate ? And can I use this to insulate enamelled wire joins ?

I've got a car coil but it's one with a resister.

Jbignes5 I have some questions about the three aerials I will PM you if you like I think I have the materials to make them, I can't find the old coax it must have been thrown out. I will read your other posts before I PM you I may have missed what i'm trying to work out.

Regards

[Mark W]

Hi Andrew
Looks like you are getting something out of it; I spoke with my friend last night who did this a few years back to see if he had any recommendations that may help. He said that he did his with coax with ptfe tape tied onto the cable for attracting more static. He did say he had some problems with the cable touching some branches which caused it to loose it’s charge , he put the far end of his cable into a glass bottle and filled it with silicone and suspended it with fishing line tied around the bottle. He said that he tried string but he thinks he still lost the charge through the string.
Not sure about the Polyester Insulation on the plate, would this stop the attraction or help it, hopefully someone else out there can answer this. I still think that clingfilm would work well and even let some dangle down below the plate. When I use it, it always ends up getting stuck to something.

Please keep us up-dated

Kind regards
Mark

[Farmhand]

Broke the transformer getting it off the board, can't find a suitable plug either, unless I take one from a mower. So i'll persist with the SCR and put the plate up higher when I seal it. I've got the battery and stuff in a plastic box so it'll stay dry if it rains.

Cheers

[Farmhand]

I've realised that my triac was destroyed and decided to scale back a bit so I took the setup back to the bunkhouse replaced the triac now i'm using a neon to trigger it and hammered in a 1 foot piece of copper for a earth, put the plate on a beam about 7 feet high, connected it all up and have 55 volts and rising in under 5 minuits WOW the cap is only 2 uf and the neon will trigger at about 80 to 100 volts .

The way I had it rigged was too powerfull for the gear holy cow the plate is only 1 foot square. 7 feet up now.

Yep over 100 volts before dump When I try to measure the volts start to drop, must be my bodgy meter. I'll video it and post tommorow it's late night here.

Had to share i'll watch it for a bit. I added another 2 uf

Cheers

[DanDMan]

Tower

Wow, I was going to play with this using my 70 foot tower. Perhaps that might be over doing it.. But I keep thinking that a metal tower would ground out the charge in the area the same way a lightning rod depletes an area of charge.

[Farmhand]

Hi Dan, I'm having a lot of fun ith this and getting a few shocks. I can't get video off my camera at the moment and google is annoying me no end.

Any way i'll post a drawing or two instead and a pic. I insulated the plate with spray on pollyester insulation stuff it's red but it doesn't seem to matter it still works. I'm finding it difficult to size the cap properly and to make it dump when I want. So far the best seems to be a 10 uf I think metalised polly not sure and drop at 22 volts with a zener ( I want to change from negative line to positive with the SCR )the build up is slow how I have it set up now ( only seven feet up ) which helps to see the nature of things.

I can see that the A.C. power close here is a factor, but not in the paddock. In the paddock with a big difference of height things are much less forgiving.

The area here is rich in minerals, old gold mine nearby was very big, and the ground is mostly granite and stuff. May be why, and when it rains there is a lot of underground water action.

I have an idea for an oscillator charger to work from a plate "p" setup all fully automatic, the oscillations should resonate with the plate.

Still raining so I mess about again today while it's raining too heavy to work.

Cheers