High Speed Mechanical Switching Vs Transistors (aka purple flashing)

[Inquorate]

Other than mechanical, no transistor

@ teslaproject - I have considered ideas that aren't as 'mechanical', but haven't tried any out so far..

Short term, this may work for you;
Solid State Relay 3-32VDC Input 100A@30VDC Switching - Jaycar Electronics

The best idea I had for a non mechanical non transistor non reed switch non relay switch involves the coherer;
StateMaster - Encyclopedia: Coherer

A hv spark from a coil collapse causes the Filings to cohere, which begins conducting, charging up an electromagnet (to decohere the mixed magnetic & non-magnetic filings) which is also a transformer (which will later create a spark) then going off to run whatever you need running.

When the coherer stops conducting, the electromagnet's field collapses, creating the spark in the secondary's spark gap that starts the whole process again..

It allows the use of 12-36 volts to run things, while still creating the hv spark to manipulate the coherer.

I haven't tried it out. To tell you the truth, I'd forgotten about it until you asked, and was able to improve the design in my brain lab.. Thankyou for jogging my memory.

And for giving me food for thought.

Love and light

[Inquorate]

Coherer switch?

Found a little demo; the spark doesn't have to be large at all for the coherer to cohere

Maybe the collapse of a relatively small coil would be sufficient to trigger a repeat.

YouTube - Coherer

A small cap, a zener diode and a potentiometer may be sufficient to regulate coherer collapse (on time) and maybe off time can be determined by ...

Suggestions, anyone?

Love and light

[teslaproject]

@Inquorate

Thanks Mate

Thats a couple of excellent ideas right there. The Coherer sounds like an interesting yet simple approach with very few issues that could possibly plague it. I hadn't attempted a relay yet... Doh!! Sometimes low tech is best.

Thanks for bouncing around the ideas. What a great community!

May the Aetheric Streams of Energy flow your way always.

TP

[sucahyo]

I think solid state relay is slower than transistor if it is optocoupler, otherwise it has the exact same problem as transistor. For the coherer, how fast can it switch? I think we need something that can switch fast and sudden.

I find that oil will not suppress the spark caused by switching 2 ohm car coil primary. When we let around 6Amp of current passing trough the switch, there will be big spark with pretty colour. The oil I apply in the contact evaporized in seconds. The relay became plasma spark plug lol.

YouTube - Unwanted spike in a relay

[Inquorate]

Coherer

@ Sucahyo, it is interesting to me that nobody really understands how the coherer works..

Coherer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As for how fast it can switch, I'd say pretty fast. It seems to cohere instantly. Of course, I don't have a scope yet so I can't see the waveform.

I will install that scope program on my laptop and see if I can upload the waveform as this thing progresses..

Here's the preliminary findings, which I found very interesting.. Seems that as a resistor, the coherer may have momentary negative resistance characteristics.

Of course, it could be a meter error.

YouTube - coherer switch experiments

Love and light

[rave154]

for inq

Inq, dont know if youve seen this already...

YouTube - Coherer

[sucahyo]

How can we make a coherer oscillate quickly?

[rave154]

TP,

check out my 555 circuit on my "Tesla Attempt" thread, it is isolated from the HV and works great :-)

[teslaproject]

Thanks

Thanks Rave

I will have a gander at it now.

TP

[morpher44]

re: burning out 2n3055

two things to be sure to do.
1. The resistor feeding the base of 2n3055 needs to be rated for 1 to 5 watts. Also, you can control how much current will flow from collector to emitter (5 ams max) by altering this resistor. So if your too hot, you can put more resistance to reduce the power into the 2n3055.
2. heat-sink the 2n3055
3. duty-cycle of 555 is key. Attempt to get as close as possible to 50%.
If you go under 50%, you may not give coil enough power and you will have less dramatic effects. If horribly larger than 50%, back EMF will collide with the current from 2n3055 -- yielding heat.

There is an interesting circuit here for flybacks.
Electronic gadgets for the evil genius - Google Books
which I hope to try soon.

[Radiant_Science]

I have done some experiments and came up with this setup....might be what you are looking for??

YouTube - Oscillator

It's a modulated permanent magnet field....the coil produces a counter field to shut down the reed switch only for the perm. magnet to turn it back on.

[teslaproject]

Top notch

I have done some experiments and came up with this setup....might be what you are looking for??

YouTube - Oscillator

It's a modulated permanent magnet field....the coil produces a counter field to shut down the reed switch only for the perm. magnet to turn it back on.

Great job Radiant Science!

I failed to think of that option and yet only a couple weeks ago I watched a video of someone tinkering with something similar. It was spark gaps in proximity to magnetic fields or using a Neo as one of the electrodes.

Thanks for the memory reboot.

TP

[sucahyo]

TP,

check out my 555 circuit on my "Tesla Attempt" thread, it is isolated from the HV and works great :-)

I think the reason we should use mechanic is to get the sharpest fall time as possible. It should get us more output power at lower input.

3. duty-cycle of 555 is key. Attempt to get as close as possible to 50%.
If you go under 50%, you may not give coil enough power and you will have less dramatic effects. If horribly larger than 50%, back EMF will collide with the current from 2n3055 -- yielding heat.

I have slightly different conclusion. At 50% my circuit will fry the 3055 in seconds, already kill 3 of them. So I have to use 10% to avoid killing 3055, and now I can light it on for days. Even with this small duty cycle my circuit can light up CFL at full brightness at slightly more than 1 Amp using 220V coil output (measured 180V).

[sucahyo]

I tried using oil filled relay today, in attempt to reduce the spark. With other relay for timer I can make the relay oscillate in about 1Hz. But when I connect car coil with CFL load to it. The relay contact stuck.

Curious, I tried again with wire and steel bar. It stuck real good too and there is still glow spark in the contact right after it separated even when still submerge in oil.

My conclusion now:
- Oil do not prevent spark as much
- prepare for sticky contact halting the oscillation
- releasing sticky contact require considerable power.

[Inquorate]

I have done some experiments and came up with this setup....might be what you are looking for??

YouTube - Oscillator

It's a modulated permanent magnet field....the coil produces a counter field to shut down the reed switch only for the perm. magnet to turn it back on.

Does this switch stick at above 2 khz?