Donald Smith Devices too good to be true

[dragon]

This is one I put together yesterday - the "mess of the day"... it has a working voltage of around 160 volts using 3 6800uf 350 volt caps driving 2 500 watt loads in parallel. The loads are a bit mismatched but have around the same resistance, one is a 500 watt grow bulb the other a quartz halogen 500 watt shop light. Both produce massive heat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3oI...ature=youtu.be

[dragon]

I've been struggling with the switching also. I'm using a CD4047 inverter chip to drive a relay adjustable from 1 to 400 hz. The 12 volt system used a basic SPDT 30 amp automotive relay which worked fine for testing - probably not a good choice for prolonged use.

It seems like it would fall nicely into some of your heating work quite well. You can drive multiple bulbs with it, the lower the ohms the better. I've driven some low ohm heating elements ( 12 volt stuff ) quite nicely with it while testing its limits.

[SkyWatcher]

Hi dragon, after testing both versions for awhile, just as i suspected, the 12 volt battery in position C1 and the capacitors in position C2 and C3 seems to be the most efficient.
I am using a light switch to manually flip between the 1 and 2 switch positions shown in your pdf circuit drawing.
After about half an hour of doing this, the 12 volt tractor battery which started out at 12.62 volts rest voltage, is now resting at 12.61 volts, the next day.
Was able to get the 10 ohm-10 watt resistor to a nice heat level while doing this.
This circuit seems promising to me, just need to think up some kind of automatic switch.
peace love light

[dragon]

Interesting SkyWatcher, I really hadn't considered using a battery in C2 position. I'm glad you found it interesting, quite often I get tunnel vision focusing on specific goals, it's interesting to see what others would do with a given idea. Have fun !

[SkyWatcher]

Hi all, Hi dragon, thanks for sharing the pdf.
I'm making some experiments, i first tried with a 12 volt tractor battery in the C1 position and used 20 volt-1.5 farad car audio capacitors in the C2 and C3 positions.
Then also tried placing a 12 volt tractor battery in the C2 position, or the in series with C1 position.
Using a 10 ohm-10 watt resistor in load position.
The 12 volt battery in C2 position seems to be recovering the energy very well.
Using an amp meter to measure the amperage going into C3 and the amperage being recovered into the battery in C2 position, looks equal to me, around 1.23 amps at peak and tapers down.
I placed the capacitors in series to handle the voltage in the dual battery experiment.
The capacitor in C2 and C3 position may be more efficient though, since it probably has less charging losses.
peace love light

[Solarlab]

tswift; from your post, quote:

... "However, testing is showing no measurable power gain. The circuit itself works pretty well: the SSTC resonates strongly, it will light up a fluorescent tube anywhere close. Power levels are just below where the top of the coil will start breaking out a spark. Running in CW mode like this is totally silent and the MOSFET heat sink gets warm but not excessively hot. Likewise, the radiant capture part works pretty well. The supercap bank charges up nicely even from fully discharged (although the coil tuning shifts slightly as the bank charges). When charged to about 12.8V, the pickup coil can deliver about 1A of current in the cap bank. This is plenty to run the step-down inverter stage (kind of a misnomer since it's really a 12V to 12V converter), which draws about 150 mA with no load. There is also a shunt regulator circuit which limits the cap bank voltage by just dissipating excess current as necessary, that's the 3055 transistor with a heat sink.

If I load the output from the isolation transformer with a 16 ohm power resistor (that aluminum rectangle is a 1000W 16 ohm resistor), it draws just under 1A of current (as you would expect at 12V nominal voltage). The discouraging part is that the Lenz effect on the isolation transformer primary can be clearly seen on the ammeter. It takes essentially 1A in to get 1A out. The conversion efficiency of the step-down inverter is pretty good: the MOSFET's don't even need a heat sink, nor do they get perceptibly warm. Transformer core losses are very low, I deliberately used about 3 times the normal number of turns for this core in order to limit flux density and keep hysteresis losses very low.

Loading the output even further confirms this result. With a 1 ohm resistor the voltage at the secondary collapses to about 2V, while the current on the ammeter climbs to about 2A.

Conclusion? "

F.Y.I. (as a quick comment/observation)

It appears this circuit is not yet "asymmetrical" - this is one of the prime
requirements!

- input must be isolated from the output - load can not affect input; no BEMF (OEDS) or
any disturbance of the system's resonance (neither series nor parallel resonance shifts)...

Although I am not familiar with Don Smith's nor your circuit replication; maybe a review of
implementation while considering the asymmetry requirement might shed some light on
the situation; or at worst, provide a (sometimes) helpful break... !!!

Sorry but I do not recall what method Don Smith used to isolate/eliminate BEMF - probably
his coil winding/management arrangement; since, I believe, his pulse/frequency was set at a fixed rate.

Also, just as a note here - forget considering loose or close coupling within the system per se,
to avoid possible "orthodox" thinking re: "transformer action" [think - energy conversion???].

A variety of sources discuss the asymmetry requirement in detail including Vasiliev, Gorchilin,
AAbramovich, Utkin, and so forth ...

Good work, Good Luck...

FIN

[ricards]

I tested the circuit out manually.. the amp meter jack itself backwards every switch at SW3 it does what I thought It would do.

yes I did get the Idea here on this forum but I only get to literally work on the Idea this few days (too busy chasing other butterflies)..
the reason is I'm trying to be open as possible and give anyone who's presenting something the benefit of the doubt. and try to analyze and test.. experiment.. if I can't "thought it out". build things to verify if what I see in my mind is the same with what going to happen list things that are real and not and build a conception of "Energy" in my mind.

well that experiment of yours was an added proof that energy was just an abstract concept, its not consumed. you can use it over and over. as long as there is a potential difference. Its not worth trying to literally get THE "Energy" (because it does not exist) but to study how this nature "Balance" itself, If our circuits is in the path of this "Balancing Process" then we will have "Energy". not that I'm trying to lecture.. simply just trying to express my thoughts.. so far that is my conception of "Energy" I'm about 80% sure that I'm right.

I think you should not try to remove the battery anymore . I mean its part of the circuit. a body would not function without the heart..
Don said his suitcase has a battery in it, most of his device also have one.
John Bedini have lots of batteries.
Tesla always had a generator.
its an essential part. A "dipole" an Imbalance
1ma for 30leds is enough to prove the point.

How to measure success?..
IMO you have already succeeded and I thank you for sharing that.
you just have not looped it

[dragon]

Good thinking Ricards, although, it seems you may have recreated something closer to the bedini scalar charger or very similar to the 3 battery system that Dave and Matt are working with, which actually works quite well.

Here is a short version pdf which might help in the understanding of the slight variations in what I'm calling a charge pump. Very similar to the above mentioned but with some interesting changes that I found while working with similar arrangements. My concern isn't with the 15-20% losses in C1 as these can easily be replaced - for me personally it was more about the current generated in the process of moving energy through a load while limiting losses.

Although, combined in some of my research, the "start with nothing" is a separate system, one of many pieces to create the whole. If your using a forced system ( an oscillator circuit driven with a battery or other power source ) how would you know if the system is drawing from an outside source? How would you measure the difference if there was any? How could you measure success? Like looking for a black rock in a totally dark room... By combining efforts to preserve charge and drawing from an outside source to offset losses it becomes more likely we can come close to unity while driving a load. Unity in the sense that we are recycling energy as well as drawing from a small source.

For instance if you grossly limit input from a battery and focus on ways to increase output by harvesting from an outside source and/or recycling the energy you are more likely to succeed over simply pouring energy into it hoping to see something different. I've attached a schematic of a system I built many years ago that isolates and limits the battery. The center coil harvests energy to drive the system. I could never remove the battery completely but it was an excellent learning tool in finding ways to do more with less. It would drive 30 LED's in parallel with a draw on the battery of less than 1ma.

[ricards]

A Circuit

Can you figure out a way to use a charged cap in conjunction with the make n break without discharging the cap?

Hi dragon,

here is the circuit I was thinking,
Back_N_forth.PNG

I think this concept relates to some other topic as well and most probably has been suggested before by other people in this forum but was little considered, but am posting it here anyway.

should be easy to do with Transistors and Relays. to try and see what it does.

It will be hard to do resonance with this though, it will produce a weird waveform..

maybe I should put another transformer at SW3?..

[ricards]

If you start with nothing you can only go up from there... right? Or, I suppose, you could end up with nothing.... either way you have nothing to loose and maybe something to gain.

Just for fun, look at the 3 diagrams... The only power on those lines comes from a charge separation. Between the antenna and ground you have a basic "make n break". Fig 2 a coil is added, Fig 3 a tuned coil is added. The only power required is that needed to operate the "make n break" which can come from the movement of energy once its operational.

Can you figure out a way to use a charged cap in conjunction with the make n break without discharging the cap?

Do you suppose you could do something similar with a current source.... like maybe 2 earth grounds with a make n break? yea, probably wouldn't work...

Maybe with a little creative thought it might be possible to store some of the energy and reuse it to enhance the outcome... hhmmmm... maybe a charge pump of some sort... nah, probably not...

A Challenge for all those interested... use the diagrams to create a simple circuit that can light a single LED... you can start with a simple manual make n break circuit - learn and understand it - then work your skills to a self sustaining LED circuit. Most of this can be done without spending any money using coils collecting dust on the shelf so the only investment is time along with some creative thinking.

I like the Idea of going back to the basics, and do some simple testing and observing.. try and achieve simple but meaningful goals.. I'm interested and I could picture something in my mind that I might do later....

Well.. it will be a while to redo my setup. with regards with don' related stuff.
it all popped and smoked.
ahh resonant rise...
the good thing though is I make all my circuitry from scratch, so I wouldn't go **** when they go like that.

There are some take away to that popping and smoking though.. I could get some good current flow from a Loose Coupling...

yes really something is not right, from my own testing, I could not get an accurate Voltage Reading on the output, I would have higher Voltage reading when I ground the common lead (Black) rather than measuring the two output leads.. my step-up transformer configuration somehow is acting to a step down.. (maybe because of the very loose coupling).. and when If I double my input voltage, I should be expecting double in current as well, but as my testing shows,
@ 12v-1.9A
@ 24v-2.0A
@ 36v-2.1A
@ 48v- popped

oh yeah I forgot to attach my spreadsheet calc, if anyone is interested... hope you can comment as well.. if you see errors..
Resonance_Calc.zip

[dragon]

Start with nothing...

If you start with nothing you can only go up from there... right? Or, I suppose, you could end up with nothing.... either way you have nothing to loose and maybe something to gain.

Just for fun, look at the 3 diagrams... The only power on those lines comes from a charge separation. Between the antenna and ground you have a basic "make n break". Fig 2 a coil is added, Fig 3 a tuned coil is added. The only power required is that needed to operate the "make n break" which can come from the movement of energy once its operational.

Can you figure out a way to use a charged cap in conjunction with the make n break without discharging the cap?

Do you suppose you could do something similar with a current source.... like maybe 2 earth grounds with a make n break? yea, probably wouldn't work...

Maybe with a little creative thought it might be possible to store some of the energy and reuse it to enhance the outcome... hhmmmm... maybe a charge pump of some sort...

A Challenge for all those interested... use the diagrams to create a simple circuit that can light a single LED... you can start with a simple manual make n break circuit - learn and understand it - then work your skills to a self sustaining LED circuit. Most of this can be done without spending any money using coils collecting dust on the shelf so the only investment is time along with some creative thinking.

[tswift]

I'm curious why you think the number of turns limits flux density in the core. Can you explain that?

Sure, it's standard electrical engineering, volt-seconds per turn directly relates to the peak flux density in the core, which in turn directly relates to core losses. See this page for details:

Micrometals - Iron Powder Cores

In this case I have a Micrometals T300-52 core, so A is 1.68 cm^2. Using the formula for square wave waveform, this is 12V (average AC voltage per half-cycle) divided by 4 * A * N * F where A is 1.68 cm^2 (or .000168 m^2 for the formula units) and N is the 44 turns of the primary and F is 40,000 Hz. So this gives 0.01T or 100 gauss. Looking at the nomograph of core loss for the 52 material at 100 gauss and 40 Khz (ref. Micrometals - Iron Powder Cores) gives about 10 mW per cubic centimeter of core material volume. The T300 core has 33.4 cm^3 volume, so this gives total core loss of about 330 mW.

You can do the arithmetic again with only 12 turns and see the result: the core loss is much higher. Depending on the design this might be perfectly acceptable but I wanted very low idle current requirements so this necessitated more turns to get the core loss down. In practice I didn't do all this to begin with, I just wound 12 turns on it and noticed that it worked but the idle current was more than I wanted. Then I wound some of the 22 gauge wire I had on hand and one layer made 44 turns. I hooked it up and it was much better so I went with that.

[bistander]

... Transformer core losses are very low, I deliberately used about 3 times the normal number of turns for this core in order to limit flux density and keep hysteresis losses very low.
...

Hi tswift,

I'm curious why you think the number of turns limits flux density in the core. Can you explain that?

Thanks,

bi

[tswift]

Don Smith build complete... but no power.

at loose Transformer coupling If Pulsed at a Non-Resonant Frequency I get NOTHING! ..

Yes, you've noticed one of the biggest problems with Don-style circuits, which is the power transfer. It's hard to get enough watts throughput to run anything useful at the secondary. Basically there are two choices: loose coupling and resonance, or tighter coupling. Tighter coupling gets more problematic at higher and higher voltages. I have been fighting this problem for years now, trying to build a configuration with enough power to run an inverter circuit for the step-down/isolation transformer. Now I have it.

This circuit is essentially the same as in Don's plasma ball device, where a low-turn induction coil charges a cap bank through a diode bridge. This is the non-resonant but tight coupling method. To get enough power to run anything useful, I built a solid-state Tesla coil to drive the circuit instead of the plasma globe. This really helped, now that I can ramp the input up to almost 100 watts it can actually run something at the output.

I have finally completed the rest of the circuit. The step-down converter that feeds the isolation transformer is another circuit basically identical to the SSTC drive circuit. It's an SG3525 chip driving two 13N06 MOSFET's at about 40 KHz. The isolation transformer itself is a 3" powdered iron toroid with a 44 turn bifilar primary (of 22 gauge zip cord speaker wire) and a 48 turn secondary (of 16 gauge zip cord speaker wire). There are two layers of yellow dielectric tape between the primary and secondary to provide several kilovolts worth of isolation capability.

The secondary feeds a 400A schottky diode half-bridge array (two diodes back to back in one package) that's mounted on a beefy heat sink. Theoretically, when the power shows up it could be necessary to handle this kind of current and dissipation, so I designed everything to handle it.

However, testing is showing no measurable power gain. The circuit itself works pretty well: the SSTC resonates strongly, it will light up a fluorescent tube anywhere close. Power levels are just below where the top of the coil will start breaking out a spark. Running in CW mode like this is totally silent and the MOSFET heat sink gets warm but not excessively hot. Likewise, the radiant capture part works pretty well. The supercap bank charges up nicely even from fully discharged (although the coil tuning shifts slightly as the bank charges). When charged to about 12.8V, the pickup coil can deliver about 1A of current in the cap bank. This is plenty to run the step-down inverter stage (kind of a misnomer since it's really a 12V to 12V converter), which draws about 150 mA with no load. There is also a shunt regulator circuit which limits the cap bank voltage by just dissipating excess current as necessary, that's the 3055 transistor with a heat sink.

If I load the output from the isolation transformer with a 16 ohm power resistor (that aluminum rectangle is a 1000W 16 ohm resistor), it draws just under 1A of current (as you would expect at 12V nominal voltage). The discouraging part is that the Lenz effect on the isolation transformer primary can be clearly seen on the ammeter. It takes essentially 1A in to get 1A out. The conversion efficiency of the step-down inverter is pretty good: the MOSFET's don't even need a heat sink, nor do they get perceptibly warm. Transformer core losses are very low, I deliberately used about 3 times the normal number of turns for this core in order to limit flux density and keep hysteresis losses very low.

Loading the output even further confirms this result. With a 1 ohm resistor the voltage at the secondary collapses to about 2V, while the current on the ammeter climbs to about 2A.

Conclusion? Obviously, something still isn't right somewhere! This is what I meant before about it being easy to formulate nice-sounding theories that don't work out in practice. Ultimately only experimentation can prove what is real and what is not. This is the best Don Smith-style configuration I have ever built, and if my understanding was complete and correct, it should have worked and shown overunity gain in the isolation transformer. With this size unit, it should be possible to loop the 12V output from the transformer back to run the input, and at the same time attach an inverter of 1000W or more, thus the need for that insanely beefy rectifier. However, even without more detailed measurements it's quite obvious no magic is showing up.

I do think that even with this negative result that I am still on the right track. I think that whatever is lacking has to be some small detail that doesn't seem important, and Don omitted it either accidentally or intentionally. Even people like Zilano who claimed to have a working unit, might have done something unintentionally that makes it work and thus didn't even think to mention it. So far the leading candidates for additional investigation are the grounding (two grounds? one ground? tunable ground somehow?) and the winding direction of the transformer. Those are the only good ideas I have for now as to what other steps to take. Given how much work I put into building this configuration, I intend to leave it assembled on the workbench and continue to tweak it to see what else I can come up with.

[ricards]

so far so good,

I have built a Crude Coils and some standard capacitor and used my variable frequency oscillator.. run things at 12 Volts input pulsed DC.

at loose Transformer coupling If Pulsed at a Non-Resonant Frequency I get NOTHING! ..

BUT upon tuning the Frequency of my oscillator. I'm getting 0.2 V. (still CRAP) but hey think on the bright side.. I'm getting something because of resonance in comparison to non-resonant circuits in which I get nothing.
(getting 2.5V without the current limiting resistor)

I had been experimenting with High voltage Pulses and had the Impression that even at very loose Transformer Coupling one could get output from the secondary imagine if its in resonance..

I'm trying to stop myself from arriving at conclusions as I want to see things first hand, but I think Its worth to post this to whomever still experimenting at Don Smith related stuff or resonance related stuff...

so far so good, now what I would like to find out what will happen at my output If I double (or triple) my Input Voltage... is it going to be like what don smith claimed... squaring of flux line..

@tswift,
based on my experiments I think The Drive Frequency of the NST matters A LOT.

in resonant circuit pulsing I notice the Input amperage to be drastically reduced.