Lighting Fluorescent Tubes with Voltage

[Guest]

The two methods brought in focus to me thus far in pursuit of generating
a proper amount of voltage necessary to light up a fluorescent tube with the
use of mainly voltage are...

Cascade Multiplication via AC, and Power Pulsing DC

Beyond the naturally occurring effect of producing useable light from an
otherwise non-working burnt tube, another especially interesting result as
shown on video (thanks Aaron!) has to do with capturing the return current
from a mosfet connected to an ignition coil back into the battery providing
energy into the circuit, thereby recycling each pulse and extending the
system runtime.

Concerning the latter part I would pose some questions to you Aaron, primarily
in this case being the manner in which you had it connected, and naturally
what the conclusion of your experiment was. Also, might the results be enhanced
by employing a stream of plasma pulses in place of standard high voltage?

Eventually it seems that this technology would replace the standard methods
in place today for generating useable amounts of light from phosphorescent tubes,
allowing the continued perpetuation of food sources while improving energy usage.

[ video - irfpg50 mosfet and 555 with cfl bulb ]

[Farmhand]

Hi geotron, Using ignition coils is a good way to light tube's, this one will light with 112 Ma from a 12 volt battery using an ignition coil and mosfet switch/ circuit. I found that I needed to find the correct frequency for the tube to light it efficiently. From memory I think it was about 13 Khz. It light's with about 1.4 watts.

It's providing all the light in this picture.
http://public.bay.livefilestore.com/...005.JPG?psid=1

House light's on in this one.
http://public.bay.livefilestore.com/...004.JPG?psid=1

Here is the waveform across the tube, frequency is a bit off there.
http://public.bay.livefilestore.com/...002.JPG?psid=1

And this is the waveform at the negative of the coil, on the recovery diode, the second picture shows the scope probe location for this shot. They look like flags.
http://public.bay.livefilestore.com/...007.JPG?psid=1

Tesla has quite a few patents showing different ways to get cheap lighting with HV.

I didn't bother to collect the spike's because my neon didn't fire. And 112 Ma is not much to worry about.

I have devised a dual ignition coil cicuit but I havn't tested it yet for lack of time. So I am reluctant to post it.

Using ignition coils like that is a very handy way to get cheap lighting in an emergency situation because they are common and easy to use.

I beleive this is one of the ways Nikola did it. Different lights too looks like.
http://public.bay.livefilestore.com/...la4.gif?psid=1

Cheers

[ztec2002]

hi framhand

just wondering why use mosfets over bi polar npn transistor what is the advantage?

cheers ztec2002

[Farmhand]

just wondering why use mosfets over bi polar npn transistor what is the advantage?

cheers ztec2002

Hi ztec, The only reason I used the mosfet switching circuit is because I was about to deconstruct it from the solderless board so I thought I would try the Auto coil to light a cfL with that circuit. Mainly because I'm curious and have the time to do it. The result did surprise me. That is the best efficiency x brightness I have acheived so far with CFL's. I use a similar circuit for a few different purposes.

The advantage would minimal, maybe less "on" resistance, but any circuit with adjustable pulse width and frequency should work pretty good. As long as it can oscillate at the required frequency without heating the switch too much any suitable switch should do.

I found that outside of the optimum PW and frequency range the input increased and the lighting performance went down. The difference between tuned and untuned was big in both power consumption and light.

Not sure what the waveform across the tube means but it looks like it is chopped at about a 1 1/4 wavelength to me. But I don't worry too much about the technical stuff if something works. I haven't set up an actual lighting arrangement, but I can if I need to.

Cheers

[Guest]

Those look like great results Farmhand, that bulb glows really well!

ztec2002, the throughput of a mosfet is such that it will conduct the entire
current of a battery without a resistor to limit it, compared to a transistor
such as the 2n3055 that is built differently and has a much greater internal
resistance...

[ztec2002]

thanks for the reply geotron and farmhand got a 20 pack of n channel mosfets i will try them out with my ongoing meg project, and i do have a thousand pack of 2n3904 npn transisters to burn through first.

cheers ztec2002

[Guest]

In the mosfet power-coil driver circuit shown below, there is a single diode
attached from the source onto the drain, used to block spikes as I've learned
from the source website.

Would adding a connection to the cathode of that diode be a way to
collect these surges of energy onto the cathode of the battery without
modifying the base diagram?

Where its stated that a varistor or freewheel diode should be used, how
indeed might one figure that such a component could be attached into the
circuit as it is shown?




Uploaded with ImageShack.us

[Farmhand]

Hi Geotron, I'm not sure I understand that diode. I just use any old circuit that will pulse the coil.

Like this one below it is quite durable and adjustable and cheap. I just replace L1 with the ignition coil.

http://public.bay.livefilestore.com/...ev1.bmp?psid=1

Picture
http://public.bay.livefilestore.com/...001.JPG?psid=1

Funnily enough when the HV is "loaded" the spikes are not present and a wave like trace is on the D2 recovery diode to Gnd. Neon does not fire with no recovery load "charging battery"

This is no second battery. Current draw is 300Ma. There is a very small spike only 16 volts at the begining of the wave.
http://public.bay.livefilestore.com/...004.JPG?psid=1

This is with the charge battery loading the recovery. Current is 400Ma.
http://public.bay.livefilestore.com/...005.JPG?psid=1

These shots were from this setup I whipped up from what I had laying around.
The circuit I used in the pics is slightly different from the drawing above as it has no turn off sharpener. I just changed it out for the one in the picture with the turn off sharpener and it is a bit better but much the same. The tube seems to make a wave rather than an impulse.
http://public.bay.livefilestore.com/...005.JPG?psid=1

Funny thing is with a 100 turn 1mm diameter single wire solenoid coil the circuit produces a waveform like this. No secondary I guess.
http://public.bay.livefilestore.com/...001.JPG?psid=1

Cheers

[Guest]

What an impressive circuit you've built!

How many volts would you guess is flowing into that bulb? With a 30KV ionizer
I've seen what looks like a faint glow - nothing by comparison, probably
not more than 3-4mA...



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

[Farmhand]

The little desulfator circuit is not my design, but I use it a lot for experimenting. I haven't tried a big tube yet but eventually that is the plan, big coils and lots of tube's and stuff.

Not sure about the voltage I would guess maybe 50 to 100 thousand volts hard to say I have a blown incandescant bulb in series with the tube now and there are two pinpoint arc's really bright with an orange plasma stream between them there's a slight tinge of purple in it but it is mostly orange and it kind of sprays towards my fingers on the outside of the bulb, the fluro is still lit the same as normal. I've never seen orange plasma before.

The camera dosn't show it well video will pick it up better.
http://wv0v9q.bay.livefilestore.com/...006.JPG?psid=1
This is new to me so I must play with the orange plasma for a while.

560Ma is the most I can get it to use for some reason. I need to find a better way to make HV parallel plate capacitors to use with ignition coils I want about 2nf, the two disc one in the pic was shorting some power through the separators I think. It was only 20pf anyway.

Soon I'll try a Microwave oven transformer and its capacitor to pulse the Tesla coil. Not sure if it will work without pulsing it with 240volts input though.
I might even try to make or maybe find another HV transformer.

When some parts arrive soon i'll be trying this circuit to drive the coils alternately, I have no idea where i will get the diode's though.
I might have to use a dual spark gap instead of the diode's. That will be fun.
http://public.bay.livefilestore.com/...err.jpg?psid=1

Cheers

[Farmhand]

Orange Flame Discharge

Here's a video of the orange plasma discharge. Somehow a couple of seconds of wrong video ended up still in the clip.

YouTube - ‪Orange Plasma-.wmv‬‏

The flame discharge starts at 200Ma and is whispy but as the power is increased the stream becomes less whispy and stays straighter.

Sorry to get off topic but I couldn't think of any better place to post it.

Cheers

[Guest]

With a series of 35 1A diodes like 1n4007 leading from the (+) primary ignition
coil onto the output, what effect might the output have on that bulb... ?

Couldn't a foil strip be attached on either side of the glass and work to
capture some kind of floating potential?

[Farmhand]

With a series of 35 1A diodes like 1n4007 leading from the (+) primary ignition
coil onto the output, what effect might the output have on that bulb... ?

Yeah ok I'm up for that how many 4007 diode's would I need ? The ignition coil is an "R" type with a resistor I guess.

Couldn't a foil strip be attached on either side of the glass and work to
capture some kind of floating potential?

Yep I can put the bulb next to a radiant collector plate P and see what happens. Maybe it will work like Tesla's Rotegen tube. Look's like some kind of orange partical mist is spraying towards my fingers or a ground wire.

I've been experimenting with different ways of wiring it all up, it can get confusing and shocking, haven't damaged or even heated up any control circuitry yet, I can get over 1 amp into the Ignition coil now with it wired a different way.

I also found i can light two CFL's in series for only a slight increase in power consumption (no adjustment needed ) and the second battery is charging well at the same time. I'll pull some more CFL's apart tonight and see how many I can light in series.

I'm driving the ignition coil HV through the TC primary and into one winding of an old motor stator open ended and it works good, I can use some power from one wire of the other stator winding to ground too with very little effect to the light. One end of each winding is left open. It's enough to light another tube but only dimly. The motor stator excite's a bit of energy too. This is a lot of fun.

I am trying to stay focused on lighting the CFL's as brightly and cheaply as possible while recovering as much radiated and excited energy as possible. I need a relay cap dump mechanism to discharge the cap on the collector plate P because the SCR is unreliable and is not working very well.

I exploring the idea of charging a cap with the second motor stator winding and ground with a FWBR then dumping it to another battery. Maybe a 24 volt relay will work.

Cheers

[Guest]

Ah... then the fluorescent tube is lighting from the secondary of your Tesla
Coil? I'm seeing that the primary is what appears to be single wind of thick
copper tube around the base.

Also from your workbench picture it looks as though you've got the ignition
coil primary in parallel with the volcano setup leading into what I'm guessing
is a fairly hefty pancake winding, further passing into a metal water basin
and standing plate (?) behind the Tesla Coil.

I've not yet learned about the volcano coil or what purpose it serves, although
will be looking to find out in the near future... Amazing setup you've built
there, any room for a Bi-Toroid Transformer?

Concerning how you bumped the amperage through the coil... was it by replacing the
built in resistor? In working with the circuit I posted earlier I've found it
will produce a maximum of around 2500V output on an ignition coil with 5-10kHz;
I'll be using some alternate timing caps on it to find the right frequency, but
will have to guess on the pulse width as my meter won't account for it. What
kind of pulses have you found work well on your ignition coil?

[Guest]

Oh right, as you've already stated earlier it was around 13kHz...