Radiant right under our noses?

[dR-Green]

Hi all. I don't know anything about this effect, if there's a proper name for it, or why it happens other than I basically stumbled into it the other day when I was trying to track down apparent phantom voltages between thin air, me touching bits of metal (including a lit CFL which the voltmeter liked a lot), and the earth. It turned out to be an effect of the power supply I'm using to run my SSG, which was connected to earth on the input negative. The 12V DC switched mode power supply will not light a neon bulb between the negative and positive coming out of it (obviously!), but it will light the neon between either the positive OR negative and the earth, including me holding the other terminal of the neon. After some playing about I managed to get 190 volts on the meter, which will spark upon closing the circuit consisting of wires or metal, but it will also flow through me and light the neon without me feeling anything.

It will also charge a capacitor to 190V within seconds (don't try to be a part of the circuit beyond this point!), and light a neon nicely to a bright purple in one short pulse, but this capacitor I have been experimenting with manually discharging through a step down transformer, through a rectifier, into a lower voltage larger capacity capacitor, and dumping that charge into a rechargeable AA battery. Although the battery has seen better days to say the least seeing as there's green stuff leaking out of the top and it's over 20 years old so it's not holding the charge, but the process appears to work. And as far as I can make out, this whole thing is free to run on top of the fact I'm using the power supply to power something else.

So input and knowledge is welcome if anyone can explain it or has come up with something interesting Attached is the simplified circuit that seems to "reliably" "capture" the maximum of 190V I can get out of it. Having a voltmeter connected does affect it, as you will notice the capacitor's voltage dropping when you connect the meter. Also, connecting two power supplies in parallel on the "input" raises the voltage to 235V and charges the capacitor faster.

onewire.jpg

[DrStiffler]

Hi all. I don't know anything about this effect, if there's a proper name for it, or why it happens other than I basically stumbled into it the other day when I was trying to track down apparent phantom voltages between thin air, me touching bits of metal (including a lit CFL which the voltmeter liked a lot), and the earth. It turned out to be an effect of the power supply I'm using to run my SSG, which was connected to earth on the input negative. The 12V DC switched mode power supply will not light a neon bulb between the negative and positive coming out of it (obviously!), but it will light the neon between either the positive OR negative and the earth, including me holding the other terminal of the neon. After some playing about I managed to get 190 volts on the meter, which will spark upon closing the circuit consisting of wires or metal, but it will also flow through me and light the neon without me feeling anything.

It will also charge a capacitor to 190V within seconds (don't try to be a part of the circuit beyond this point!), and light a neon nicely to a bright purple in one short pulse, but this capacitor I have been experimenting with manually discharging through a step down transformer, through a rectifier, into a lower voltage larger capacity capacitor, and dumping that charge into a rechargeable AA battery. Although the battery has seen better days to say the least seeing as there's green stuff leaking out of the top and it's over 20 years old so it's not holding the charge, but the process appears to work. And as far as I can make out, this whole thing is free to run on top of the fact I'm using the power supply to power something else.

So input and knowledge is welcome if anyone can explain it or has come up with something interesting Attached is the simplified circuit that seems to "reliably" "capture" the maximum of 190V I can get out of it. Having a voltmeter connected does affect it, as you will notice the capacitor's voltage dropping when you connect the meter. Also, connecting two power supplies in parallel on the "input" raises the voltage to 235V and charges the capacitor faster.

[ATTACH]8524[/ATTACH]

Maybe not!

If you are in the US and using a conventional AC outlet system you should have three wires on the cord going from the supply and the outlet. Looking internal to the supply this should be a White(Neutral), Black(Hot) and Green(Ground). Switching power supplies are not normally isolated with a transformer between the supply main and the circuit output.

Either you have a bad supply or its missing its Green(ground) connection which is a very dangerous state. If you ever have a potential of this magnitude in a piece of equipment one should at once look for a causing condition, like the third or ground prong on the plug is cut off.

IMHO this is far from a radiant energy condition.

[dR-Green]

Thanks for the reply. The reason I used the word radiant is because I can touch it, or become a part of the circuit with no harm, and light the "mains voltage neon bulb" according to the product description, and the current, assuming there is any, appears to flow in both directions. If I am connected to the power supply's negative for example, based on my limited knowledge, there is no current coming out of the power supply's negative, at least according to how DC is supposed to work, so if there is any current then it must be coming from the earth into the negative.

That's how I see it anyway, I could be completely wrong But it also makes no difference whether I use the power supply's negative or positive, suggesting to me that whatever this is really doesn't care which way the current is flowing.

But in response to what you said, the power supply isn't earthed on the input. It has one of those figure 8 type of sockets on it, 2 prongs.

The scope shows 50Hz oscillations going on somewhere so I'm aware it has something to do with the mains supply, and this is far too low for wireless energy transfer, which this power supply is apparently also doing because as I say I was trying to track down the source of these phantom voltages. It just so happens that by connecting a wire directly to the power supply DC output it goes up to 190 volts. I was getting up to 20 volts out of it with no wires at all when I didn't know what the cause was, just grabbing various objects and thinking "I wonder what voltage touching this will yield". So I think there is definitely something strange going on. I've also noticed something that resembles the "h" wave.

[edit] Oh yeah, and you can quite easily short out this "useless voltage" and the system continues to "operate as designed" with no problems at all. IE you can either capture it and use it, or short it out to make it not an issue you have to think about any more.

At least in my mind, that last one is at least one way to define radiant energy in a system

[boguslaw]

I had similiar issue in the past. I found very old custom made car battery charger , big one with very nice output and huge transformer inside. First I thought it was a welder but after dismantling I realized it was current and voltage limited charger. It had an old switch on the back side like one of those on cord switches for old night lamps. When I measured output it was variable regulated by rotary switch from 15 to 20V (not loaded) and current from 0 to 15A. But I found also 40-50V AC on my DMM.Whna I connected it to dead battery surprisingly it was charged and after 10 hours I could light 50W bulb for 3 hours which was very nice for that battery. More I could light neon from the cattery box or even from other battery plastic box when both are touching each other. Some very high frequency flowed on surface and to neon to ground.
Once I replaced old switch with then good one and connected hot wire to it all those effect suddenly ceased.
So the effect was produced by old switch which was placed on neutral line of grid ! Not hot wire but neutral .

[Iotayodi]

You should check the type of service transformer and earthing system you have and exactly how all connections are setup to study any anomalies. A schematic of it to refer to would help.
The 2 prong should be earthed in some way in order to have a return. This varies depending on what part of Europe you live in.
A high voltage low current electric fence for cattle and such is a normally open circuit. Whatever touches it closes the circuit and goes through to ground.
With just the bare probes of my meter laying on my bench at a foot or so away from the wall wiring,I can pick up a 60hz frequency. Just depends on how close you are to the wirings electromagnetic field.
Something to consider is the neutral bar in the panel. All neutrals from various devices terminate there and go to earth. They are not totally insulated from each other. Any transient spikes from other circuits can be introduced into the bar.
I would check the power supply to see that its working properly. If its not then all bets are off if the exact problem is not known with it.

[dR-Green]

You should check the type of service transformer and earthing system you have and exactly how all connections are setup to study any anomalies. A schematic of it to refer to would help.
The 2 prong should be earthed in some way in order to have a return. This varies depending on what part of Europe you live in.
A high voltage low current electric fence for cattle and such is a normally open circuit. Whatever touches it closes the circuit and goes through to ground.
With just the bare probes of my meter laying on my bench at a foot or so away from the wall wiring,I can pick up a 60hz frequency. Just depends on how close you are to the wirings electromagnetic field.
Something to consider is the neutral bar in the panel. All neutrals from various devices terminate there and go to earth. They are not totally insulated from each other. Any transient spikes from other circuits can be introduced into the bar.
I would check the power supply to see that its working properly. If its not then all bets are off if the exact problem is not known with it.

I have two of these power supplies and both produce the same effects. It's impossible to earth it on the input side without doing some cowboy modification stuff which I assume the manufacturer and authorities did not intend for the user to carry out, the figure 8 socket simply is not designed to be earthed. The earth pin on the mains plug is plastic. I'm in UK btw. I've also tried it in a different house so on a completely different earthing system. The effects can be reproduced exactly, which to be honest I wasn't expecting to see after changing location.

High Power MultiVoltage Desktop Power Supply : Multi Voltage Power Supplies : Maplin

I'll upload a video of the whole thing soon anyway to show the effects. In the meantime, if anyone else out there has a switched mode power supply and two spare diodes then please see what you come up with

[dR-Green]

Can you measure any current?

I haven't bothered to try yet partially because I don't expect to see anything, or at most feeble numbers. I know there isn't much current there, and it can't power regular loads directly besides neons and LEDs, certainly not a 5 watt light bulb, so instead I've been playing with charging and discharging capacitors from it. It can keep a neon permanently lit when connected directly, but that won't light the room, so...

[dR-Green]

Once I replaced old switch with then good one and connected hot wire to it all those effect suddenly ceased.
So the effect was produced by old switch which was placed on neutral line of grid ! Not hot wire but neutral .

Interesting. Maybe a silly question, but did the charger continue to work the same after you changed it? Thanks for sharing

[boguslaw]

The charger now works like ordinary one - charging good batteries but not dead ones.All strange effects ceased.

[Iotayodi]

It's impossible to earth it on the input side.
the figure 8 socket simply is not designed to be earthed

I think you misunderstood my meaning of Earthed. Somewhere in the path from the substation to the panel there is an earth scheme or bond on the neutral.
A British example of that is the PME or protective multiple earthing. The neutral is connected to earth. Didnt mean a separate groundwire.

I've also tried it in a different house so on a completely different earthing system. The effects can be reproduced exactly

That is interesting. That would seem to rule out a bad power supply. Is the switched mode power supply a standard computer power supply?

[sucahyo]

I think any switching circuit do that. I also observe similar effect with my radiant oscillator, stingo.

However, there is exception. While negatively switched coil always produce positive offset related to ground. a positively switched coil may produce more negative offset related to ground.


Example, the top one produce negative offset from any output. The bottom one produce positive offset from any output. There are also still voltage differential between one another.

[ewizard]

dr-Green, interesting effect. I'll give this a try later today as I've got lots of computer power supplies laying around. What type of diodes did you use?

[dR-Green]

dr-Green, interesting effect. I'll give this a try later today as I've got lots of computer power supplies laying around. What type of diodes did you use?

They are 1N4007 diodes, the "simplified" version being made up of 2 of them. I used a BY261-400 rectifier to begin with but noticed I could bypass some connections, and by putting a diode from earth back to where the power supply is connected the voltage increased from 130 to 190, so I ended up with this 2 diode version.

Also in response to Iotayodi, it's not a computer power supply, but I guess the only difference is that this has a lower power output and variable voltage. Here is the product page from the shop.

High Power MultiVoltage Desktop Power Supply : Multi Voltage Power Supplies : Maplin

It would be interesting to find out what power supplies produce this effect so please post back any findings

[dR-Green]

I think any switching circuit do that. I also observe similar effect with my radiant oscillator, stingo.

However, there is exception. While negatively switched coil always produce positive offset related to ground. a positively switched coil may produce more negative offset related to ground.


Example, the top one produce negative offset from any output. The bottom one produce positive offset from any output. There are also still voltage differential between one another.

Exactly So are all these power supplies and switched circuits producing or wasting extra energy, I mean besides all the normal inefficiencies of the system, that could be captured and used, without having to really change anything or build anything complicated? Are these manufacturers already unwittingly building radiant devices...

[ewizard]

Confirmed more or less. Here is my findings and theory. I used a standard computer power supply out of an old computer. This is a switched mode PS and has lots of leads coming off it most of which provide either 5 volts or 12 volts. I used a plug adapter to eliminate the ground to it. I used a separate plug to attach only to my house ground. I'm on 120 volt AC system and I wired this house completely myself so I know it's wired right and per code. I'm seeing 75 to 76 volts DC per your setup and that is across the 2 diodes. It does not matter whether I'm hooked to the PS positive or negative or 5v or 12v they all yield the same ~ 75 volts DC. But it is at very low current around 0.11 milliamps. I'm charging a 200 volt DC electrolytic 1650 mfd but it is charging very slowly about 20 volts in the last couple minutes. I think these type of power supplies always have a small amount in their circuit as they wait for a pulse from the momentary switch and only switch on if there is a load on them. I suspect there is a small leakage of power through an AC filter cap that would normally smooth power between hot and ground or neutral and the rest of the power supply circuitry. I read 60 VAC between my ground and any wire on the outputs of this power supply. I don't think it has anything to do with radiant energy and I can't see any real use for it. Interesting but sorry I don't think it's anything special. Well it did provide a nice big zapping spark when I shorted the cap out though at around 35 volts

One other thing I tried also was to plug in the PS to ONLY the hot side of the house outlet (one wire only going to the PS). Same effect.