Bedini troubleshooting

[Bzar]

Hello,
quick intro (new here): I have always loved tinkering with electricity projects. I used to build pretty complex LED light fixtures for reef aquariums, so I have some minor understanding of things. Anyway, since I’ve gotten rid of my reef tanks I’ve wanted to keep up my electricity tinkering and thought I’d start with a Bedini.

So I’ve built the circuit but it’s not working yet….and I have a few idea’s why….but I wanted to ask a couple things that I can’t seem to find the answer to online to help trouble shoot. I’ll probably rebuild my rotor, and then the coil also if that doesn’t work things out. So here’s the questions…

1) Does the size of the magnet affect rotation? For example I have some pretty big Neo’s and a pretty small coil. The neo’s are about 3” diameter and 1/4” thick (think they’re N35’s). The coil core is about 1/2” diameter (copper coated steel welding rods), and the coil OD is about 2.5” diameter. 26 awg and 30 awg. About 800 turns.
2) What should the coil’s ohms be when measured?
3) How important is bearing or rotor friction? I.e. can the rotor be a little stiff? I’m using some cheap $1.50 bearings and don’t really want to spend $20 on some German ones.
4) Is there a guideline or way to test for optimum magnet spacing?
5) Will more coils increase the torque potential of the rotor?
6) lastly what's the correct way to wire a 5 pin potentiometer for this application? or should I just go get a 3 pin?

Thanks.

[citfta]

It's pretty hard to answer your questions without knowing what you are doing. What Bedini circuit are you trying to build? Are you talking about a window motor or a SSG (simplified school girl) energizer or the Watson machine designed by John Bedini or something else. They best way to get some answers is to use the search function on this forum for the circuit you are building. There are numerous threads on this forum for each of those circuits.

I am going to assume for a minute you are talking about the SSG energizer although you didn't really say that. The SSG does not work well with neo magnets. The magnets are only there to trigger the transistor to turn on the drive coil. Plain and simple ceramic magnets from Lowes work very well for this function. There is no torque to speak of with this energizer. It is supposed to charge batteries not be a motor to drive a load. Your coil sounds like it should be fine for a SSG energizer. The phasing connections have to be right for the coil to repel the magnet when it gets a trigger pulse and turns on the transistor. For regular ceramic magnets the spacing should 2 1/2 to 4 magnet widths between magnets. For any other information about the SSG or whatever other Bedini circuit you are building please use the search function and you will find plenty of info on this forum about almost anything John Bedini has built and shared. He also is a regular contributor to this forum. Hope this helps.

Carroll

[Joit]

I can try to answer you some Questions.

Magnets is answered allready from cifta, even i use still neos, because the rotor works better somehow, not sure, if the charge is better or not.

2. at last, your coils should have 10 ohms, because you should place a 10 ohm resistor on the base, to protect it better, anything above will be ok.
3. I would say, that friction is importend for the timing, when you have more friction then you have more elay at triggering the base. A easy turning rotor may create better spikes.
But german bearing mostly come from china too. What you can do is, try to open them, take the grease out and use some Oil. That helps for the most bearings to let them run cheap, and you dont need to buy expansive one.
4. You can test the ideal spacing very simple, just look for the point, where the coils consume less and the rotor turns fastest.
5. As said above, torque is not importend here, since it triggers only the Transistor. but 2 coils allways increase the torque.
6. You can actually use any Potentiometer, even a Resistor when you have found the right resistance at the base. there are 2 Pins enough. Its mainly to move to the point, where the transistor switches on. I still use a pot, because my rotor speeds better up and i can fine tune it at higher Rpm. You should only pick one, what can handle the current at the Base, what sometimes can exceed 0,2 Watt.

[Bzar]

Hi guys,
sorry it took so long to reply.....new dad....not much time to play. Anyway in the time that's past I've been able to get the thing working. I had to remake my rotor and coil...the coil was too small, and the rotor was too strong (massive neo's). So ya, thanks for the ceramic info, etc..

I've run into another snag.... :/ just when I think I've you got this thing down :/

Not sure what's happening now but I've changed my circuit to a simpler design. I was using the Draftman schematic, now I'm using a slightly modified Cullen SSG.

I've attached a pic of how I modified it. just wondering if you can see if I did anything wrong.



Lastly is the problems I'm having. I've added a longer bar on my rotor, and change the circuit (as mentioned). from doing this the system no longer works....just trying to find what went wrong. I've attached a video link showing the problem a little better.

dinihlp1 - YouTube

Thanks guys. this is fun stuff. when it did work it felt great.....so any suggestions greatly welcome.

Cheers.

[Bzar]

here's a pic to the Cullen circuit

[Joit]

After your Schematic you did connect the Base wrong.
Base is on a 3055 Pin 2, Emitter (minus) Pin 3.
http://www.datasheetcatalog.org/data...ola/2N3055.pdf

[Bzar]

tried that, didn't work. Also tried my old circuit that worked fine and that didn't work. Tried a new transistor....didn't work.

Can a coil go "bad?" like melt in the middle or something?

[ionfuture]

tried that, didn't work. Also tried my old circuit that worked fine and that didn't work. Tried a new transistor....didn't work.

Can a coil go "bad?" like melt in the middle or something?

Yes you could have shorted the coils = check for continuity between the two windings.

If the magnets are backwards south out when you need north out will not work.

If you disconnect the wire from the diode going to the plus side of charge battery and spin the rotor then the neon lamp should flicker on and off as each magnet passes the coil.

[Bzar]

Thanks for the help.

I've now tried everything that I can think of, that's been suggested, that I've found in numerous searches....and it seems the problem is in my coil. How it happened I don't know. Anyway another nub question...how do I test the coil to see if it's shorted?

I ran a resist and battery connection test on the coil runs seeing if there was bleed through from one run to the other, but nothing came up on the multimeter. Is there another way to check for a coil short? Can't seem to find a "how to continuity test bifilar coil." :/

Thanks.

[ionfuture]

Thanks for the help.

I've now tried everything that I can think of, that's been suggested, that I've found in numerous searches....and it seems the problem is in my coil. How it happened I don't know. Anyway another nub question...how do I test the coil to see if it's shorted?

I ran a resist and battery connection test on the coil runs seeing if there was bleed through from one run to the other, but nothing came up on the multimeter. Is there another way to check for a coil short? Can't seem to find a "how to continuity test bifilar coil." :/

Thanks.

Well as you know you can check the ohms reading of each coil you made by hooking your meter to each ends of the coil. So if you don’t have a continuity setting on your meter then just set it to read ohms and hook your meter to any two ends of the different coils if the wires inside the coils are touching then you will get an ohms reading.

[Bzar]

Hmm so odd there doesn't seem to be any bleed through. A new lighter rotor (built on an old CD drive) didn't change anything. I'm going to rebuild the circuit again with John's exact plans and hope that changes something. If not then it's time to rip apart some mmo's for the wire and a new coil

Thanks again for all your help and brain storming

Rick.

[Bzar]

Still no luck in finding the cause of this problem. I've rebuilt everything except the coil. That being said I had a troubleshooting thought. Could this "hot coil" and "no pulse" be created by kinks in the coil wire?

I used an old spool of wire for one of my lengths and it had a decent amount of kinks in it......perhaps that's it?

Also the bore hole in the coil spool is 1" which is larger than the 3/4" suggested....would that matter?

Thanks,
Rick.

[Peculian]

tried that, didn't work. Also tried my old circuit that worked fine and that didn't work. Tried a new transistor....didn't work.

Can a coil go "bad?" like melt in the middle or something?

Hi Bzar.
It seems you need to build another coil. However, what voltage/amp ratio did you use i.e 6v, 12v, or more ?
Does the coil smell bad ? As asked by other guys here: Is there any short between your coils ?
If not then try to interchange trigger coil wires at the base of transistor.
As for the "kinks" you said, I don`t think it is a big problem as long as the wire is insulated or the insulator has not gone into 'cracks' or seems to be fragile.
one thing to keep in mind tho, is to not use your SSG connected with croco-clips but instead solder with some good multistranded wires.
The croco-clips aren`t even effective neither for tests, let alone for a standalone machine.
The bore hole I believe plays an important role, but keep in mind that for you to understand right the circuit and upgrade from the basic schematic recommendations
it is better if you keep constructing to the recommended values. After that you can go to whatever mods once you grasp the hangs of it.
I hope this helps you somehow. Regards.

[tachyoncatcher]

New Coil

I too had had an experience with a coil with kinks in it. It got warm and no trigger. I rebuilt the coil with new wire. Problem solved. Good Luck with your build.
Randy

[Bzar]

Thanks guys. I'll try these suggestions and ideas this week. Hopefully I'll have good news after.

Cheers,
Rick.