Battery Sensing and switching for Bedini Systems

[hendo1944]

Automatic battery switch over circuit

Looked at the schematic and wonder if you got it working OK...
I am in need for a system and wonder where I can get one or if possible get full a full schematic to make one. I understand that Phil Wood designed the system.
Could you please reply to me at cbw@people.net.au
Regards
hendo1944
__________________

And whilst we are at it we are going to test this relay circuit on RF"s fan kit.
See here we made the Fan kit to be able to accept the relay circuit.(plug in) Now don't know how many bugs are on it, will soon find out when it doesn't work

[mlindeblom]

Easy to Use Microsystem

I suggest you look at the Arduino system at Arduino - HomePage

It is a fork of the processing project Processing 1.0 (BETA)

The projects with microprocessors are stunning:
ladyada’s ranting » Blog Archive » Stephen Hobley’s *awesome* laser harp
Google Earthwalk With Arduino - Video

Basic actions such as analogRead and digitalWrite make programming possible for non-programmers; however: the full power of C++ is available.
The getting started help is available from numerous sources:
www.arduino.cc/tutorials
limor
www.sparkfun.com

[NXUS]

Hi guys, just a word of warning regarding swapping batteries, this may have already been adressed, but I did not read anyone mentioning it. If you intend to switch batteries in a bank of batteries you need to have some means of preventing current rush that will occur when the battery being added is at a different charge level than the rest of the bank. The batteries will try to equalize and if I add a discharged battery the others will immediatly dump charge into it to reach equilibrium, this can be quite spectacular if these are high capacity low internal impedance batteries. Usually there is a current limiter or steering diode to prevent this from happening. Just my 2 cents worth

[theremart]

More details.. on building the battery swapper

I have decided to post more info on the battery swapper here....

The Energy Experimenting People. - Battery swapper - Powered by ForumCo.com - The Forum Company

New video

YouTube - Video 55 Building the Battery Swapper.wmv

FYI

[albertMunich]

Switching batteries FAST

Hello to all Battery swappers,

I'd like to throw in my two cents. My own swapper has no sensing circuit whatsoever. I tried to build a simple, relay based swapper based on a ready made timing circuit bought from Conrad electronics in Munich. I'm sure similar circuits are available elsewhere. Mine can switch a relay in adjustable intervals from 2 times a second to once in 12 hours. The relay on the circuit board switches two other ones in sync. One is at the input one at the output of the Bedini. CAUTION for this to work without damaging the machine it must be protected by the usual 90 Volt neon lamps. Sometimes a contact jumps slightly on the relays and the output is open for a fraction of a second. You can see a brief flash of the neons.
I am interested in SHORT swapping intervals. At the moment my preferred intervals are between 20 and 30 seconds. The really interesting results: The batteries seem less prone to locking up. You can also use a capacitor (bank) on the secondary side and just one battery. The cap and the switch can then be timed so that the cap will fill, deplete, fill, deplete. This way the machine will run half of the time on entirely recovered energy. PLUS the primary will get a charge.

Another interesting fact: You can use a DEAD battery on the secondary instead of the cap. due to the radiant charge even a dead battery will run the device for 20 or 30 seconds. I have a gel cell battery that will not accept anything - no normal or radiant charger. But it stays at 7 to 7.5 volts and will even go up slightly if you time the switch properly.
Another result: I tried two gel cells 12 V 7 AH of the same manufacturer, being at rougly the same charge. They slowly will run down but the time they will make the machine run is close to triple the time it would take to discharge both batts with a resistor (12 v lamp). AND: I supposed the two batts would deplete in the same amount of time. This can be changed by putting a big cap in parallel on one of the batteries. The one with the cap will discharge more slowly or even go up slightly.
My own theory for the well known fact that one normally CANNOT swap batteries between in and output of the Bedini is that the batteries might "like" the pulsed CHARGE but not the pulsed DISCHARGE. If you look with a scope the same pulses charging the secondary are also present on the input side. This might be the simple reason why it does not work. So the short intervals might also influence this.

Let me know what you think.

I have a three coil Bedini. Big one with a 10 kg aluminum rotor.

Albert

[catrinisin]

Hello Albert,

I know this was a long time ago, but do you have the schematic of your swapper circuit available?

This could work if you use a cap pulser along with the SSG. Straight radiant has been shown to not do well when switching from back to front. But with the cap pulser, it might work since it isn't straight radiant.

Thanks,
Chris

Hello to all Battery swappers,

I'd like to throw in my two cents. My own swapper has no sensing circuit whatsoever. I tried to build a simple, relay based swapper based on a ready made timing circuit bought from Conrad electronics in Munich. I'm sure similar circuits are available elsewhere. Mine can switch a relay in adjustable intervals from 2 times a second to once in 12 hours. The relay on the circuit board switches two other ones in sync. One is at the input one at the output of the Bedini. CAUTION for this to work without damaging the machine it must be protected by the usual 90 Volt neon lamps. Sometimes a contact jumps slightly on the relays and the output is open for a fraction of a second. You can see a brief flash of the neons.
I am interested in SHORT swapping intervals. At the moment my preferred intervals are between 20 and 30 seconds. The really interesting results: The batteries seem less prone to locking up. You can also use a capacitor (bank) on the secondary side and just one battery. The cap and the switch can then be timed so that the cap will fill, deplete, fill, deplete. This way the machine will run half of the time on entirely recovered energy. PLUS the primary will get a charge.

Another interesting fact: You can use a DEAD battery on the secondary instead of the cap. due to the radiant charge even a dead battery will run the device for 20 or 30 seconds. I have a gel cell battery that will not accept anything - no normal or radiant charger. But it stays at 7 to 7.5 volts and will even go up slightly if you time the switch properly.
Another result: I tried two gel cells 12 V 7 AH of the same manufacturer, being at rougly the same charge. They slowly will run down but the time they will make the machine run is close to triple the time it would take to discharge both batts with a resistor (12 v lamp). AND: I supposed the two batts would deplete in the same amount of time. This can be changed by putting a big cap in parallel on one of the batteries. The one with the cap will discharge more slowly or even go up slightly.
My own theory for the well known fact that one normally CANNOT swap batteries between in and output of the Bedini is that the batteries might "like" the pulsed CHARGE but not the pulsed DISCHARGE. If you look with a scope the same pulses charging the secondary are also present on the input side. This might be the simple reason why it does not work. So the short intervals might also influence this.

Let me know what you think.

I have a three coil Bedini. Big one with a 10 kg aluminum rotor.

Albert