Solid State Bedini

[theremart]

RE: heat.

Hi theremart, thanks for reply. Do you mean air-core. Also you suggest upping the resistance of coil by making it longer, do you think my transistors peak amperage is being exceeded causing the transistor overheating, because the coils don't get hot, just the transistor. And when I run the same darlington pair on the 555 with the same coil the transistor does not get anywhere near the same temperature, that is why i think it has to do with the on-time pulse being too long or something and maybe that is why increasing the resistance of the coil is working for you. That is whats odd about this, is that even when increasing the base resistor, sure the amp draw goes down but the heat in the transistor is still fairly high in the heat sink. I mean if it is just pulse on-time duration being too long then one would think the lower input amps should help reduce heat in transistor. Thoughts appreciated.
peace love light
Tyson

Ok not sure of your setup but I would agree the longer the on time the more amps are hitting the transistor. I am mainly only teasing my setup putting in 1/4 amp at 40 V I have not hit it with a large amount of amps of yet. But Jetjis had great success with that amount of amperage I may charge up two batteries then try them at 24 V at 4 amps ... Have been too scared to try it as I love my working setup

But at first I did have trouble with heat, both in my coils and my transistors but then I added even longer coil seemed to help things out alot in terms of heat.

I am in no hurry to charge up my Semi battery so 2 days to get to 13 - 14 V is fine. I am still working out some of the issues getting the solar panels hooked up right. They are rated at 130 watts, I should be getting more, but I think the vacuum cleaner wire I used to run from the panels to the Jetijs may be the issue of why I am only getting 1/4 amp instead of 3....

Mart

[dambit]

Hi All,

I am amazed to hear about all the heat problems people are having.

My coils are quin-filar 23 guage wire with 780 turns. I removed the cores to reduce heat in the coils and to allow faster pulsing.

Probably not the smartest way to do it , but I have no heat sinks on any of the 20 transistors and even after days of operation they do not even get warm. I am using the basic Jetijs setup. I usualy adjust the base resistance so that each coil draws about 1.25A.

@Mart, I have not used solar with my setup so I can't comment too much about it, but I have not had any trouble with the circuit turning on and off. I believe that the circiut needs a hard start as opposed to a soft start to engage the self oscilation, and a solar panel in paralel with a cap only provides a soft start. If you want the system to turn on automaticaly with the sun, you may need to install a relay type on/off switch which is triggered "on" by the cap once it reaches a pre-determined level of charge. Or somthing similar that works for you.

I agree that the Jetijs setup is just like a joule theif on roids , But even the smallest JT produces a radient spike, and IMO that's what all these circuits are about.

Cheers,

Steve

[SkyWatcher]

Hi folks, thanks for the info. Hi dambit, could you please provide info on the coil specs and transistors your using so I can figure out why the transistor on my JouleThief gets so hot. Thanks.
peace love light

[dambit]

Hi folks, thanks for the info. Hi dambit, could you please provide info on the coil specs and transistors your using so I can figure out why the transistor on my JouleThief gets so hot. Thanks.
peace love light

Sure mate,

Once wound, my coils are 4" long and 3" in diameter. The wire guage and length is noted in my previous post. I have one common trigger which is wound on the first coil, and I used 26 guage wire for that. My transistors are all MJL21194 type. I have used 3A diodes coming off the collectors, and I have not bothered with neons because at these currents they are useless anyway . All of the transitors have a 150ohm resistor on the base (maybe 100ohm, can't remember) with one 10W 1K pot one the trigger bus for tuning on the fly.

Later on when I fell a bit of OCD comming on, I may spend the many hours it would take to accurately match the resistance of each coil, but at the moment close enough is good enough.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Steve

[SkyWatcher]

Hi dambit, thanks for the info. So I think I've narrowed it down to either the on-time is a little longer on my JT and this may be causing excessive peak amperage for my particular transistors and since I have to use a higher base resistor to limit current it ends up maybe not saturating the transistor to fully on which makes it worse. The higher resistance coils your using would remove that problem and probably give better voltage spikes for a more balanced charge/condition setup. Though your higher resistance coils certainly contradicts what Bedini says about matching within 1 milliohm of battery impedance. Thanks.
peace love light
Tyson

[pvar06]

battery test report

Hi,

I had build one circut based on Jetijs schematic. The details on the circuit are as follows

1. 500 Ohm resistor [two 1k 1w in parrallel] to base and collector on each transistor.

2. two 2n3055 transistors with 3 strand coil. The coil is 4 inch long with 1/2 inch inner diameter. Air core with 23 SWG copper wire having 450 turns.

3. On the trigger coil, 3 Nos 180 Ohms 1 Watt resistors in parallel to make it 60 Ohms.

Circuit operating parameters

1. 12 volts supply and current draw is around 2 Amps
2. At output I have observed around 50-60 volts [checked only for fraction of second].

Battery testing

1. Battery 12 volts 35 Ah. Heavily sulphated [almost dead].

2. 4 Cycles of charge and dischage. In each discharging the battery has been taken to around 10.5 volts using 21 watts bulb.

3. During the charging the battery voltage increases to 14.08 to 14.25 volts. Initally the time taken for rising the voltage was higher in comparision to the last test i.e. each time the time is getting reduced.

4. Lot of bubbles observed in each cell during charging process.

5. No significant improvement has been observed in the gravity level of the battery, which normally describe the capacity of the battery to hold the charge.

MY QUESTIONS

1. What should be the output voltage with the Jetijs circuit.....

2. Why the gravity of the battery is not getting increased......

With regards

Praveen

[ashtweth]

Hi Praveen, okay just a quick Q, how badly sulfated is this battery?, Are the plates internally gone? I would check that the circuit is charging a normal lead acid battery first, it could be that that battery is beyond repair? Just checking my friend, i may be wrong, but some batteries wont come back to life if the plates are burned as you know.

Ash

[pvar06]

Hi Ash,

I dont think that it is an issue here because so far I have tested 3-4 batteries i.e. 2 Nos 12 v 35 Ah, 1 nos 12 v 170 Ah and 1 no 12 v 7 Ah. But none of the battery has responded well after 3-4 charge.

Regards

Praveen

[UncleFester]

Hi,

I had build one circut based on Jetijs schematic. The details on the circuit are as follows

1. 500 Ohm resistor [two 1k 1w in parrallel] to base and collector on each transistor.

2. two 2n3055 transistors with 3 strand coil. The coil is 4 inch long with 1/2 inch inner diameter. Air core with 23 SWG copper wire having 450 turns.

3. On the trigger coil, 3 Nos 180 Ohms 1 Watt resistors in parallel to make it 60 Ohms.

Circuit operating parameters

1. 12 volts supply and current draw is around 2 Amps
2. At output I have observed around 50-60 volts [checked only for fraction of second].

Battery testing

1. Battery 12 volts 35 Ah. Heavily sulphated [almost dead].

2. 4 Cycles of charge and dischage. In each discharging the battery has been taken to around 10.5 volts using 21 watts bulb.

3. During the charging the battery voltage increases to 14.08 to 14.25 volts. Initally the time taken for rising the voltage was higher in comparision to the last test i.e. each time the time is getting reduced.

4. Lot of bubbles observed in each cell during charging process.

5. No significant improvement has been observed in the gravity level of the battery, which normally describe the capacity of the battery to hold the charge.

MY QUESTIONS

1. What should be the output voltage with the Jetijs circuit.....

2. Why the gravity of the battery is not getting increased......

With regards

Praveen

I too have built a similar charger (GroundLoops) but it's windings are far too small for the larger (>10AH) batteries and like you said, it does not condition them quickly. I have found it takes over 6 months to de-sulfate a 35AH 12 volt lead acid using the smaller air core coils with only 20 to 23 gauge wire. Larger voltage spikes I believe are required to desulfate a battery which reads in the 1.1 specific gravity range. On the order of 200 volts spikes or higher.

I have now built a new coil with 6 strands of 20 gauge Litzed together which should give much better performance, but my goal is a very difficult one in that I am going to try this new coil setup on one thousand amp/hour forklift batteries and see if the specific gravity comes up after a few full cycles. This setup would be similar to Bedini's large rotary machine in the video they made, charging larger 24 volt banks of >1000 AH each.

I will keep you informed of the results if you wish.

Tad

[UncleFester]

Sure mate,

Once wound, my coils are 4" long and 3" in diameter. The wire guage and length is noted in my previous post. I have one common trigger which is wound on the first coil, and I used 26 guage wire for that. My transistors are all MJL21194 type. I have used 3A diodes coming off the collectors, and I have not bothered with neons because at these currents they are useless anyway . All of the transitors have a 150ohm resistor on the base (maybe 100ohm, can't remember) with one 10W 1K pot one the trigger bus for tuning on the fly.

Later on when I fell a bit of OCD comming on, I may spend the many hours it would take to accurately match the resistance of each coil, but at the moment close enough is good enough.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Steve

Very impressed with your work. Very clean and organized. Hope to see another video with the fourth coil installed, and maybe some update on how the car starting battery is recovering?

Thanks,

Tad

[dambit]

Thanks Fester,

I am in the middle of major house reno's at the moment (spent the last few months designing and next week the building begins ), but I do plan on completing that charger as soon as I can. The starter battery you mentioned is still not able to start the car, but it has become an excellent battery for powering low to medium power devices with an inverter while fishing etc. To be honest, this battery had only 10 or so propper conitioning cycles before I found a bigger and shinier battery to play with , I'll get back to it one day.

Now that the US dollar is so low to the Aussie dollar I will be ordering a large batch of MJL21194 transistors, they are less than half the price in the States. As many will testify, it is all too easy to fry the transistors, so a few in reserve is always a good idea.

Also, one of my large batteries has a small crack in the casing and now one of the cells is dry. Does anyone know of a good product or easy way to fix the crack. Hopefully not fiberglass.

Cheers,

Steve

[eternalightwithin]

Hi Steve,
A nice setup you got there. I am glad that it works well for you. Thank you for sharing.
What is your coil specs? And how much current does all the circuit draw?

Here is the circuit I am using:

Trying to clarify in my head, how this circuit works.
So the wire that goes to all the transistor bases is the trigger wire? So there isn't like primary/secondary. It's Trigger wire (30 gauge in my case) and Power wires (24gauge here)
What is approximate power that trigger wire will have to handle? I looked up 24 gauge wire and it's max is 3.5 amps. I never understood that... they go by AWG size/current capacity... this makes no sense to me? What about voltage? Wouldn't a giving max watts dissipation be a better way?

[dambit]

Trying to clarify in my head, how this circuit works.
So the wire that goes to all the transistor bases is the trigger wire? So there isn't like primary/secondary. It's Trigger wire (30 gauge in my case) and Power wires (24gauge here)
What is approximate power that trigger wire will have to handle? I looked up 24 gauge wire and it's max is 3.5 amps. I never understood that... they go by AWG size/current capacity... this makes no sense to me? What about voltage? Wouldn't a giving max watts dissipation be a better way?

Hi Mate,

I just put a meter in-line with my trigger coil and using only two of my coils it read 110mA. Not much!! I think that would nearly double for all four coils.

I am pretty sure your wire will handle the pressure.

Cheers,

Steve.

[UncleFester]

Thanks Fester,

Also, one of my large batteries has a small crack in the casing and now one of the cells is dry. Does anyone know of a good product or easy way to fix the crack. Hopefully not fiberglass.

Cheers,

Steve

You could plastic weld it with a soldering iron. It's ugly but it works. You could also use some epoxy, but I think it would have a hard time sticking to HDPE.

[tjnlsn255]

Questions about circuit above?

Hi,

I noticed that in the post above the circuit does not have diodes across the emiter/base, is it ok not to have diodes there? Are the diodes not required because this is not a motor but a self oscillator?

Also, there is one power winding with the trigger winding and then three windings seperate from the first two? How is this coil or coils actual wound?

Are these seperate coils or is there on large coil with 5 windings?

Thank you for any and all help to understand......

Tj