Bedini 10-coil

[Bit's-n-Bytes]

[QUOTE=Plazma;126294I share your scepticism ref the 'RPMs?' issue. We tried a lot of crude tricks to get stable numbers as reflections 'R Us - I've got reflecive tape so putting a black background around the wheel rim is an excellent suggestion If reflections on the little one are bad, the 10-coiler speed tests were nutso as reflections were impossible. But, we'll keep on working on both units to get better numbers.

Cheers,

Plazma[/QUOTE]

Hi Plazma, if you have a PIC and a hall sensor, you can develop a circuit to "Count" the pulsations felt on a input pin delivered by the hall as the magnet(s) passes it. The command is "Count 2,2000,RPM" which disected, is;
"Count" the number pulses on "PIN 2" over a 2 sec. span (2000) and put the number (of pulses) in the Variable "RPM". You can do the math in the code to then determine how many magnets (pulses) have past the hall chip in a minutes time. This number can then be transmitted to the terminal monitor screen on your laptop in the form of; sertxd("RPM = ", #RPM). This should look like, RPM = 2400 on your screen (assuming the variable RPM has the value of 2400). Let me know if you want to pursue this for a very accurate rpm.

Jeff

[iankoglin]

@Citfta;

Not sure about charging dropping just due to cocking the coil - charging does drop when powering the LEDs under all the tests we ran - speed picks up but we are still hunting and pecking on base resistance(s) - same for the 10-coiler - thanks for your post and sharing your observations . . .

@Mark;

I share your scepticism ref the 'RPMs?' issue. We tried a lot of crude tricks to get stable numbers as reflections 'R Us - I've got reflecive tape so putting a black background around the wheel rim is an excellent suggestion If reflections on the little one are bad, the 10-coiler speed tests were nutso as reflections were impossible. But, we'll keep on working on both units to get better numbers.

Cheers,

Plazma

G'Day Plasma,Mark etc.
On my Rick's 10 coiler I sprayed the alumimium wheel with black paint and then put on a small strip of reflective tape it works fine for measuring the revs.

I have some more details regarding my redundant Rick's 10 coiler I will post later



Kindest regards Kogs

[Plazma]

Black Rustoleum to the Rescue . . .

@Bits;
Hi Bits - good to hear from you. I do not have PICAxe, per se - all of my micro-development tools are MicroChip- based (mostly 18F4523) with my own RTO kernel. All code is in C and interrupt based. That said, I do have hall sensors in stock and can do what you suggest and have the actual Hall-Sensor code body from another project on file (uses the b0 external interrupt pin/driver). It's an issue of getting it done - I tried the quick and dirty hand-held photoLED tach (on the 10-coiler and kit) which is a nice instrument (if you have a steady hand) but it doesn't like caffeine I'm in the middle of migrating a lot of my home-grown technology into a form where I can get better designs and good PC boards - so, we (me and the son-in-law) are moving stuff over to Express-PCB. Its just a lot to get done. I very much appreciate the nudge ref PIC and your assistance. As an aside, my microchip target machines are interfaced into a VB-net based platform so most of the GUI for running tests is on the PC - com is via USB (for code downloads) and RS232 (for realtime data and commands from the GUI). I use an USB hub at the target machine that handles both ports. A lot of fun . . .

@Kogs - I just knew I'd get to use black rustoleum some where along the line ( ) - seriously, thanks for the suggestion. I'm working on it and I am looking forward to your future posts ref your 10-coiler experiences . . .

Thanks everyone for your kind and thoughtful feedback . . .

Plazma

[ren]

@Bits;
Hi Bits - good to hear from you. I do not have PICAxe, per se - all of my micro-development tools are MicroChip- based (mostly 18F4523) with my own RTO kernel. All code is in C and interrupt based. That said, I do have hall sensors in stock and can do what you suggest and have the actual Hall-Sensor code body from another project on file (uses the b0 external interrupt pin/driver). It's an issue of getting it done - I tried the quick and dirty hand-held photoLED tach (on the 10-coiler and kit) which is a nice instrument (if you have a steady hand) but it doesn't like caffeine I'm in the middle of migrating a lot of my home-grown technology into a form where I can get better designs and good PC boards - so, we (me and the son-in-law) are moving stuff over to Express-PCB. Its just a lot to get done. I very much appreciate the nudge ref PIC and your assistance. As an aside, my microchip target machines are interfaced into a VB-net based platform so most of the GUI for running tests is on the PC - com is via USB (for code downloads) and RS232 (for realtime data and commands from the GUI). I use an USB hub at the target machine that handles both ports. A lot of fun . . .

@Kogs - I just knew I'd get to use black rustoleum some where along the line ( ) - seriously, thanks for the suggestion. I'm working on it and I am looking forward to your future posts ref your 10-coiler experiences . . .

Thanks everyone for your kind and thoughtful feedback . . .

Plazma

Hi Plazma,

You dont even have to spray the wheel. You can just put some non glossy tap around the shaft somewhere and put your strip on that. You dont need to measure at its circumference or even off the rotor face. The suggestion above with a hall sensor is a good idea too.

Regards

[Plazma]

Hi Plazma,

You dont even have to spray the wheel. You can just put some non glossy tap around the shaft somewhere and put your strip on that. You dont need to measure at its circumference or even off the rotor face. The suggestion above with a hall sensor is a good idea too.

Regards

Hi Ren,

You are quite right about the strip on the axle (as honorable son-in-law pointed out this evening, too) but the hall sensor is quite attractive. Especially considering I am thinking of putting a (gasp) micro-based monitor of sorts on the machine at some point down the road - so the hall effect sensor fits nicely into that future. Nearer term I will do what you've suggested as I have another photo pickup device complete with mounting fixture I just cannibalized off of another machine in the shop (parts 'r parts).

Thanks for the suggestion -

Best Regards,

Plazma

[Shanjaq]

How about creating a tab of reflective tape hanging off the end of the shaft and letting the tachometer beam strike either the tape or the empty air between revolutions?

[Plazma]

Taching Along . . .

@All,

Maybe the tachometer issue is resolved - I'm using an optical proximity sensor interfaced to a DPM scaled in RPM. I attached/taped a piece of insulated, black wire in the axial direction to the surface of the shaft exit the back mounting plate and installed a plastic collar to the back plate to hold the sensor. The sensor is slightly angled so as to look at the edge of the shaft and, as the wire rotates into the field of view, a pulse is generated.

A scouting test late this afternoon showed ~900 RPM at about 1.8 amp draw. Tach was surpisingly a bit variable depending on how many coils and what combinations of coils were active at one time. Energizing 10 coils did not give me maximum speed nor a significant increase in speed at the upper end so I shut down and checked my charging battery - as suspected, the time spent fiddling with the tach at modest coil load and charging conditions was enough to more than MAX OUT and OVERCHARGE the load batteries. Time to drain the swamp. I caught the bottleneck before the Neons fired.

Having the mounted, semi-permanent tach is really very useful. I'm seeing lots of little subtle signs and interactions - quite fascinating. More to come as things develop.

Cheers,

Plazma

[iankoglin]

Re Max out

@All,


Energizing 10 coils did not give me maximum speed nor a significant increase in speed at the upper end so I shut down and checked my charging battery - as suspected, the time spent fiddling with the tach at modest coil load and charging conditions was enough to more than MAX OUT and OVERCHARGE the load batteries. Time to drain the swamp. I caught the bottleneck before the Neons fired.

Cheers,

Plazma

G'Day Plazma
What volts did you max out at?
I have found that the neos do not fire unless the voltage across them is greater than say 90v or I have the Charging battery not connected or they are less than 7v.When charging a 12 v battery with my other SSG's they can get well over 14v and the neo's do not fire they usually rest at 13v.
When I am charging a 24v battery they can go over 30v no neos firing and they usually rest at near 26v. But I cannot get the Trojans over 25v with any of my machines.

Because I was not able to charge my T105's with Rick's 10 coiler I several times asked him for help regarding the tuning as when I purchased the machine he stated that all the testing has been done and he will give us this imfo but each time I ask him for these details he says that he will give this material out at the convention as yet I have not had any reply from him and I can see that he is TOOO busy to reply to me about this so I put it aside as I think that the problem may have been the Batteries being NEW need to be Charged and discharge about 50 times before they come up to full potential and also it is more than 9 months that I have not been able to charge them over 25v So I am in the process of charging (with a spanker) and Discharging my T105's and when I have done this about 4 or 5 times I will then rebuild my Rick's 10 coiler( I have it pulled down to test all of the components and found nothing wrong) and try again to see if they will charge
Regards Kogs

[Plazma]

G'Day Plazma
What volts did you max out at?
I have found that the neos do not fire unless the voltage across them is greater than say 90v or I have the Charging battery not connected or they are less than 7v.When charging a 12 v battery with my other SSG's they can get well over 14v and the neo's do not fire they usually rest at 13v.
When I am charging a 24v battery they can go over 30v no neos firing and they usually rest at near 26v. But I cannot get the Trojans over 25v with any of my machines.

Because I was not able to charge my T105's with Rick's 10 coiler I several times asked him for help regarding the tuning as when I purchased the machine he stated that all the testing has been done and he will give us this imfo but each time I ask him for these details he says that he will give this material out at the convention as yet I have not had any reply from him and I can see that he is TOOO busy to reply to me about this so I put it aside as I think that the problem may have been the Batteries being NEW need to be Charged and discharge about 50 times before they come up to full potential and also it is more than 9 months that I have not been able to charge them over 25v So I am in the process of charging (with a spanker) and Discharging my T105's and when I have done this about 4 or 5 times I will then rebuild my Rick's 10 coiler( I have it pulled down to test all of the components and found nothing wrong) and try again to see if they will charge
Regards Kogs

Hi Kogs,

First off, I am very sorry you have had such a time with the 10-coiler. Let's hope for better days. To answer your questions let me respond first by stating that I am at present running short scouting tests using 19 AHr LA batteries that were, by all practical measures, dead having sat in my shop while I built a new lab and then constructed the 10-coiler. I used my Tesla Amp as connected to ~1/3 of my solar panel to bring them back. There are 8
of these used as follows; 1) a 24 volt pair used to power the 10-coiler - 2) 2, 24 volt pairs connected as single pairs (1 active, 1 on standby) and sometimes together as a quad set used as the charging load for the 10-coiler; and 3) a pair of 12 volt units used to power and provide 12 volt charge/load for the 3-coiler I brought back from the November Conference.

Resting voltage for most of the 24-volt pairs settles at 25.5 volts and 12.75 volts for the 2, 12 volt units. I have seen surges as high as 35 volts when charging a 24-volt pair using the Tesla Amp and, from time-to-time, a faint glow on the neons. The other day, when bringing on 10-coiler coils in sequence during 10-coiler startup I saw both soft glows on some boards and a few flashes. That time the charge batteries were over 27 volts measured after I stopped the machine. I do not know what the surges in voltage were at the flashes because I stopped testing as soon as I saw a flash and proceded to drain the charge batteries down to 24.8 to 25 volts.

It seems the 10-coiler charge batteries in pairs and in quads move upwards quite rapidly and seem "stiff" when I drain them down - so, the Tesla Unit is doing a respectable charging job on my SUPPLY batteries and so, too, is the 10-coiler on charging those pairs dedicated as LOAD/Charge batteries. I DO NOT mix them as to their designated roles with the 10-coiler.

I have not moved the 10-coiler onwards to charging my bigger, 800+ ampHr batteries. Rather, I am at the moment working on a cap bank transfer method that, once finished, will be used with the 10-coiler to move energy from that source to service the bigger batteries. I do not want to go through a year of conditioning even 1 of those 800 AmpHr monsters - rather, I'm opting to use transformed radiant via cap bank and use my time on other issues. I have used both the Tesla Solar Charger and my backup solar charge controllers to keep the big batteries at 25.5 volts resting voltage while I work out all of these other design and build details. Once I have my current research well underway and have better information, I may then use radiant charging directly on one or more of the bigger batteries but that is off in the future. I am spending a lot of time and resource in measurements and various experiments to try and improve my understanding of these machines. As I get worthwhile 10-coiler data (such as trigger dwell times in microseconds at different RPM readings and amps), that data will be posted here (for anyone that is interested, that is).

Speaking of tuning and trigger functions, I am using a 100 Ohm Rheostat in series with a 25 Ohm resistor and the light bulb as attached to the switch matrix that feeds trigger signals to the boards. My base resistors to the MJL trannies are 100 Ohms. When I start up like on a single coil, I may have 20 Ohms on the rheostat (+ 25 Ohms extra resistor). As speed and current build and/or I add more coils, I'll add more resistance to the rheostat and start looking for inflection point(s) in the amp readings. There appear to be 2 or 3 and conditions seem quite variable in settling on a particular spot on the rheostat. Seeking a 'sweet spot' seems quite 'path' dependant. However, I seem to settle out at about 75 ohms on the rheostat with 1.3 amps as one of the possible operating points that gives good speed. Another spot shows up at 2.3 amps and I'll bet I've got a lot more torque at that setting - wish I had a dynamometer . . . (sighhhhh . . . oh well . . . )

CAVEAT : the numbers just posted are for modest, 19 AHr batteries at nominal 24 volts in and out - some one else's experience could be vastly different because of differences in the batteries.

In summary, I am cautiously feeling my way along. The machines seem to work. I will try to get more and better data going forward. And, sorry for the long-winded response.

All the Best,

Plazma

[iankoglin]

Hi Kogs,


CAVEAT : the numbers just posted are for modest, 19 AHr batteries at nominal 24 volts in and out - some one else's experience could be vastly different because of differences in the batteries.

In summary, I am cautiously feeling my way along. The machines seem to work. I will try to get more and better data going forward. And, sorry for the long-winded response.

All the Best,

Plazma

G'Day Plazma
thanks for the quick reply.
I am pleased you are progressing with your analysing of the 10 coiler and am sure that you will have success I am sure I will do like wise as I am sure it is only that the 10 coiler does not like sulphated batteries the Trojan's are at the moment in 3 lots of 12v configuration so as I can use the Spanker to bring them up equally to 13v as they are at the moment now 1 @ 12.7v 1@ 13v and 1@13.1v. I then have to re assemble my 10 coiler to try them once again I will keep you posted.

Also I am in the process of building a S1GT I have a 4 foot wheel made and now are waiting for the components to make the circuit and probably will use these batteries in a 30v configuration on this machine.

Also I am fiddling with the latest 6 coiler I rebuilt this was charging 12v and 24v batteries very well until I threw a magnet. After I repaired the wheel I tried this machine to charge the Trojans using one coil and circuit only and the coils and circuit nearly cooked. I found that the transistors on this circuit was not Beta matched . I removed this circuit and replaced with another and it charges only with i circuit and coil very well.

As you can see I am very busy my wife Jill is also taking a greater interest as well this makes it easier.

I find it difficult to download photos on this forum

Kindest Regards Kogs

[iankoglin]

G'Day Plazma

I find it difficult to download photos on this forum
Kindest Regards Kogs

G'Day Plazma
I hope this works here is a pic of my S1GT
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bedini...88938/pic/list

Regards Kogs

[Plazma]

Access to your PIC

G'Day Plazma
I hope this works here is a pic of my S1GT
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bedini...88938/pic/list

Regards Kogs

Hi Kogs -

Looking forward to seeing your PIC (as soon as my Yahoo access glitch gets cleaned up, that is).

Plazma

[John_K]

G'Day Plazma
I hope this works here is a pic of my S1GT
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bedini...88938/pic/list

Regards Kogs

Hi Kogs,

Can you post your pics to the BM3 group (or somewhere else) as BM2 is not public.


John K.

[iankoglin]

Hi Kogs,

Can you post your pics to the BM3 group (or somewhere else) as BM2 is not public.


John K.

G'day John K,Plazma

John K thanks for that I just can't seem to work out how to post pics here.
Here is the address of the pics of my Kogs S1GTon BM3.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Bedini...unt=20&dir=asc

Kindest regards Kogs

[John_K]

G'day John K,Plazma

John K thanks for that I just can't seem to work out how to post pics here.
Here is the address of the pics of my Kogs S1GTon BM3.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Bedini...unt=20&dir=asc

Kindest regards Kogs

Hi Plazma,

You will need to sign up to BM3 as a member to view Kog's pics.


John K.