Announcement

**Neight** · 04-12-2011, 09:47 AM

oh and....
wanted to post another question as well, but nearly forgot.
I had some serious problems soldering anything to the collector of the transistor i am using. it is a 2N3055 and the solder wouldn't stick to it very well. so, again i am sure i am missing something here, but like i said, very VERY new at this. i have a variable power soldering pen, and i am using it on a low temp setting. and i am using .032 60/40 rosin core solder. if i should be using something different please let me know, because it was a real problem getting the solder to stick to the collector.
thanks again, in advance for any help anyone can offer

**tjnlsn255** · 04-12-2011, 11:21 AM

Hi,

You may have to much resistance on your transistor base....

At first my coil was not big enough and I did not have a good core.

What happens when you swap the trigger coil ends?

You can screw the collector wires onto the transistor case with a screw and a nut instead .... just make sure it is a tight connection....

A picture would really help.....

Best of luck.....

Todd

**mbrownn** · 04-12-2011, 11:51 AM

If you can hear a high pitch tone from the coil it IS working, it is self osculating.

Neo magnets can be slightly problematic if the field is not large enough to go completely through the coil and this may be why it is not spinning. Try moving them closer. Neo magnets have a very strong field but it is much smaller than ceramic.

Check your output, you may find that there is high voltage there but little or no amps, another sure sign it is working.

**dR-Green** · 04-12-2011, 05:59 PM

Greetings. Like has already been mentioned, it sounds like the resistance is too high. I don't know about all potentiometers, but on mine at least anti-clockwise increases the resistance, and clockwise decreases it. That certainly confused things for me when I was first trying to get my machine up and running. So first of all I would recommend that you decrease the resistance to get it to stop self oscillating because I don't think you'll have much success in spinning a rotor while it's doing that.

As for soldering the transistor, think of it like a normal piece of metal that you're trying to get to conduct heat. The bigger/thicker it is, the longer it will take or the more heat you will need to get it up to temperature. The transistor is likely to absorb the heat and cool down faster than you are able to heat it on the low setting. The one I have can't even do it on maximum. So like Todd said you can use a screw and nut, also you can get some plate type things which are designed to be soldered on the end of a wire and screwed on such things. [edit] I forgot to mention, a transistor should be able to take a pretty high temp before you destroy it but a screw and nut is safer and easier to remove in case you need to replace the transistor or change the circuit etc.

**Neight** · 04-13-2011, 09:13 AM

ok, i have a video posted of what i have. you can hear the tone in the coil pretty well, and see my setup. It is still being refined...
anyway, thanks for the responses, i have a much better idea of what is going on, and think i know what i need to do to fix it.
bigger coil, the coil in the video is done the same way I saw in one of Lidmotor's videos. same coils from radio shack, but i bought two packs and wound both of the green together. I am going to add the gold and the other red coil to it to make it as long as i can until i can get a bigger spool to start from.

bigger magnets. those should be here by the end of the week.

please, by all means correct me if i am wrong, i am here to learn!!

thanks again
N8

YouTube - first build, not working yet...

**Neight** · 04-13-2011, 09:23 AM

forgot to mention...
My secondary battery appears to be charging. I gained nearly .5V in the secondary and lost about the same from the primary. so at least that much is encouraging!

**dR-Green** · 04-13-2011, 07:14 PM

Hi Neight, I'm not experienced enough to understand why your circuit is still self oscillating when you're only using 100 ohms, and as far as I know a smaller trigger coil should also make the resistance LOWER rather than higher, so I don't know about that. What happens if you take the coil away from the magnets? Self oscillating aside, the most obvious thing to me is that the magnets are wrong as you already know. I've never tried neo magnets, but I use ceramic ones that are the same diameter as the core, and get them to pass as closely as possible without contact. I guess the core you're using should at least do the job to get a basic motor running so I don't think that's a problem for the moment.

Also, I'll have to quote the old saying, "have you tried turning it off and back on again?"

Maybe this doesn't relate directly to you because you're experiencing the opposite effect, but when my circuit was self oscillating randomly, it would stop when I changed the resistance, but there was no way to get it to start again until you disconnect the power and reconnect it after a few seconds.

That's all I can think of. And just a side note, if you want to play with the thing or charge batteries in the meantime while it's self oscillating until you figure out what the problem is, leave the core out

**Neight** · 04-13-2011, 07:29 PM

when i put my meter to the circuit, the noise will stop momentarily, and it stops when i pull my coil away from my magnets.
I have a few ceramic magnets, 1/2" diameter x 1/4" depth, and they are equally as un-reactive as the neo mags are. I haven't checked to see if they have the same hum as the neo magnest, but i will try that tonight, see what i get.
more than likely i will just have to wait out the next few days until my new magnets arrive. i will probably take that time to "polish up" my setup.

And i have turned it off and on, no difference there. I actually broke it down and set it back up for the video, just to make double sure i had all my connection right before i showed everyone what i had.
thanks for the suggestions!! I will try my ceramics a bit later and see what i get!
N8

**tjnlsn255** · 04-13-2011, 08:01 PM

N8,

The video was very informative, excellent....

I believe you need a better core. I tried several things but until I actually cut up a few welding rods and tightly fit them inside my coil I did not get my motor to spin.

Also, when you said you used both spools of the same color wire, did you connect them in series to double the length of the coil or is one of them being used as the trigger coil?

If you take the two windings you already have and connect them in series together and wind one of the smaller ones over the top of the other two as a trigger coil, that should help, once you get a better core.

Hopes and Dreams....

Todd

**dR-Green** · 04-13-2011, 08:40 PM

Originally posted by Neight View Post

I have a few ceramic magnets, 1/2" diameter x 1/4" depth, and they are equally as un-reactive as the neo mags are. I haven't checked to see if they have the same hum as the neo magnest, but i will try that tonight, see what i get.

It sounds to me like the neo magnets are too strong (??), combined with maybe the rotor being too small so the coil is constantly inside the same magnetic field so it's acting like one big fixed magnet instead of a spinning wheel. If when you use the ceramics it doesn't self oscillate and still doesn't work as a motor, then maybe like Todd suggests you need a better core.

Also this may be a silly question, but did you wind the coil the right way? If the circuit is self oscillating and creating a north pole at the top of the coil then it should be repelling the magnets, and the rotor will be facing the core of the coil in between the magnets. ([edit] Sometimes it seems, maybe it depends on the frequency.) Either way, if you have a south pole at the top of the coil then swap the polarity of the wires.

**Neight** · 04-14-2011, 04:50 AM

Hello again, and thanks for all the help and suggestions so far!! I am trying different things and getting results, not sure if they are the right results, but changes are happening :P

to explain my coil a bit better. My coil is composed of 150' of 26 gauge magnet wire, which is my power coil. my trigger coil is 200' of 30 gauge magnet wire. I am thinking of adding 80' of 22 gauge wire to my power coil and enough 30 gauge to match the number of turns i get with those extra 80'. until i get a larger spool, i am adding wire to my coil by soldering more wire to the end of the wire i want to lengthen. I know it's not the best setup, but i got the idea from one of Lidmotor's videos, so i know it should at least work.

now, on to my changes and new results, some of which i don't really understand.
dR-Green mentioned that i may have all my magnets in the same field and it's acting like one big magnet. I did a bit of surgery on my cork and put it through the hole in a CD. I balanced that as best i could, and got it pretty close. then I taped my neo magnets on the CD surface to make a 4 pole rotor. they are spaced evenly apart, and each magnet position has 10 of my 1/8" x 1/8" magnets lined up. so i basically have a 4 pole rotor and the poles are made of 1.5" long x 1/8" diameter cylinder magnets. with the weight added away from the center of the rotor, it freewheels much longer than it did with just the cork. I really didn't notice any change in behavior with all that though, so i added 4 more poles to the setup with some 1/2" diameter x 1/4" length ceramic magnets. i added those in between the 4 lines of neo magnets. so now i have an 8 pole rotor, 4 poles are neo magnets and 4 poles are ceramic and they are pretty evenly spaced around the diameter of the cd. Still no more spinning than it does free wheeling.
I am still getting the hum, and pitch changes when the rotor is spinning. so not much has changed overall.

the main thing i have to add is something that happened before i changed the rotor. still with the cork and 4 small neo magnets. I let it set for a while running while i checked it out with my meter. i disconnected the positive of my secondary battery and spun my rotor to see if my neon lit at all, to check for high voltage. nothing was happening, so i touched the leads of a red LED to the leads of the neon to see if it would light the LED. I did, very brightly, and it got hot fast. now this is when it got a bit odd. when i pulled the LED away from the neon, they neon lit up bright as day. it stayed lit until i hooked the charging battery back to the circuit. I have tried to replicate this again, but no luck. my neon has remained off since, though my LED's still light when i touch it to the neon leads. also when the neon did light up the volume of the hum in the coil went way up, it was clearly audible, even from across the room. I have been able to get that to happen again with the LED, but the neon has stayed quiet. I have checked my transistor and it never got warm and it is still working, so i am not sure what happened. first time i have seen the neon lit during the whole time i have been messing around with this thing.

i switched my batteries, and i am definitely getting charged on the secondary, and using the primary. so at least that part of the circuit is working for sure, but still no spin with my rotor. I have changed polarity on the coil a few times and with the core in, the magnets stop lined up with the core. when there is no core, i have noticed it will more likely stop in between two magnets, and once even pulled back to that position, to line up with the air core of the coil. not sure exactly what is going on.

again, hope all this makes sense, and if you like i can make another video. using youtube is a pretty handy way to communicate all this, much more effective than anything i can type out :P i tend to be a bit wordy at times, so i am trying hard to explain all this without getting to confusing :P

thanks a ton for the comments and suggestions!! they are helping me at least understand what is going on, even if i can't quite get it to work yet

**Neight** · 04-14-2011, 05:29 AM

Ok, i did post a quick video just for the visual. it is uploading now and should be available on my youtube channel pretty soon.

Thanks again!!
N8

**Neight** · 04-15-2011, 06:34 AM

ok, don't want to bombard this post with questions, but i have something new i have found. I can make my motor spin, but only if i connect and disconnect the LED between the base and the collector of the transistor

if i put one pole of the rotor directly in line with my core (and it works the same without the metal core in it), and touch the LED to the neon leads, or the base and the collector directly, it will push away the magnet. then if i quickly disconnect the LED when the core is in between the poles of the rotor, it will spin the next magnet in line and if i time it right, i can keep it spinning but it's pretty hard to manually time the trigger :/
If i disconnect the positive of the charge battery and mess with it, it will at times make the neon come on, but that does not happen all the time, and i have not yet figured out what makes that difference.
somehow my trigger coil is not triggering, it's acting like an on off switch that has to be manually thrown with the LED. the magnets are either attracted or repelled, and the diode (both LED and regular diode work the same way) is the switch. I am not sure why it doesn't do this on it's own. when the magnet is in line with the core, i also get the hum noise, but when i put the LED on the circuit, the noise stops.
and the LED i am now using is a combo red green blue bulb, and if i use the green or blue lead, it doesn't spin the magnet, but if i use the red one, it will spin the magnet.
again, i have no clue what is going on here. my first thoughts are, either the transistor is blown and has been this whole time, which doesn't seem likely. or, somehow i have wound my coil wrong. I have tried all different ways of hooking the coil to the circuit, and so far, only one way will see any movement at all, and that is same way i originally had it hooked up, according to introvertabrates video.
any insight here would be incredibly appreciated!! I am thrilled to see the coil move the magnet at all, at least i know i am not completely wrong, but it seems i still have a long way to go. My next step so far is to wire up a 2nd circuit and change it out with the one i am using. that is how i will test the transistor. after that, i am down to waiting on magnets or re-winding my coil, and adding a bit to it. I am also working on making a better core, but that will take me a bit longer.
thanks in advance for anyone who can point me in the right direction!! i feel like i am close to seeing my first motor work, and all this troubleshooting will definitely help me understand the whole process better!
thanks
N8

**N O G** · 04-15-2011, 08:42 AM

Motor won't spin

Hi there N8,
You seem to have the circuit wired up good but your coil and magnets are stopping the motoring process.You need to redo a few things , for small motors you need a core width no bigger than 1cm and at least 5cm long .The magnets need to be about the same width as the core.With this size coil you need at least 150 turns on the coil and both wires the same length . I done a lot of tests with small motors and found you need to be at a curtain size before things will work properly.9v is tricky to make work ,12v is alot easier .This is just a rough guide to give you a better picture .cheers Jason

Announcement

help with my first Bedini SSG circuit

help with my first Bedini SSG circuit

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment