Water Sparkplug

[Chris31]

Hey guys,

I had a BAD mishap Saturday afternoon here in the shop. I have been moving into a new house for the last couple weeks. It cut sharply into my sleep time, so I've been very tired lately. Only got a few hours sleep Friday night, thus made an almost fatal mistake on the bench. My VexUs circuit charges to 450VDC. By not being as careful as I should have been, I accidentally left the circuit live while hooking up a diode. I then became the solid path to ground and the circuit proceeded to light me up, HARD. Today is day three, and I can finally raise my left arm over my head again, painfully, but at least it works again. When I got loose from the circuit, it threw me about 6 or 8 feet backward so hard I put three dents in the side of the Suburban when I hit it. I fought hard for a couple minutes to stay conscious because I was scared that if I passed out I might not wake back up. I have ALWAYS had plenty of respect for electricity, that's not the issue, I guess that's why it's called an ACCIDENT right? I now have a re-newed outlook on life in general. Guys, PLEASE be SUPER careful with these HV circuits, I will take extra time from now on to ensure safety at a heightened level, that's for sure. I'll be fine in a few days, I've always had quick recovery, since I was little. I will continue testing, at a little slower pace maybe.

Back to the Suburban, I am working on hooking this thing up a new way, think I was getting interference in the engine bay. I am implementing quad shielding and installing the diodes within two inches of the plug ends. I'll see soon if it works like I hope. Well, back to hooking up wires, with NO voltage present, of course! Later......................................Mike

Hey Mike

Glad you are ok, got to really be careful with HV, its not just HV but it carries high current which can be fatal. I get this same thing as well, lack of sleep while doing dangerous experiment, I realised they dont go together.

Welcome back and most importantly you are ok

[Jetijs]

Mike,
that's a hell of a story. I am glad that you are still among us!
Hope you will get well really soon

About the pulstar plugs, there is a thread in this forum about them. To be honest, these plugs are crap! There is nothing more in them than just an additional capacity of few hundred picofarads that makes the plug first store a little bit of the energy before releasing it in the spark, just like Tesla coils do. They call it a "pulse circuit" but a capacitor can hardly be a circuit. I pissed away 100$ for them. But you can just as well get the same effect by just connecting a small ceramic cap in parallel of the spark plug electrodes. Anyway, I bought them and I used them on my toyota yaris. After a few months one of the plugs failed so I broke it to see what's inside. You can read the whole story here:
http://www.energeticforum.com/renewa...ulse-plug.html

I also tried them on different ignition systems - ordinary ignition coils, MSD ignition and so on. There was no visible difference in the spark appearance, certainly not as much as they show in their web site. They said, that the true potential of the spark plug reveals itself only under pression like in the combustion chamber, but as you noticed, there is also almost no difference.
So that's about that!

[Ansis Freimanis]

about ****plugs

When You (we) live in Latvia, some russian folk poetry are coming to my mind... The text is: "Ne najebjosh, ne prozhivjosh!" Translation: "If You dont fuch someone, You won`t survive!"
P.S. I think in USA that happening too, sometimes...

[Jetijs]

To day was a day of failures for me. I decided to make a dual vexus circuit so that I have two different booster setups and I can easily and fast switch between them to see what really makes a difference in the vexus circuit - is it high voltage and small current or is it small voltage but high current. Here is the circuit that I used:


The upper part is just an ordinary cap discharge circuit that makes ordinary sparks that we want to boost up. In the bottom part we use AC from the variac and rectify it to charge a storage cap (100uF 450V) to 310V. Then this cap charges up a smaller cap through a 1k power resistor. In the same time the AC from the variac charges up the caps in the voltage tripler circuit to about 1000V and these caps then charge up a smaller cap through a 1.5k power resistor. The negative ends of the smaller CDI caps are connected together. The positive ends are left unconnected to anything so I can easy and fast connect the diode string to one or another positive terminal. This way I should be able to switch between both voltages to see the result. Also both CDI caps values are matched so that they should store about the same energy in joules - about 0,5J. At first I connected the diode string to the 310V wire. As I turned the variac higher and higher, the spark became louder and louder, but also the power consumption rised up to 200W and then my 100uF 45oV cap fried with lots of smoke. Then I removed the 310V circuit completely and left only the voltage tripler circuit (yesterday It worked fine). When I went up with the voltage on the variac, the spark also became louder and louder, but a bit less intense as with the high capacity CDI cap. At full voltage there was about 1000v on the booster side. Everything went well and the caps stayed cool. The resistor heated up to 50 degree and stayed there and the power consumption was about 30w. Then I tried to spray water on the firing spark plug. It made some loud bangs, till the water was gone, but then after a moment the spark became less and less intense and suddenly the electrodes fused together. Here is a picture:



I have no clue how that could happen. I use such a high resistance resistors and nevertheless the electrodes fused and the 310v circuit consumed up to 200W before the cap failed. I need some rest now.

[gmeast]

glad you're ok

Hey guys,

I had a BAD mishap Saturday afternoon here in the shop. I have been moving into a new house for the last couple weeks. It cut sharply into my sleep time, so I've been very tired lately. Only got a few hours sleep Friday night, thus made an almost fatal mistake on the bench. My VexUs circuit charges to 450VDC. By not being as careful as I should have been, I accidentally left the circuit live while hooking up a diode. I then became the solid path to ground and the circuit proceeded to light me up, HARD. Today is day three, and I can finally raise my left arm over my head again, painfully, but at least it works again. When I got loose from the circuit, it threw me about 6 or 8 feet backward so hard I put three dents in the side of the Suburban when I hit it. I fought hard for a couple minutes to stay conscious because I was scared that if I passed out I might not wake back up. I have ALWAYS had plenty of respect for electricity, that's not the issue, I guess that's why it's called an ACCIDENT right? I now have a re-newed outlook on life in general. Guys, PLEASE be SUPER careful with these HV circuits, I will take extra time from now on to ensure safety at a heightened level, that's for sure. I'll be fine in a few days, I've always had quick recovery, since I was little. I will continue testing, at a little slower pace maybe.

Back to the Suburban, I am working on hooking this thing up a new way, think I was getting interference in the engine bay. I am implementing quad shielding and installing the diodes within two inches of the plug ends. I'll see soon if it works like I hope. Well, back to hooking up wires, with NO voltage present, of course! Later......................................Mike

Hi Mike,

I'm glad you're OK and on the mend. I hope everyone takes heed from your experience ... including ME!

Peace,

Greg

[jstadwater]

Thanks guys,

It could have easily been a situation without a chance to be much, much, much more careful next time! I better be more careful now for sure, I think my guardian angel put in her two week notice after that!

I almost have one side hooked up on the Suburban, I will post a pic as soon as I finish a couple connections so you guys can see what I came up with for my engine bay. Then I think I will call it a day and go home and relax awhile. Be back shortly..................................Mike

[jstadwater]

Driver side done..............

Hey again,

Here are a couple pics of what I just finished hooking up in the Suburban. I am using QUAD shield satallite cable to feed the 450VDC to the HV diodes, which are now located a mere 2 inches from the plug ends. I tested the connections on the bench and all was well. Once the kick wire connection is made at the base of the plug, I wrapped adhesive backed aluminum about 7 or 8 layers around everything all the way to the end of the spark plug wire boot on the end of the plug. That's about as shielded as it gets! I already have the 4 cables made up for the other side, will hook them up tomorrow (one of the wires for the other side is positioned loose in the pic, a closer view than the ones down by the engine). The VexUs circuit voltage supply will be inside the vehicle, a single 14 gauge wire will feed through the firewall from the tripler circuit to the engine block. Through the same hole will feed a single satallite cable wire into the engine bay to a two-way splitter. Those two cable wires will each go to a 4-way splitter, one for each bank of the V-8, as shown on the driver side in the picture below. The wire in the cable is 18 gauge solid, I've used much smaller wire than that on the bench. I will post more as soon as it's hooked up and functioning, I'm hoping all will go well. Later................................Mike

[xpskid]

Hey guys,

I had a BAD mishap Saturday afternoon here in the shop. I have been moving into a new house for the last couple weeks. It cut sharply into my sleep time, so I've been very tired lately. Only got a few hours sleep Friday night, thus made an almost fatal mistake on the bench. My VexUs circuit charges to 450VDC. By not being as careful as I should have been, I accidentally left the circuit live while hooking up a diode. I then became the solid path to ground and the circuit proceeded to light me up, HARD. Today is day three, and I can finally raise my left arm over my head again, painfully, but at least it works again. When I got loose from the circuit, it threw me about 6 or 8 feet backward so hard I put three dents in the side of the Suburban when I hit it. I fought hard for a couple minutes to stay conscious because I was scared that if I passed out I might not wake back up. I have ALWAYS had plenty of respect for electricity, that's not the issue, I guess that's why it's called an ACCIDENT right? I now have a re-newed outlook on life in general. Guys, PLEASE be SUPER careful with these HV circuits, I will take extra time from now on to ensure safety at a heightened level, that's for sure. I'll be fine in a few days, I've always had quick recovery, since I was little. I will continue testing, at a little slower pace maybe.

Back to the Suburban, I am working on hooking this thing up a new way, think I was getting interference in the engine bay. I am implementing quad shielding and installing the diodes within two inches of the plug ends. I'll see soon if it works like I hope. Well, back to hooking up wires, with NO voltage present, of course! Later......................................Mike

Glad to have you here Mike !! Hope all is mending well...
We all want to find a nice home in the afterlife (This is a multi-cultural forum), just not today !!!! Relax, drink a beer, share a laugh, and safely make sparks !!

Regards,

Timm

[ashtweth]

Mike, if your staying awake and getting mentally tiered, take some Ginko and Brahmi (natural herbs) for mental cognitive function. They make you more alert (not a coffee alert) and improve your memory. Stay safe man

Thanks guys,

It could have easily been a situation without a chance to be much, much, much more careful next time! I better be more careful now for sure, I think my guardian angel put in her two week notice after that!

I almost have one side hooked up on the Suburban, I will post a pic as soon as I finish a couple connections so you guys can see what I came up with for my engine bay. Then I think I will call it a day and go home and relax awhile. Be back shortly..................................Mike

[gmeast]

Got my new tranny for VexUs oscillator.

Hi all,

I just got my new tranny from Digi-Key today and changed out the old one. I also eliminated the voltage multiplier for test reasons. It is important for the plasma arc to not decrease in magnitude with increases in frequency ... or more simply engine RPM.

I have included a scope capture showing the engine running at around 4000 RPM. This can be computed from the period between each discharge event. So every 7.5 u-secs a plasma discharge occurs. With 4-cylinders and every other cycle for 4-stroke ... do the math.

The trace is the same for each event at high speed as it is for idle. The new transformer I just bought for the oscillator fully supports the energy draw required to generate the plasma events at high frequency.

As you can see the discharge transient is nearly 180+ VDC solidly and consistently without droop. I'm very satisfied.

The difference the smallest amount of water makes in the arc is astounding! I am going to introduce atomized water in the intake air as a first test. I am in the process of building a SID CELL Hydroxy generator that I will eventually run in the Bug.

Thanks for reading. Peace,

Greg

[ashtweth]

Hi Greg, There are some very easy and updated hydroxy designs in the open source hydroxy course on the university site. The most efficient and easy to construct so far i have found is the Tubular stainless steel ones. They are under the Karma booster and wouter's water fuel for all. Also i would be careful injecting too much hydroxy into the bug unless you know how to retard the timing?, from memory those bugs have a one liter engine? So 2LPM will be allot more then for a normal engine. But you probably know all that already

[turbotrana]

Mike, sorry to hear about your mishap. This is a wakeup call to all of us. Lack of sleep and HV experiements dont mix. The other day had to cut down a huge tree when I was really tired. Made a judgement call to do it the following day. A foggy head can kill you.

[lapperl]

Hi all,

I just got my new tranny from Digi-Key today and changed out the old one. I also eliminated the voltage multiplier for test reasons. It is important for the plasma arc to not decrease in magnitude with increases in frequency ... or more simply engine RPM.

I have included a scope capture showing the engine running at around 4000 RPM. This can be computed from the period between each discharge event. So every 7.5 u-secs a plasma discharge occurs. With 4-cylinders and every other cycle for 4-stroke ... do the math.

The trace is the same for each event at high speed as it is for idle. The new transformer I just bought for the oscillator fully supports the energy draw required to generate the plasma events at high frequency.

As you can see the discharge transient is nearly 180+ VDC solidly and consistently without droop. I'm very satisfied.

The difference the smallest amount of water makes in the arc is astounding! I am going to introduce atomized water in the intake air as a first test. I am in the process of building a SID CELL Hydroxy generator that I will eventually run in the Bug.

Thanks for reading. Peace,

Greg

Greg,
Awesome results

Was that the 20vac transformer that you used?

I can't believe that you received it already!! I'm still waiting on my parts from Mouser

Good to know there was positive results though.

Are you still planning on using the voltage doubler?


Lapperl

[gmeast]

transformer

Greg,
Awesome results

Was that the 20vac transformer that you used?

I can't believe that you received it already!! I'm still waiting on my parts from Mouser

Good to know there was positive results though.

Are you still planning on using the voltage doubler?


Lapperl

Hi LapperL,

The one I used was one I had ordered earlier. It is a 10 VDC X 1.2A output. When the 20V one comes I'll swap that one out and add the voltage multiplier back in. I wanted to verify that the higher amp rating for the xformer would prevent 'drooping' at higher RPM and I got that verification.

Thanks and I'll let ya know when the other gets here.

Peace,

Greg

[gmeast]

Thanks

Hi Greg, There are some very easy and updated hydroxy designs in the open source hydroxy course on the university site. The most efficient and easy to construct so far i have found is the Tubular stainless steel ones. They are under the Karma booster and wouter's water fuel for all. Also i would be careful injecting too much hydroxy into the bug unless you know how to retard the timing?, from memory those bugs have a one liter engine? So 2LPM will be allot more then for a normal engine. But you probably know all that already

Hi Ash,

Thanks for the heads up.

Greg