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A few of my magnetic designs


Nothing new here. Just placed a few of my excess energy magnetic designs at wikipedia before the Steorn launch because these were deleted at peswiki.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:PaulLowrance

Hmm, the Steorn news has ignited my interest once again in magnetic designs. I might actually make one of my old designs. That will be a first. :-D


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Joule Thief tested


Yesterday I tested gadgetmall (Albert) Joule Thief circuit. I used a AAA NiMH 700mAh battery as the source connected to Albert’s circuit, which in turn charges a BCAP0650 ultracapacitor (UC).  The UC started at 1.130 volts. The AA battery was charged. The experiment ended with the AAA at 0.491V, and the UC at 1.313V. This means the Joule Thief circuit charged the UC from 1.130V to 1.313V, for total energy of 134 joules. We know from the previous battery test that the same type of battery, fully charged, made by the same company, a AA 2000mAh NiMH has 6900 joules. Therefore the AAA 700mAh battery should have ~ 2400 joules. This comes to 100% * 134 J / 2400 J = 5.6 % efficient.

Today I adjusted the 10Kohm pot to try and improve the efficiency. This resulted 44% efficient, which is better than yesterdays 5.6% efficiency. I’m not sure if there’s much else to do here.



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Battery test


Two days ago I did a test to see how much energy a 2000mAh AA NiMH battery holds. The battery voltage started at nearly 1.4 volts, and ended at 0.05 volts. The battery was connected to a 10 ohm resistor. The final energy was 6873 joules, which is a bit lower than the factory spec of 10000 joules, but that’s no surprise since they probably cherry pick the best one they could possibly find, and then over charge it. Who knows, that’s capitalism at its best,   ;-) , but I did not over charge mine.

So, 6900 joules is a good figure for 2000mAh NiMH batteries, and 8600 joules a 2500mAh. My Ultracapacitor is ~ 550 farads at low voltages (less than 0.4V), and lets just assume it’s 650F at 2.7V, for an average of 600F, which comes to 2200 joules. So 6900 J / 2200 J = 3.1 times. As far as I’m concerned, one can prove a JT is cop>1 without doubt by either self-running, or by using one 2000mAh to 2500mAh NiMH battery to charge a BCAP0650 4 times.

I’ll try doing this today to see how many times my first JT can charge the BCAP0650.



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Joule Thief efficiency test 2


Here’s my results of testing gadgetmalls circuit, or at least the closest I can presently get to it. I don’t have his toroid, but I’m using a good toroid with high permeability & similar size that he describes.

This method consist of using a resistor for the load, and measuring the resistors temperature, which we’ll call Tr. Then doing the control experiment, which consists of connecting the resistor directly to a power supply, and then increasing the current until the resistor temperature stabilizes at Tr.

An elaborate setup would use a closed system that maintains a fixed temperature. I did not go that far. Also I did not dig out the ridiculously sensitive temperature equipment.

A 100 ohm carbon resistor was used as the load. The voltage across the JT was 1.559 volts DC, and the current was 74.3mA DC, for a total of 116mW. The control experiment showed that it took only 93.3mW to bring the resistor to the same temperature.

This comes to 80.4% efficient.


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Ultracapacitor experiment


Two days ago I tested the Ultracapacitor by slowly charging it at ~ 22mA, and quickly discharging it starting at over 400mA. Here’s the results. This method of slow charge, fast discharge did not show COP>1. The final voltage after charging the UC was 374.1mV, took 40.383 joules, and the charging current was a bit over 22mA. After discharging the UC at a max current well over 400mA, the final result is that 3.265 joules was lost in the entire charge/discharge process, thus making this UC 91.9% efficient, which IMO makes it one amazing capacitor.

After watching this experiment all day, the amazing main effect I’ve observed over the past week appears to be dielectric absorption. There might be other main effects. Who knows until one investigates. As is seen in the charging data, the UC change in capacitance was a minor effect, as expected and as seen in last weeks measurements. After doing some hand calculations, it turns out the UC capacitance hardly changes under low charging currents. When the current appreciably increases, thus internally heating the UC, the measured capacitance increases at an alarming rate.

Here’s the entire UC data logging measurements compress into a screen shot. This is a new feature to the data logger software, to display all of the channel data on one screen.

The spikes in current toward the end was me adjusting the MOSFET gate voltage to get more discharge current. They may seem like spikes in the snapshot, but actually I did not quickly change the current.

Although the graph in the previous post does not show capacitance, I manually calculated the UC capacitance at various points throughout the entire charging period from 0V to 374mV, and the capacitance hardly changed after the UC warmed up. What an awesome capacitor!

Here’s the circuits. Hopefully there’s no mistakes in the drawings.

Remember, the pins shown in the parallel port photo are as it appears directly from your computer, *not* from the cable. So you’ll have to do some mirroring to figure out the correct pins.

The top circuit is what I used to measure the voltage directly across the UC. The 2nd circuit I used to measure the UC current during the charging phase. The 3rd circuit I used to measure the UC current during the discharging phase.

You can place the op-amp resistors to meet your requirements, depending how much gain you would like. Or if only need a 1-1 input from 0 to +5V, then you don’t need to op-amps and you can go directly to the ADC chip.

You can use your favorite op-amps. I have a zillion op-amps, and it’s funny to me because the LM741 worked just fine.

I used 12V for V+, and -12V for V-.  And +5V for the ADC0809 and 555 timer. BTW, you could easily get a much much better ADC for probably the same price, but this is the only one I could find at home. Somewhere around here I have a very expensive 170MHz 12bit ADC, but can’t find it.

People can request the software exe file via email. That way I can always email them an update if there’s a bug or additions. Give me a day to make sure it works on non MS Visual Studio PC’s who might not have the required DLL’s since it’s not a static DLL build.




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Oil ties to Anti Global Warming


Wow, the more I dive into this, the more “oil” pops into the picture. I’ll never buy gas from Exxon again. Here are a few quotes from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_denial

Quotes, the numbers in [] are the wikipedia references,

“A survey carried out by the Royal Society found that in 2005 ExxonMobil distributed $2.9m to 39 groups that the society said “misrepresented the science of climate change by outright denial of the evidence”.[30]“

The British Royal Society conducted a survey that found ExxonMobil had given US$ 2.9 million to American groups that “misinformed the public about climate change,” 39 of which “misrepresented the science of climate change by outright denial of the evidence”.[3][42] In 2006, the British Royal Society issued a demand that ExxonMobil withdraw funding for climate change denial. The letter, which was leaked to the media, drew criticism, notably from Timothy Ball and others, who argued the society attempted to “politicize the private funding of science and to censor scientific debate.”[43]“

“Cooney reportedly removed an entire section on climate in one report, whereupon an oil lobbyist sent him a fax saying “You are doing a great job.”[5]“

“Some denials and disinformation campaigns have been promoted by individuals or groups that are funded by special interest groups with a financial interest in misrepresenting the scientific consensus on climate change[1], particularly those with ties to companies like ExxonMobil or the energy lobby.[2][3][4]

“Then-Vice President Dick Cheney‘s connections to the Energy Lobby, and to ExxonMobil in particular, have fueled speculation that his characterization of climate change science is linked to the “denial industry.”[37] In 2000, Cheney’s Energy Task Force, officially known as the National Energy Policy Development Group, invited the executives of various major oil companies, including Exxon, Conoco, BP, and Royal Dutch Shell, to consult with the White House regarding the development of a national energy policy, although this was initially denied by the participating companies.[38] An Exxon lobbyist – among others – was thanked by the U.S. Undersecretary of Global Affairs for Exxon‘s role in convincing President Bush to reject the Kyoto accords. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists:  In her talking points for a 2001 meeting with a group that included ExxonMobil lobbyist Randy Randol (uncove#ff9999 through a Freedom of Information Act request), U.S. Undersecretary for Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky thanked the group for their input on global warming policy, noting, ‘POTUS [the president of the United States] rejected Kyoto, in part, based on input from you.�Global Climate Coalition, according to a leaked 1991 “strategy memo,” set out not to gather data and test explanations, but to influence public perception of climate change science and “reposition global warming as theory rather than fact.”[14] The strategy was criticized as misrepresenting science in a 2006 Royal Society letter to ExxonMobil expressing disappointment that a recent industry publication “leaves readers with such an inaccurate and misleading impression of the evidence on the causes of climate change … documented in the scientific literature.”[15]“

“The United Kingdom identified the issue of climate change denial as a major topic on its agenda while chair of the G8 group of wealthy countries in 2005.[11]“

Several think tanks funded by Exxon or, later, ExxonMobil, to contest climate change have also reputedly received funding from Philip Morris such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Hudson Institute, the Frontiers of Freedom Institute, the Reason Foundation, George Mason University‘s Law and Economics Center, and the Independent Institute.[27]“

Cooney announced his resignation two days after the story of his tampering with scientific reports broke.[34] A few days later it was announced that Cooney would take up a position with ExxonMobil.[35]“



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Oil ties to Anti Global Warming


I would suggest objective people read what this anti global warming petition is,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Warming_Petition_Project

Pretty sad how far on a limb these anti global warming people will go.




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Oil ties to Anti Global Warming


Noah E. Robinson is on the faculty of OISM, which circulated the Oregon Petition, a petition” against global warming. OISM is headed by Dr. Arthur B. Robinson who lectures on global warming skepticism at the Heartland Institute, a conservative/libertarian free-market think tank that often funds global warming-skeptical research and is funded in part by ExxonMobil, a petroleum company.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Institute_of_Science_and_Medicine

It goes on the say, “31,000 American scientists opposed, on scientific grounds, to the hypothesis of “human-caused global warming”  Key word is “Human-caused.”  This is not about if global warming is real. The data is overwhelming that global warming is real. The temperatures are increasing. This is about what’s causing it.

It’s getting interesting in here folks. Big oil.



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