Testing the TK Tar Baby

[MileHigh]

TK and Poynt:

Congratulations on the over unity machine.  It's like 12 year's worth of Rosemary Ainslie research all distilled down into a sardine can.  Can I power my mp3 player with it and the battery will never need charging?  Or perhaps replace that zipon-depleted binding material matrix in the body of one of the resistors every 100 years?

Isn't it strangely reminiscent of the Steorn Waterways demo with Sean and the anti-climax with the $20K DSO?  Perhaps Rosie and Sean should have a beer together.

Anyway, keep pushing that technology forward.  I am still curious about the mechanism for the current reversing direction.

Have fun!

MileHigh

[TinselKoala]

Forwards? Sideways, maybe.

New Altoid video up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bue_ZJ_y1aI

I put some plastic lining the battery compartment. I get inconsistent behaviour wrt the rough waveforms and triggering; I think it depends on the load, the battery voltage and also the RF environment, which is very different here late at night for some reason. As you can see in the video I have the battery in the box and the box grounded to the circuit with the cliplead and there are no problems.Putting a small cap across the battery terminals when the roughness is happening doesn't seem to make any difference. But that's OK... as long as I can just hook it up and turn it on, like in the video, to demonstrate the NMP, that's good enough for me.

There is a weirdness shown in the video where I put a cap across where the Zener goes.

It's been awfully quiet around here lately.... what is going on?

[poynt99]

TK,

With a 5.1V zener, will the circuit oscillate with any load?

It makes sense that the oscillations would cease when capacitively shorting the Gate to ground; you are also shorting the Gate inductance, which is required for the circuit to oscillate.

[TinselKoala]

TK,

With a 5.1V zener, will the circuit oscillate with any load?

It makes sense that the oscillations would cease when capacitively shorting the Gate to ground; you are also shorting the Gate inductance, which is required for the circuit to oscillate.

Yes, it will, with lots of nice ringing and a much lower f0. And I'm sorry I didn't think to show that; in the video I kind of forgot which variation I was in for a moment. I'll make another quick video to show the difference with different loads a bit later this morning. I need another cup of coffee first.

The point of the cap demo was that the current went high, to 40 mA, and stayed there. Just a tiny touch of the cap across the Z position must allow the gate to charge fully, but what keeps it charged once it is?
In fact, with the zener gone and that part of the circuit open, I can see that shorting across these points pulls the gate down and turns the mosfet off, hence current goes to zero. Removing the short allows the gate to charge through the 30K and the LC in the gate-source makes the oscillations. But when I put the cap in, the gate fully charges through the 30K once the 0.01 uF is full, then when I remove the cap.... why doesn't it start oscillating again, instead of just staying on?

I wonder if this circuit has blown all my 3.3 V Zeners on first trial. They test good on the diode check test but give me weird results when I look at them with a power supply and a voltmeter.

[poynt99]

What size capacitor was that you were using in place of the zener?

Also, did you get a current measurement when it was working with the 3.3V zener and LED load?