Testing the TK Tar Baby

[MileHigh]

TK:

Makes me think of a great name for a band with bleeding-edge socio-political commentary.

You have heard of Rhymes-with-Tussie Riot?

The Mendacious Mendacity Brothers.  (and there would be no brothers in the band)

[TinselKoala]

Bingo. The DUTY CYCLE issue.

Hey, Gmeast:

Ainslie used an inverted duty cycle by mistake and has never acknowledged it. You have already found that the exact component values used in the Quantum publication give a gate HI signal 50-100 percent of the time and cannot produce the 3.7 percent gate HI claimed by the Quantum article -- unless of course you hook the output of the 555 up backwards, with its Pin 3 to the power circuit's ground rail and the 555's negative to the power circuit's GATE.

And you have found by now that an honest 3.7 percent ON duty cycle does give some heat but cannot possibly give the temperature profiles cited by Ainslie in the article.

Now...  If you flip your applied duty cycle so that you are giving the mosfet a 96.3 percent gate HI signal... you will be able to match her heat profiles very closely. Try it !

Unfortunately, despite your voltage measurements including the flyback diode -- you know, the one NOT INCLUDED in the Quantum schematic you are replicating--, your batteries are still discharging. However, you CAN use the output of the flyback diode to charge a separate capacitor to relatively high voltages, or even to charge another battery. You are "siphoning" charge from the main battery when you do this.

[TinselKoala]

Has the distinction between installing a blocking diode in series with the battery, even within the stack, and applying a capacitor across the battery, yet been absorbed?

It's clear that the oscillations must "go through" the battery: this is proved by the fact that inserting the diode within the battery pack kills the oscillation. Putting a capacitor stack across the battery pack does not kill the oscillations though, but removes them (mostly) from the scope trace monitoring the battery voltage at the battery terminals.

I think this is because the capacitors provide a lower-impedance path for the HF AC oscillations than the battery does, so the oscillations now "bypass" the battery and allow the probes to read the DC battery voltage undisturbed.

So.... put a diode within the battery stack. This kills the oscillations by preventing them from passing THROUGH the battery.
ALSO... put a cap across the battery. This re-establishes a low impedance AC path _around_ the battery and should therefore restore the oscillations even though the diode is within the battery pack. 

Right? I haven't tried this in the Tar Baby hardware yet... perhaps I'll do it today if I can find a fast diode in my parts box.

The point being that, if this works as I think it might, we can have a "control" situation that even includes the oscillations, but battery recharging is made impossible by the diode.

[TinselKoala]

What, exactly, are the IEC 60285 and IEC 61436 standards, I wonder.

Could these actually be real standard battery measurement protocols?

I find it simply astounding that Ainslie continues to refer to "standard measurement protocols" when she doesn't even understand that batteries have internal resistance that can be measured. How can anyone continue to be so arrogantly and willfully ignorant that she makes claims like using "standard protocols" when she doesn't even know that actual standard protocols exist and she denies the very existence of a fundamental STANDARD battery measurement?

Battery measurement standards:  start here, choose whichever is applicable:  http://www.mpoweruk.com/standards.htm

.99's link on battery internal resistance:  http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_measure_internal_resistance

But so what? We already KNOW that Ainslie's batteries do discharge. We already KNOW that her heat reports are bogus due to improper technique, circuit errors and sloppy record-keeping. We already KNOW that the oscillations are spurious and do not result in battery recharging or prevention of discharging. And we know all this from Ainslie's OWN DATA.

[sparks]

   Just had a jet pass over my condo complex.   The roar of the jet shook my windows for 30 seconds as the cavity created by the courtyard amplified the jet noise.  I don't think it slowed the jet down.  I think sound people would call this constructive wave interference.  I don't claim this is overunity or anything but it does show how harmonic vibrations can be produced without damping the primary oscillator.