Kapanadze Cousin - DALLY FREE ENERGY

[Hoppy]

For Hoppy, you will notice the obligatory trip and electrocution areas. And also, the now common dangling wires!!

Best wishes to all, Grum.

Evening Grum,

Now that's what I call an experimenters bench, complete with danglies and trip hazards and most importantly a refuge to hide in. 

I've been tied up with work projects of late, so had little time for serious benching but I have been following the threads when I can.

When you receive your variac, try running some lamp light illumination tests using a grid power meter to get a good idea of power consumption versus visual brightness. You may be surprised, I was.

[ariovaldo]

Dear Sergey.

Many thanks for your prompt responce to my request for information. We now have another one to look into!!

Dear all.

"Upping the ante"......... Earlier on I decided to try a low voltage input to the test rig, starting with 35 V AC onto the bridge rectifier. With 3 X 60 and 1 X 40 Watt incadescent lamps as load. As yet I do not have a "fool proof"  method of power measurement but initial tests looked good. With a fair brightness to the bulbs and a current of 1.75 amps. I next tried a 70 V AC input and a good light with less current was seen. Then disaster, bringing the frequency down a bit lower than 12 KHz, a massive bang and a fried IGBT and driver gone west!! How many units of electricity would that have bought??
Replacements ordered and also a Variac from Ebay will help put me back on track later this week. I did not want to apply over 300 V AC from the off. A slow build up IMO is the best option.

Dear Nick and Hoppy.

Below is my new home.... I found it by opening a door and clearing out the accumulated rubbish of eons Our kitchen is now a kitchen again and I have got somewhere to hide!!
For Hoppy, you will notice the obligatory trip and electrocution areas. And also, the now common dangling wires!!

Best wishes to all, Grum.

Looks like my bench. I like your persistence and hand on.

[NickZ]

  Grum:
  Sorry to hear about your IGBT going up in smoke.  That's the reason that I'm hesitant on applying higher voltage/amps to my transistors, also. As I'm a long ways from the nearest Radio Shack. 
  It would be great to be able to just buy a ready made mosfet driver circuit that is known to work, that would help a whole lot.

  Thanks for the picture, of your current device and the new work station space. It gives at least some idea of what you're up to.

   I'm going to be using a 110v fan speed controller, connected to a 65 watt CFL bulb driver, to drive the yoke with. The fan speed controller has three voltages positions,  to try to avoid a similar mishap. It has 30v, 60v, and 110v, position switches.  I think that even a 110v house bulb dimmer may also be useful. As I can just buy a variac right now, but that sounds like a good idea.
I did give my circuit (yoke) 110v but with minimal current, just to see what happens, and it did not burn anything out. So, I know that its the current levels that is where the danger lies.

  I looked at the new Akula diagram, but I'm having a hard time figuring it out.  It would help if someone translated some of the part values, and indicated which is the yoke, and which is the horizontal Tesla coil, etz...

  I find the diagram that T-1000 made much easier to understand, and much simpler component wise also.
 

[verpies]

When you receive your variac, try running some lamp light illumination tests using a grid power meter to get a good idea of power consumption versus visual brightness. You may be surprised, I was.

That's sound advice.
Also, this method of power measurement is cheap and effective.  Any black box and a photodiode/phototransistors is good enough.
If you use incandescent bulbs with non-coiled filaments (e.g. car dome bulbs), you can even measure high-frequency power.

[MenofFather]

  I looked at the new Akula diagram, but I'm having a hard time figuring it out.  It would help if someone translated some of the part values, and indicated which is the yoke, and which is the horizontal Tesla coil, etz...

My suggestion if about this you say.