Energy from the Ground - Self powered generator by Barbosa and Leal

[Void]

Hi Clarence. Thanks for the update. It sounds like you are making good progress. Good job! 
One thing you can possibly try is to use a sprinkler or spray hose to soak the ground around
your ground rods until the ground is really soaked, and see if there is any improvement. Soil type
also matters, but hopefully your soil in your area is half decent as far as ground conductivity.
Is your power supply a switch mode type power supply (SMPS) or the older linear type of power supply with
a big step down transformer? Does you power supply have built in max output current limiting?
All the best...

[Clarence]

Hi Clarence. Thanks for the update. It sounds like you are making good progress. Good job! 
One thing you can possibly try is to use a sprinkler or spray hose to soak the ground around
your ground rods until the ground is really soaked, and see if there is any improvement. Soil type
also matters, but hopefully your soil in your area is half decent as far as ground conductivity.
Is your power supply a switch mode type power supply (SMPS) or the older linear type of power supply with
a big step down transformer? Does you power supply have built in max output current limiting?
All the best...

Clarence:

Hello Void,

My new Tripp Lite PR30 model is the latest newer type with all the bells and whistles you mentioned.
you can enter a search and it will give you all the good details.

just a side note: after I was through testing I wanted to bring my 4 each 7 AH batts up to a full charge.
and I didn't want to use the PR30 by mains voltage to do it since it does have mild heat on its heat sink when operating
so I disconnected it and instead plugged my Power Sonic 12v500ma charger into the system while It was still running
(this is the charger made for the 4 each Power Sonic 7AH batts) and I noticed that the system circuit voltage
powered it just fine and the batt voltage started to climb back up from 12.4 v to 12.5 v so the system was
repowering itself nicely on idle so I said what to hell let me try something - I fliped the switch to the 250 red heat lamp and it lit up
still at the 200 watt 110.7 v I mentioned previously. I started to watch the batt voltage again with my meter and it stayed at the 12.5 v
for about ten minitues and then did its flicker back and forth dance for a while and then dropped back to 12.4. it stayed there for about
ten minutes and did the dance and then dropped to 12.3 v.  all this time I felt the charger and it never heated at all!
after a full 30 minutes I unplugged it from the system and powered it by the mains. then I shut the system down and let it do its thing.

The whole point is that I was amazed that  a small under 30.00 device could almost keep up with a 250.00 Tripp Lite PR30!
And at a lot less load on the system!  I went to the search to see if I could get another one and parallel them in the system circuit instead of
the huge power supply and its load draw. all I could find was the same thing in a now slightly larger charger called a PSC-800a-C charger.
almost the same draw but is a fast charge - float charge unit which doesn't overcharge automatically also.
for under 30.00 on E-Bay I am sure going to try the duo and see what happens.

LATER - thanks and cheers.

Clarence

[a.king21]

Clarence, thanks for the update. It will be interesting to see how much juice you can extract from the ground.  Good luck.

[Void]

Hi Clarence. Ok, I looked up your power supply. I was trying to figure out why the previous one might have
blown, but I am still not sure. Don't know that much about SMPS power supplies. Maybe the power supply
regulation circuitry won't work properly when it is driven with under voltage at its power input terminals.
A heavier duty battery charger as you mentioned looking at might be more tolerant of under voltage,
depending on the type and model, and they are designed for charging batteries, so they will self regulate their
charge rate. That may well be worth a try. Also as I mentioned before, really soaking the ground rods area for several hours,
even over a whole day or night, might help as well once the water really soaks in deep, if the ground is a bit dry
around the ground rods. Surface moisture probably won't help that much, but soaking down really deep might well help.

It might be interesting to run the system longer in a loop with the small battery charger you have in place,
but with no load connected, and monitor the charge current going into the batteries, and the voltage on
the batteries, say once an hour or every half hour. If it is maintaining a full charge on the batteries,
after say 6 hours or so while running in a closed loop, that is pretty good already. You could then try adding a
low wattage bulb for a load of say 15 to 25 Watts, and see if the system can maintain that in a closed loop.
If that works, then you can increment the load up a little bit more and see what it can maintain.
Good experimenting Lawrence. I agree with you that a person really needs to test without any connection to
the grid to have any real chance of seeing if the B&L system works as claimed or not.
All the best...

[Clarence]

Hi Clarence. Ok, I looked up your power supply. I was trying to figure out why the previous one might have
blown, but I am still not sure. Don't know that much about SMPS power supplies. Maybe the power supply
regulation circuitry won't work properly when it is driven with under voltage at its power input terminals.
A heavier duty battery charger as you mentioned looking at might be more tolerant of under voltage,
depending on the type and model, and they are designed for charging batteries, so they will self regulate their
charge rate. That may well be worth a try. Also as I mentioned before, really soaking the ground rods area for several hours,
even over a whole day or night, might help as well once the water really soaks in deep, if the ground is a bit dry
around the ground rods. Surface moisture probably won't help that much, but soaking down really deep might well help.

It might be interesting to run the system longer in a loop with the small battery charger you have in place,
but with no load connected, and monitor the charge current going into the batteries, and the voltage on
the batteries, say once an hour or every half hour. If it is maintaining a full charge on the batteries,
after say 6 hours or so while running in a closed loop, that is pretty good already. You could then try adding a
low wattage bulb for a load of say 15 to 25 Watts, and see if the system can maintain that in a closed loop.
If that works, then you can increment the load up a little bit more and see what it can maintain.
Good experimenting Lawrence. I agree with you that a person really needs to test without any connection to
the grid to have any real chance of seeing if the B&L system works as claimed or not.
All the best...

Clarence :

Hello Void, a.king 21,

thanks for your support!
I do all of my testing in increments as you stated. that is the only real way to define the parameters of the
system, this also gives you the ability to make good judgement calls on how to proceed with future improvements.
with reference to the ground rods, at this site only the first 12 inches is semi solid ground and after that the next 6 feet
of earth is such a wet water table I can manually just push the rods down by hand! then they stop suddenly when
they hit the clay level below the water table. just that last 16 inches is the chore. all of this swampland has already been
soaked for thousands of years! it doesn't need any more for sure.

with reference to the small charger for the batts , I already have one on the way from E-Bay - 29.75 including shipping.
as I said I am going to parallel it with the one I have at present and see what the results are. they still have some incremental sizes
that are larger that I can use if needed. my desire for this action is based on the fact (I believe) that they can get the job done with a lot smaller footprint
in both load draw and space occupied! I am definitely going to find out either way.

Again thanks for your support and interest!
Cheers

Clarence