Quantum Energy Generator (QEG) Open Sourced (by HopeGirl)

[isim]

@Farmland
May be a schematic with where the probes are, and components value will be better to understand the problem and help you. 
@+

[TinselKoala]

Thanks a heap Tinsel, I owe you a cheeseburger. 

The CSR is 0.1 Ohms. So that would be 500 Watts per division ? Maybe I should make some carbon block resistors at 0.1 Ohm.

Yes, that is right and I checked the math at several points on the actual scopetrace.

I'll check out the probe options and try connecting to the computer later for a closer look.

P.S. Well that doesn't make a lot of sense either when I do the power calculation.

340 RMS x 1.82 RMS = 618 VA
618 x 0.73 = 451 W
618 - 451 = 167 VAR

Must be the phase angle measured is incorrect. The probes have capacitance that I just tune with (use it to tune) it has an effect
as the total capacitance for the HV tank is only about 1 nF. And the resistor is a wire one.

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Getting the phase angle right is the biggest problem, all right. That's what I suspect is going on with Bill Alek's demonstration as well. Small errors can accumulate. For example that current monitor he is using: the spec sheet says it has a 3 microsecond response delay. This works out to about 3 degrees or so at 3200 Hz, if I did _that_ math right. Now many good DSOs have a "probe deskew" calibration function that is supposed to compensate for timing errors like this; of course I don't know about Alek's in that regard or if they appreciate its use. This turned out to be the source of the Steorn OU measurements: they did not de-skew their active probes so they would be truly synchronous. Of course no DSO is truly synchronous anyway, since they only take one sample at a time, no matter how many channels there are.

I should think that probe capacitances on the order of a few tens of pF wouldn't hurt much, but you are right, with tiny tank caps the probes become more significant.

[TinselKoala]

Tinsel could you please check the current magnitude with the reactance method ? The coil is 320 uH. Frequency is 294 kHz and
the voltage is 340 VRMS. I'm concerned the electric field is influencing the probe.

Or better still can you just give me the formula, some tips, and I'll give it a go.

..

Uh, let's see. 320 uH at 294 kHz is an inductive reactance of 591 Ohms. So neglecting DC resistance, then the current I = V/X = about 0.58 Amps rms. It requires around 900 pF for resonance at that frequency.

Can that be right?

Here are my favorite calculators:
http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-XLC.htm
http://www.1728.org/resfreq.htm

[PCB]

Thanks a heap Tinsel, I owe you a cheeseburger. 

The CSR is 0.1 Ohms. So that would be 500 Watts per division ? Maybe I should make some carbon block resistors at 0.1 Ohm.

I'll check out the probe options and try connecting to the computer later for a closer look.

P.S. Well that doesn't make a lot of sense either when I do the power calculation.

340 RMS x 1.82 RMS = 618 VA
618 x 0.73 = 451 W
618 - 451 = 167 VAR

Must be the phase angle measured is incorrect. The probes have capacitance that I just tune with (use it to tune) it has an effect
as the total capacitance for the HV tank is only about 1 nF. And the resistor is a wire one.

I think you might have errorred here in your calc of Vars.  It's a vector triangle so: sqrt(618*618 - 451*451) =  423 var.
Your pf of 0.73 is a cos(theta) of almost 45 degrees.

[TinselKoala]

There is also the issue of the proper "average" to take from the computed power trace. And it should also be clear that DC offsets are important in where that power trace average winds up. So if there is a DC offset it must be measured by the scope, it can't be filtered out by selecting "AC coupled" on an input. Some scopes also are very sensitive to where the baseline is positioned vertically, oddly enough, so I recommend using the center graticule marker for the baseline for all traces used in scope math power computations.