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

[TinselKoala]

Scoposcopy: Phase 2: Does a Current Transformer type current sense coil introduce a phase shift into its measurement of current waveforms?  How can you tell? How can you measure phase relationships accurately on an analog oscilloscope that does not have "numbers in boxes" for you? Just what the heck are those x-y settings and those marks on the graticule for anyhow? Little red knobs on the attenuator and timebase knobs?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVwyt0EKHlU

Does the Stangenes current transformer used by the FTW QEGgers introduce phase artifacts of its own? How about their Fluke and Tek current clamps?

Next vid: comparing the toroidal and solenoidal current transformer coils, tomorrow probably.

[PCB]

Scoposcopy: Phase 2: Does a Current Transformer type current sense coil introduce a phase shift into its measurement of current waveforms?  How can you tell? How can you measure phase relationships accurately on an analog oscilloscope that does not have "numbers in boxes" for you? Just what the heck are those x-y settings and those marks on the graticule for anyhow? Little red knobs on the attenuator and timebase knobs?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVwyt0EKHlU

Does the Stangenes current transformer used by the FTW QEGgers introduce phase artifacts of its own? How about their Fluke and Tek current clamps?

Next vid: comparing the toroidal and solenoidal current transformer coils, tomorrow probably.

Watched part two. I would have expected the phase shift of your Rogowski coil be have been 90 degrees so was surprised to see it was only 72 degrees. I guess it must be being affected by coils own capacitance and resistance?

[TinselKoala]

I guess you can tell by my tone of voice that I was a bit surprised and frustrated too, because I thought to see more like 90 degrees of phase shift too. But there is more residual inductance in the whole system than I would like, for a calibration fixture, especially the way I have the non-inductive resistor stack connected, and of course lots of stray capacitance too. I will be refining this setup slightly and remeasuring for the next video.
In that last video I only showed the phase measurement for the loopstick solenoidal winding: I'll test the toroidal CT and compare the two in the next video. The toroidal CT produces a much stronger cleaner signal than the loopstick does, that's a plus.

[TinselKoala]

It turns out that the small ferrite bead that I made into a current transformer produces a great signal when used in the CT calibration fixture driven by FG as shown in the last video. But when I tried it on the MicroQEG itself, it killed the resonance completely, made the circuit act like the primary was open, and this destroyed a couple of mosfets before I figured it out and pulled the plug. I think this is because the bead acts as an effective choke when mounted on the leg of the MQEG's primary coil. There are some very interesting effects and consequences; I can light a neon on the output of this little choke slipped over the primary leg, and have pulled 1/8 inch RF arc from it! Briefly...   

At any rate, I can only use the coreless loopstick windings for current sense transformer at the moment. This simulates a real Rogowski coil without the integrating/phase shifting buffer amp usually used with these things. And here is the "explanation" for the phase shift data that I showed in the very first vid: The total phase shift seen on the oscilloscope is the sum of the actual phase shift of current wrt voltage in the tank's circulating reactive power (90 degrees) plus the phase shift in the output signal from the current sense transformer (another 90 degrees). So when this system is reporting a perfectly "in phase" pair of signals, it means that one scope channel is inverted or connected to the coil backwards, and the true picture should look 180 degrees or very nearly so out-of-phase, and this in turn means the _true_ phase relationship is the near 90 degrees shift that is expected in the reactive power circuit. I think. I would welcome hearing from (a few) other people on this issue.

The good news is that the circuit operates just fine on IRF830 mosfets; perhaps there is slightly more heating in the transistors after long running and various transverter load experiments but it's hard to tell since they are only very slightly above ambient temp. I intend to put 3205s back in but I'm out of stock at the moment; I should have more by Monday or Tuesday, 9 dollars for ten pieces from Thai Shine, free shipping.

Meanwhile, the silence of the QEG teams is deafening, wot? And I see at be-do forum that tangents are being followed. Too bad their approach to a solid state system is ... er... uninformed, shall we say, by what I've been demonstrating.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ8Gl8KXXto


I am in casual consultation with a friend of vast power supply design experience, who may be able to guide me through the process of making some rock-solid, fully lab-grade, ultra-reliable power measurements of just what is going on in the resonant tank. Something to look forward to, perhaps, and something that will certainly be applicable to power measurements in larger systems like the "real" QEG. (Is that an oxymoron or what?)

[TinselKoala]

From the Official QEG FAQs:

All that's needed is to spin the machine up to resonance. At that point it will run itself. 

You can use a crank mechanism! Hey James, maybe that's what's wrong with all those QEGs that can't run even though they can resonate: not enough crank mechanism.   

Come on Jimmy... spin that crank! You can do it! Six days left until August, plenty of time.  Isn't it? Man, I'd like to be a fly on the wall in Jamie's barn/lab right about now.

But I think it's time for a major revision in your FAQs, don't you, FTWits?  You can save a lot of trouble by just renaming the page FTL: Frequently Told Lies.

http://be-do.com/index.php/en/frequently-asked-questions?faqid=5

Here's a FAQ that isn't on the list: Has anyone, anywhere, actually run a 3/4 HP MOTOR on the output of their QEG? (Anyone besides Timmy Thrapp I mean. ) I think I already know the answer to that one.