Selfrunning cold electricity circuit from Dr.Stiffler

[amigo]

@Amigo
If the LEDs themselves are acting in this way and that can be shown (assuming no manufacture has it hidden in a file someplace) would be a great discovery in itself.

I believe this has to do with the photo-voltaic properties of LEDs, there's some talk about reverse-bias in LED, here's an article just as a reference but there are more: http://www.edn.com/article/CA6387024.html

I remember seeing an article in one of the electronics magazines where they built a sensor for a model rocket using various colour LEDs so they could measure the atmospheric spectra and they were digitizing voltage potentials off the LEDs and recording them in the PIC micro-controller.

Another very cool example of using LEDs was this one called LED Touch Sensing: http://cs.nyu.edu/~jhan/ledtouch/index.html

[amigo]

@RStiffler

I am having a real hard time replicating the very first SEC_10sx.gif circuit, using the exact components. When I measure the current from the power supply it's anywhere between 30 and 60mA much more than what you originally had in the video.

Or maybe I'm thinking of apples and oranges here because the video was about HHO and not LEDs, NE2 and the motor?

[Loki67671]

Weekend is here, yey, and I stopped by the electronics store earlier today to pick up some parts, just to find out now hours later that Doc had posted a parts list and it shows the AVP with 1N4248 which I don't have...grrr, if I only knew that this morning when I was in the store, hehe.

So what is our next step, measuring light emission with home made instruments?

I still wonder about one thing...how do we know that LEDs themselves are not acting as photo sensors and producing some potentials that add to the illumination?
I mentioned this awhile back because I have seen circuits where LEDs are used as light detectors and produced potentials. Since these circuits oscillate with very high frequencies is it wrong to assume that in the off times, LEDs might reverse to light detection and create potentials?

Someone please correct me about the above if I'm wrong to think it's possible...

@Amigo
If the LEDs themselves are acting in this way and that can be shown (assuming no manufacture has it hidden in a file someplace) would be a great discovery in itself.

@Amigo and Doc,
I know I was quite surprised some years ago to find out that most PN junctions do the light thing not just the ones with windows on them.  I would not be surprised to find something there. Crazy nonlinear device it is. I am wondering along the same lines also so I fired a laser into many of the LED's on my latest SEC looking for changes to supply voltage or current and also intensity of other LED's with the circuit running peak motor RPM. No changes observed to date. I'm getting a couple of other lasers and will post results. The NE glow is damned interesting too. Ball of plasma and just as nonlinear! It is interesting to observe an NE on one end of an AV chain and the motor on the other. I seem to have some competition between the two. They do not peak in intensity at the same frequency or base adjustment. Much experimentation and exploration do be done and a big foam block to build up! Here we go! Yes I saw the 4248's also and said DAMN! Gotta go shopping again? I was saying something before I was ordering. 

Best regards,

Jim

[amigo]

@Loki67671

Regarding shining the laser, in order for that to work the wavelength of the LED has to match the wavelength of the laser, for best results. Also, I bet you could shine a specific kind of a laser at the AV plug and excite the 1N4148 (if they are glass), it's really a matter of matching the wavelength of the PN junction.

I believe most people never think about it or try it because most PN junctions are enclosed into metal or epoxy but with LEDs and some diodes they are open to external influence but nothing happens because wavelengths are different. I suppose we could compute the size of the PN junction in the 1N4148 and hit it with that wavelength, I bet you we'd get excitation.
Too bad we don't have some kind of a laser that can be tuned to various wavelengths, it would make for quite an interesting experience.

I agree about the NE glow, it is mesmerizing to watch, but what interests me is that while I'm tuning the coil I get different behaviours of the glow. I'll paste here something from the wikipedia first:

Code Select Expand


When driven from a DC source, only the negatively charged electrode (cathode) will glow. When driven from an AC source, both electrodes will glow
(each during alternate half cycles). Neon lamps operate using a low current glow discharge.

Once lit, a neon lamp has a negative resistance characteristic: increasing the current flow through the device increases the number of ions, thereby
decreasing the resistance of the lamp and allowing even more current to flow. Because of this characteristic, electrical circuitry external to the neon
lamp must provide a means to limit current flow through the circuit or else the current will rapidly increase until the lamp is destroyed.

I always remember those paragraphs because while looking at my setup depending where I tune the coil I'd get one electrode to glow or both (glow would be between the electrodes), yet I am not sure whether that should happen or not.

Also, I have been playing around with various choke values for the AVP connections and right now a slightly modified version of the circuit runs with HV properties (NE is glowing) and LEDs are super bright while being driven by a 6V from the power supply which is basically 1/2 of what Doc suggests to use. Current usage is about 21ma...

[DrStiffler]

@Amigo
If the LEDs themselves are acting in this way and that can be shown (assuming no manufacture has it hidden in a file someplace) would be a great discovery in itself.

I believe this has to do with the photo-voltaic properties of LEDs, there's some talk about reverse-bias in LED, here's an article just as a reference but there are more: http://www.edn.com/article/CA6387024.html

I remember seeing an article in one of the electronics magazines where they built a sensor for a model rocket using various colour LEDs so they could measure the atmospheric spectra and they were digitizing voltage potentials off the LEDs and recording them in the PIC micro-controller.

Another very cool example of using LEDs was this one called LED Touch Sensing: http://cs.nyu.edu/~jhan/ledtouch/index.html

@Amigo
Early in the thread the ability of LEDs to act like photo detectors was discussed, indeed the clear glass 1N4148s will do similar things. I can't remember if it was here or a private conversation where I mentioned painting the 4148s black ti insure they did not pick up light. I have indeed used LEDs in solar positioning detectors, but it would be new to get the power out of them to this level. If all LEDs were reverse biased, where and how would they store and change the polarity for addition during a forward cycle?