Meyer's Resonant Charging Circuit Analysed

[Farrah Day]

Meyer's Resonant Charging Circuit

I thought it would be a good idea to start a new thread to investigate Meyer's resonant charging circuit, in order to keep this discussion separate from the 'water capacitor' discussion.

What Meyer has is a series resonant LC (inductor/capacitor) charging circuit, which uses dc pulses to charge the water capacitor.  This circuit is often used in Tesla coil designs to produce very high voltages in which current is made to arc across a spark gap.

Initially looking at the circuit I had assumed that the charge on the capacitor would build and build until catastrophic breakdown of dielectric oxide layer would allow a current surge (effectively the spark gap). However, the blocking diode Meyer employs now limits the voltage across the capacitor to only double the supply voltage. So if, and I say 'if' we are relying on dielectric breakdown for the cell to work then the supply transformer would need to initially multiply the voltage by at least half the potential that would exceed the breakdown voltage of the oxide dielectric.

Although the dielectric could recover between high voltage pulses, this would mean frequent very high current flow between the electrodes which would surely, quickly heat up the water. As Meyers cell apparently stayed cool, I'm not 100% convinced that dielectric breakdown is the key.

I know many people are using low voltage dc pulses and it would appear that at maximum cell efficiency are exceeding Faraday gas output by 3x.  If figures are correct, this is a step forward, but still not enough to power an ICE. And, at low voltage levels would surely not be creating an intense enough electrical field to stress the water molecule.

If the wfc is indeed a capacitor in series with and inductor (a series LC circuit), what are the circuit properties?

Well the inductor would provide great opposition (reactance) to current flow at very high frequencies and low reactance at low frequencies. The water capacitor conversely, would do exactly the opposite.

Now, Meyer's circuit can't resonate, because the diode only allows current to flow in one direction. If this had not been the case, then at a specific frequency (the resonant frequency of this circuit), where both capacitor and inductor reactances were equal (due to the 180 degree phase differences in voltages and currents between the two components), then these reactances would effectively cancel each other out.  And, in theory, infinite current could then flow as the voltage across the circuit drops to zero. In practice, however, the resistance of the wire making up the inductor does limit this current from infinity.  This exceptionally high current flow would surely dissipate terriffic power and fry the circuit - very undesirable.

Anyway, Meyers cct can not resonate.

So could the answer be a combination of all the aspects of this circuit?

If we are relying sole on a specific frequency of voltage pulses to 'shake' the water molecule apart, then it would make sense that the higher the amplitude of these pulses, the better.  If we want as little current to flow as possible, then we really want the reactance of the inductor to be working for us by providing the maximum oppostion to current flow. This would indicate that the higher the frequency, the better, unless of course there is indeed a frequency at which the water molecules are caused to resonate and then this becomes our target.

Now the problem becomes something different. If the wfc is a capacitor, the dc pulses will charge the capacitor to twice the supply voltage. Once this has happened, unless the capacitor discharges or is caused to discharge, then the pulsing effectively stops. There is just a standing potential difference across the capacitor - pulsing becomes irrelevant.

What then, if the capacitor is a very leaky capacitor. While it can temporarily hold a charge, current will leak continiously from the plates until the capacitor completely discharges over a given time specific to the individual water capacitor.  However, as we would be continually topping it up with dc pulses, the capacitor would never completely discharge.  Get the specific values right and the capacitor would always be allowing a small dc current to flow through its electrolyte (the leakage current), while the continual pulsing would create a voltage ripple at the supplied frequency.

It seems there are a lot of possibilities and I don't think anyone quite knows what is occuring yet. If we did know exactly what was going on it would be much easier to design a circuit to enhance the effect. There is simply a lot of guess work and blind experimenting going on that, it would appear can be very 'hit and miss'.

More food for thought

Farrah Day

[aussepom]

hi
i am doing a l talk tonight on this very same thing and I do not believe in the so called 'oxide dielectric coating' I have been on electrolyisis for over 15yrs

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quoted by faraday
What then, if the capacitor is a very leaky capacitor. While it can temporarily hold a charge, current will leak continiously from the plates until the capacitor completely discharges over a given time specific to the individual water capacitor.  However, as we would be continually topping it up with dc pulses, the capacitor would never completely discharge.  Get the specific values right and the capacitor would always be allowing a small dc current to flow through its electrolyte (the leakage current), while the continual pulsing would create a voltage ripple at the supplied frequency.
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I am doing a l talk tonight on this very same thing and I do not believe in the so called 'oxide dielectric coating' I have been on electrolysis for over 15yrs
It is just a big very leaky capacitor with a DC resistance and AC impedance.
So it could try and act like an AC non-polarised capacitor but depending how strong you make your electrolyte, it could see it as an 'AC short circuit' and as for the DC side well it is just a resistor.  Yes it may be possible to do as you suggest that is with the fast DC pulses. Remember a square wave pulse is only half the power if it is on 50% duty cycle.
After talking to my friend Ravvi, I have had a look at what he was saying, I do have a possible solution but I have to find out how to put a diagram on this web forum??
Ravvi so to concentrate on the BEMF not the resonance.
There was a diode put in one circuit and this is wrong not the one you are talking about it goes from the S on the Buz 350 to the positive supply, this is wrong.
I have found out a lot and there is a lot wrong with the first 'original circuit known as Fig 1 with the transformer style and this I believe was NOT a Toroidal as some are suggesting , I stand to be corrected if some one can cut and paste it from the original.
It I think was a standard  'o' core TX.  Also on this many of the coil winding and the voltages do not make sense, to see it you must redraw it.
Well that should be enough for now I have to go
aussepom

[Farrah Day]

Hi aussepom

Read through your post a couple of times and I'm still not sure what you're talking about with reference to a diode and transformers. In fact I couldn't follow most of your post. Are you talking about Meyer's resonant charging circuit or Lawtons pulse generator?

You do not 'believe' in the dielectric oxide layer?!  Fair enough, you can believe what you like, but it's the only thing that makes any sense if you want a capacitor. Why does everyone assume you have a capacitor if you stick two plates in conductive tap water??  It's just a non-linear resistor. It's like saying that a component is a resistor if it has a low resistance and a capacitor if it has a high resistance!  Come on think, there's no dielectric!

Let me ask you this then. What do you think is happening when people are 'conditioning' the electrodes?

Forget about coil windings that do not make sense, not much about Meyer's diagrams do. Just use a transformer or make a coil to do what you want it to do.

You (or your friend, Ravvi) say concentrate on BEMF not resonance. What do you mean by this? Sure, Meyer's resonant charging cct can't resonate because of the blocking, but what relevance has BEMF on things?

Surely if you've been playing with electrolysis for over 15 years (and giving talks) you would know exactly what these circuits actually do and what they can't do. No offence intended, but I can't help getting the impression that you're a little out of your depth as far as electronic theory goes.

Farrah Day

[Farrah Day]

I've just seen a version of Meyer's, so-called voltage intensifier cct (his VIC), that I have not seen before, which shows a bifilar seconday winding designating the resonant charging chokes.

Can anyone explain to me the purpose and action of this bifilar winding?

Please don't just guess at it.

Thanks, Farrah Day

[Amateur-Scientist]

I too was wondering about the Meyer's circuit. I was surfing YouTube and found videos on WFCs. Lots of talk about OverUnity. A little Googling and found Meyer's patents The circuit in figure 2 of US patent 5,149,407 show a circuit of a fixed frequency of varying amplitude and some duty cycle. The capacitor uses stainless steel tubes, one inside the other of  3/4" and 1/2" with 1/16" for the water dielectric. The patent says to use pure water. Water has a dielectric constant of about 80 with a dielectric strength of 80 Volts per mil. This means the capacitor in the patent will have a breakdown strength of about 5,000 Volts. Since the patent didn't give the length of the tubes or how many are in parallel, I can't compute the capacitance.

As I read the patent, Meyers doesn't seem to be talking about an electrical resonant (Xl = Xc). He seems to be talking about the breaking the covalent bond of the dielectric through a series of steps as shown in Figure 1 of the patent. Since the water molecules are polar with a directional character, the oxygen end being negative and hydrogen positive, Meyers seems to be using the capacitor to create an electric field to align the dielectric. The first pulse of his circuit polar aligns the dielectric, the next pulse applies a larger electric field to attract each oxygen to the positive tube and hydrogen to the negative tube. Since water has two bonding properties, covalent and electrostatic, subsequent higher amplitude pulses break the bond. He doesn't say much about the duty cycle in the patent, but it might be to give time for hydrogen and oxygen gas to form bubbles before the next pulse train begins again. The frequency of the pulse trains for resonance was found to be 10kHz in the patent. This is the frequency applied as pulse train envelope to the capacitor to match the time to polar align the dielectric to the time to break the bonds.

The charging chokes only seem to be used to increase the applied voltage to several thousand volts to the capacitor. It would seem they could be eliminated by just designing a transformer to apply a higher voltage. It seems Meyers may have disassociation water by breaking the hydrogen electrostatic bond since he says the circuit doesn't use much current. This would imply the charging chokes do little since little current is flowing. At any rate, the circuit sees to work by applying a large electrostatic field accross the plates of the water capacitor in a series of increasing amplitude steps to give time for the water to align a disassociate. The duty cycle creates the dwell to allow bubbles for form. The rest of the patent has to do with a grid to capture excess electrons and a laser to ionize the gases prior to being combusted.