Muller Dynamo

[mondrasek]

Side notes regarding my RF issue:  I had noticed that it was possible to drag down the drive motor RPM by touching the motor drive circuit voltage regulator's heatsinks by hand, with and without insulating myself from ground.  Same would happen if I attached the ground only from an o-scope probe regardless of whether the o-scope was on or unplugged from mains.  Disconnecting the probe from the o-scope did not have this effect.

Switched over to a 12V battery instead of the Toshiba power brick and bypassed the variable voltage regulator power circuit all together.  Result is no RF noise.  Also, grounding with the probe lead has no effect.

I scoped the Toshiba output while it was unloaded and also found no AC ripple, but that unloaded test probably means nothing.

[mondrasek]

I noticed some weird (to me) things while running the set up off of a battery and testing the effects of the backing magnets again.  I eventually stripped it down to only one coil pair into the Dump Cap with no additional load.  I removed the top coil backing magnets and shorted the Dump Cap and let it stabilize.  It reached 1947 RPM with 12.75 on the Dump Cap.  Input battery was reading 12.12.

When I was running it on the Toshiba PS and had the RF issues I would always see an RPM decrease when introducing the backing mags.  But running off the battery when I add the top bias mags it ran up to 1953 RPM (faster than without the top mags) and Vout on the Dump Cap rose over 1 volt to 13.77.  During this settling time the input battery voltage had decreased to 12.08V.  It is a very small 1.2AH battery like those used in emergency exit lighting modules.

So the system is behaving differently when run with a battery.  But I don't have a good, big battery to do any serious testing (I can imagine MH rolling his eyes).  But I think I may have to find one to test this all again.

M.

[e2matrix]

I noticed some weird (to me) things while running the set up off of a battery and testing the effects of the backing magnets again.  I eventually stripped it down to only one coil pair into the Dump Cap with no additional load.  I removed the top coil backing magnets and shorted the Dump Cap and let it stabilize.  It reached 1947 RPM with 12.75 on the Dump Cap.  Input battery was reading 12.12.

When I was running it on the Toshiba PS and had the RF issues I would always see an RPM decrease when introducing the backing mags.  But running off the battery when I add the top bias mags it ran up to 1953 RPM (faster than without the top mags) and Vout on the Dump Cap rose over 1 volt to 13.77.  During this settling time the input battery voltage had decreased to 12.08V.  It is a very small 1.2AH battery like those used in emergency exit lighting modules.

So the system is behaving differently when run with a battery.  But I don't have a good, big battery to do any serious testing (I can imagine MH rolling his eyes).  But I think I may have to find one to test this all again.

M.

Not weird at all.  Thanks for posting that confirmation of what I've been saying many pages back and user 'bolt' (who I think most people here know has a good handle on energy theory and ZPE and such) confirmed using a battery is a good idea.  More people need to be trying this from a battery.  RomeroUK used a battery.  There are good reasons to be disconnected from ground and the grid for a project like this.   Used or refurbished car batteries are cheap.  Visit your 'You-pullit' style wrecking yards and you can often get good batteries cheap (usually $10 or less)  Just check the date on them and take a voltmeter along.  Don't take anything over 5 years old and the newer the better generally.   

[xenomorphlabs]

@M: Either get a better PS (but then you could get a battery for the investment) or you could try RF chokes inbetween your circuit and the Toshiba supply.
Is that a Toshiba notebook/labtop supply? I think they are switched-mode most of the times.
You could get a cheap $5 AC/ DC converter @ 2 Amps from Walmart/Shack or something. I use one too and no problems with noise.

[citfta]

Another good source of batteries is your local scrap metal salvage yard.  They usually will sell used batteries for so much per pound.  A battery load meter is a better  way to check a battery.  A volt meter will only tell you it has voltage not if it will power a load.  If you don't have a battery load tester then take along a headlamp with some wires attached so you can put a load on any batteries you are interested in.  If it lights the headlamp for a few minutes then you know it is good.  If it only lights it a few seconds then the battery may still be good but need charging or maybe it is badly sulfated (another subject) so you might not want to take a chance with it unless it is real cheap.  An advantage of the pull-it places is that some of them will let you bring a bad battery back and exchange it for another.  Most salvage places will not let you do that.

I also agree that running any alternative energy project off a battery is the best way to do it.  You eliminate a lot of potential problems and measurement errors that way.