David Bowling's Continuous Charging Device

[tinman]

Did a little play on sim with the idea.  Something strangely familiar seeing it on the screen, like back in school where this would be shown as how the 1 reverse battery would create a voltage drop as a whole to the load. But I do not remember it showing what happens to the reverse battery as it is charging.

This also seems like a familiar argument of cap to cap.  Say for example 'if' we were able to do an electron count through the battery loop, even with a load in the loop, how ever much it takes to charge the reverse battery, that same electron flow is also moving through those other 3 batteries.

I say through, but mean electrons in and electrons out by way of the pos and neg plates

So if we had 10 batteries in series, and 1 in reverse, how ever much electrons go through the reverse battery is how many that will go through the other 10. Not saying that would be a good idea to try, but I just used it as an example of extreme loss, it would seem.    It would seem that 10 batteries lost as many electrons from the neg plates as the single reverse battery gained, and like wise with the gain of electrons in the poss plates vs the loss on the reverse battery pos plate.

So say we had 10 fully charged batteries, and 1 reverse battery that just for example was used for a bit and it lost Neg plate electrons and gained Pos plate electrons. Well for those 10 batteries to recharge that reverse battery, there would need to be at least the same amount of electrons going through the complete loop in order for that to happen. I know batteries are not the same as caps, but the reasoning should still be close.

So playing with sim a bit, Im finding that adding the load in the loop, resistive or inductive, I am thinking the reverse battery would get charged the same whether there were a load or if the batteries were direct, and the load would only affect the time the reverse battery gets to full charge. Naturally, again, I would not recommend the 10 to 1 direct, but if the batteries could take that kind of charge and discharge, I think that the loss from the 10 and gain in the 1 would be the same as having the load in line.  Adding a load inline should only slow down the transfer from the 10 to the 1, which would increase the time to charge the 1. I cannot see that any more would be taken from the 10 or any less getting to the 1 by having a load in inline. Current through the loop is the measure of electron flow basically. And that same amount that flows into the 1 in order to get it fully charged, is the same amount of current flowing through each of the 10. When the 1 is fully charged, then that is how much current over time it took to do so.


Think. 10 batts in series, but only the plates of the batteries at the ends of the string are changing electrons with the reverse battery. All of the batteries should experience this gain and loss of similar proportions over the course of the charge time. Strange to think about.

Or, 10 to 1 direct would be a huge loss condition, and adding the loads inline convert those losses into work instead.

Thinking on it a bit more.

Mags

As the current flow remains the same throughout the system,then yes,the electron flow will be the same,as it is the flowing electrons that carry/create the current flow. !But!,the pressure of this flow is reduced after the inverter,where our starting pressure is 24 volt's,and then the inverter takes 12 of those volts,and the charge battery gets the remaining 12 volts. So what we are saying is the inverter is reducing the pressure delivered to the system by half,and the charge battery receives only half of the pressure that was delivered.

So the electron flow remains the same,but the force of that flow is halved.
We can use the water in pipes analogy to see what the outcome is.
If we have say a 1 inch pipe,and the water is flowing out of that pipe at say 1 LTR a minute,we would have very little pressure at the head to do useful work--like spin a water wheel.
So the pressure is our voltage,and the flow is our electron or current flow.
To get the water flowing out of the end of the pipe to spin the water wheel with more force,we could reduce the nozzle size down to say 1/2 inch. To maintain the same flow rate(electron flow) we would have to increase the pressure(volts),and once we have done this,we have a much higher head pressure to spin the water wheel--even though our flow rate(electron flow) remains the same.

So while the charging battery will see the same electron/current flow,the pressure behind that flow is half of what was delivered to the system,and there for can only do half the work on the charge battery. Regardless of how much electron flow you have,you also need the pressure(voltage) to determine how much work can be done by the electron flow.



Brad

[tinman]

Hi Mags,

What you are saying sounds perfectly logical.  Except having worked with this system for at least a couple of years now I can tell you a fact that messes with what you are saying.    And the type of load seems to make a big difference in how efficient the system as a whole is.  So far the best results have been with an inverter as the load and using a boost converter to maintain a steady voltage for the inverter and charging battery.

Just a little more information for you to think about.  Thanks for your interest.

Carroll

The fact is the battery that is in series and connected to the load ALWAYS goes down faster than the other series battery.  As far as I know none of us have been able to come up with an explanation for why that happens.

I can answer that question for you Carroll.
Batter A(the series battery connected to the load),is only in a series configuration.
Battery C(the charging battery) is in a parallel configuration.
But battery B,(the series battery in the middle of the other two batteries)is in both a series and parallel configuration. It is in series with battery A,but in parallel with battery C.
Depending on the load type(E.G inverter,DC motor) will depend on how well that parallel path is between battery B and C,but in almost all cases,there will be some sort of partial parallel connection between battery B and C. How well this parallel path is,will depend on how much battery B and C equalize,and so battery B will receive some partial charging from battery C,but battery A will always be in series,and will be the one that gives up most of it's charge.
Battery A is the one you would want to swap out for battery C,and battery C would take the position of battery A. Battery B might only have to be changed with battery C every 3 of 4 cycles.

Hope that makes sense.


Brad

[minoly]

Yes
The power the inverter is using,is calculated using the voltage across the inverter in both tests.

Quote David
When you run the energy through the inverter and into battery three, the same energy gets used twice. Yes, there are losses in the wire from heat (friction) but essentially you get the same amount of energy in battery 3 that "left" the two primaries in series, and you ran the load for free.

Unfortunately this is not the case,and the inverter consumes the same amount of power in each case-->you can see that from the video,and numbers i posted.

As Pomodoro said,the efficiency increase is due to the higher efficiency of the charging side of the circuit being included in the measurements--this is where i went wrong in the assumption that there was an increase in efficiency of the circuit as a whole,but it is only due to the efficiency difference between the inverter and charging side of the system. Even then,the total system efficiency is only 82.23%,and the missing 17.77% is being dissipated as heat by way of ohmic and chemical losses.

So,so far,all the power is accounted for,and i have not seen anything out of the ordinary yet--but we will keep looking.
I will bring the battery load tester home from work for the weekend,and we will have a closer look at the batteries before and after a good test run.


Brad

Using your 3 battery measurements – "17.77% is being dissipated as heat by way of ohmic and chemical losses."  Using your 2 battery measurements - 30.32% is being dissipated as heat by way of ohmic and chemical losses...
What % or how many watts is the inverter itself using?

[Magluvin]

Hi Mags,

What you are saying sounds perfectly logical.  Except having worked with this system for at least a couple of years now I can tell you a fact that messes with what you are saying.  The fact is the battery that is in series and connected to the load ALWAYS goes down faster than the other series battery.  As far as I know none of us have been able to come up with an explanation for why that happens.  And the type of load seems to make a big difference in how efficient the system as a whole is.  So far the best results have been with an inverter as the load and using a boost converter to maintain a steady voltage for the inverter and charging battery.

Just a little more information for you to think about.  Thanks for your interest.

Carroll

Hey Carrol

Well I think I explained it.  The 3 batteries in series 'each' lost and gained as many electrons as the reverse battery did. If all are in series loop, then there is the same current through all. So if we add up what each of the 3 series batteries lost, it is more than what the reverse batt gained. And 10 batteries in series is an even bigger loss, and Im seeing it as a configuration caused loss.  And if we were to just have 2 batts in series, the loss would be less than using 3. Ran it on sim and seems to be correct.

Mags

Mags

[Magluvin]

As the current flow remains the same throughout the system,then yes,the electron flow will be the same,as it is the flowing electrons that carry/create the current flow. !But!,the pressure of this flow is reduced after the inverter,where our starting pressure is 24 volt's,and then the inverter takes 12 of those volts,and the charge battery gets the remaining 12 volts. So what we are saying is the inverter is reducing the pressure delivered to the system by half,and the charge battery receives only half of the pressure that was delivered.

So the electron flow remains the same,but the force of that flow is halved.
We can use the water in pipes analogy to see what the outcome is.
If we have say a 1 inch pipe,and the water is flowing out of that pipe at say 1 LTR a minute,we would have very little pressure at the head to do useful work--like spin a water wheel.
So the pressure is our voltage,and the flow is our electron or current flow.
To get the water flowing out of the end of the pipe to spin the water wheel with more force,we could reduce the nozzle size down to say 1/2 inch. To maintain the same flow rate(electron flow) we would have to increase the pressure(volts),and once we have done this,we have a much higher head pressure to spin the water wheel--even though our flow rate(electron flow) remains the same.

So while the charging battery will see the same electron/current flow,the pressure behind that flow is half of what was delivered to the system,and there for can only do half the work on the charge battery. Regardless of how much electron flow you have,you also need the pressure(voltage) to determine how much work can be done by the electron flow.



Brad

Hey Brad

I get what you are saying. But here is my point....

If we add the inverter in the loop, I believe we are only changing the time period of getting to what ever full charge of the reverse battery is determined as, and using that current flow to do something. Like the cap to cap, what we have discovered and Poynt found some references on, is that any resistance, even 0ohm would have the same results.  So if we break the theoretical direct 3 batteries to 1 reverse battery loop and put the inverter in the loop, the reverse battery will still charge to that determined level of charge, but it will just take longer as the inverter just limits the current vs theoretical direct loop.  Like trickle charging instead of brute force, of which, trickle charge is more efficient than the very high heat developed(and batt damage) with high current charging. Once that reverse batt gets to the determined charge, then that is what is discharged from each of the 3 series batteries.

So what Im seeing is the theoretical direct loop will discharge the 3 series batts much further than what the reverse batt took on more due to circuit config where just as much current flows through each of the 3 batts as what went through the reverse batt.  But just like the cap to cap, if we use that current flow to run the inverter, or what ever, then we are actually using that flow to do something instead of just pumping up 1 batt with 3 others at a great loss. Stupid losses as I called it.

Mags