Help needed with Hyde Generator

[Paul-R]

A very nice build.
When do you expect to get to the point of measuring power in and power out?
Paul.

[Steven Dufresne]

Paul,
Probably in the next week or two, provided I don't have to build new parts. That's probably optimistic. I've been experimenting enough years to know that to have a rigorous experiment there's a lot of fiddling to do before you've eliminated all the undesirables. The scope output in the video I posted was blury but should be clear enough to see that there's a lot of noise there. I know already that with the motor power off and the high voltage on a lot of the approx. 100kV spikes are present. But HV spikes can also come from practically invisible (even in the dark) sparking at sharp edges and when those are buried in connections they're hard to find, ... I'm not interested in results that are just fooling myself. I post updates because I consider this a forum for collaboration, not just a newsfeed. Plus, if it works, I'd like at least some people to know the things I learned along the way so they can replicate too.

On that note, you may notice from the video that I replaced the aluminium support for the motor with a hardwood one instead on the guess that this will have less electrical interference with whatever's supposed to happen. I also had to have the support oriented vertically, unlike at an angle as in the previous video and in the photo in Reply #38 here
http://www.overunity.com/index.php?topic=6790.msg165557#msg165557
With it oriented at an angle the weight of the motor was causing the narrow wooden leg that the support is bolted to to twist, throwing the rotor out of alignment with the stator and HV plates. That's why the whole frame is sitting diagonally on the floor, instead of flat as in the previous video. This way the support is vertical with the motor directly above it (gravity sucks :-).)

Michel,
The mirror and tach idea seems to work. See the attached photo. The tach stops working if I move it too far from the mirror but I can have it such that it's at least outside of the whole frame (about 30cm away) and with the display readable by someone sitting to the side. I had to put some of the tach's special tape on the plastic portion of the rotor but the tape is non-conductive so I'll chance it not having a negative effect on the experiment. I also had to put black tape on the HV negative plate, but if you'll look at the patent drawing in the first post for this topic you'll see that this plate has plastic (46) between the rotor (70, 72) and the actual metal plate (40). I taped to the plastic so I don't think it'll make much difference electrically. Hopefully there'll come a point where the output itself will indicate the speed and I won't need the tach. I just want it now so I can try to find HV output spikes that match the rotor segments passing the stator segments and so I don't run the motor faster than I need to to minimize danger.
-Steve
http://rimstar.org   http://wsminfo.org

[Michelinho]

Hi Steven,

That is great news, glad I could be of help. This method, I used many times when working on diesel motors as you never know when the thermostatic fan will engage and chop off an ear or worst.

One thing I have to mention is check and note the humidity level at the time of experiment because lot of your HV spikes could be static from the high speed plexi rotor.

Take care,

Michel

[Steven Dufresne]

When do you expect to get to the point of measuring power in and power out?

Paul,
Just a clarification. If you mean testing for more out than the power going into the motor and HV power supply, that won't be for a few months. Currently I have just one set of stator segments. I started with just one because each set requires a circuit with HV diodes and capacitors. I have plenty of capacitors but the diodes I have to order. Until I've got clean results from the first set, I won't know exactly how many capacitors and diodes I'll need. So I order just enough to establish that first (actually I thought I ordered enough for two sets of stator segments but miscalculated.) All together there should be 18 sets of stator segments. With the circuit I'm using now that's 18 x 8 diodes per set_of_stator_segments  = 144 diodes.
-Steve
http://rimstar.org   http://wsminfo.org

[Steven Dufresne]

[EDIT I found the problem. See last paragraph in this post for an update and my next post for what the problem was.] It looks like I ran into a snag. I can only get it up to around 3700 RPM with the disks. I used to be able to spin it up to over 7000 RPM with the disks. 3700 is suspiciously around the same limit as a most other grinder motors. This makes me wonder if I blew something on the circuit board or some magical set of windings on the motor that allow it to go up to its rated 10,000 RPM no load. I even removed one of the high voltage plates that normally blocks access to the rotor from the side and measured with the tach directly to confirm. See right photo below.

Does anyone know anything about how they might be transforming what I suspect is normally a 3600 RPM motor into a 10,000 RPM motor? And help appreciated. In the meantime, I'll remove the disks and run with just the bosses/wheel hubs to see if it's the disks but I don't think so.

The photo on the left shows that I've built a safety box around it and mounted the phototach and done a handful of other improvements.
-Steve
http://rimstar.org   http://wsminfo.org