Steven Marks Tube Power Supply

[gyulasun]

Hello Otto,

Would like to mention that this electrolytic capacitor recharging effect happens when you charge up a cap to any voltage then you discharge it: after a certain time the cap regains some voltage all by itself, without any wires connected.
The higher voltage you charge it up the higher the regained voltage will be but this is not linear of course.

This afternoon I charged up a Siemens 150uF 385V DC rated electrolytic cap to 300V from a Variac, then discharged it via a 2kOhm resistor to under 0.1V, then I let the capacitor alone and after about 10 minutes I measured 8.3V across it and after about 30 minutes I measured 10.14V across it. (I used a digital multimeter with 10 MegaOhm inner resistance.)

I can only explain this phenomena as a kind of electret effect inside the dielectric material of the capacitor, as if it would try to rearrange itself to the molecular setup the huge electric field strength (the 300V) earlier caused/arranged in it.

Another member here (nul-points) also reported a voltage regain effect in his capacitor when tested charge transfer in switched capacitors, see here: http://www.overunity.com/index.php?topic=4419.msg99289#msg99289  He used Supercaps in his tests, I used normal electrolytic cap in my test here.

Do you think the effect you have described below is different from what I am referring to now?


Thanks, Gyula

Hello all,

the last few days I was working on a tube power supply like SM told us. Its fine working, bla,bla.... not to bother you.

In short:

when the power supply is switched off I see the electrolytic cap slowly discharging to 0V. Slowly because I dont use a bleeder resistor.

But!!

When the cap is totally discharged it starts again to charge!

So I diconnected to 230V from the wall. Still charging. I disconnected the oscillators. Still charging.

Then I took only the 5U4 tube and connected this cap to the tube and to the ground. No meters, nothing. Just the 5U4 + my cap. This was one of the reasons I bought this tube because the same happens with my EZ 81 tube.

After 20 hours I measured 10V on the electrolytic cap.

The setup is something like in the Tesla patent .....with the copper plate in the air.

Yeees, I know an antenna......

No wonder SM was working for years on the TPU. Im somehow sure he saw a lot more but Im not long working with tubes.

Otto

[TheNOP]

Would like to mention that this electrolytic capacitor recharging effect happens when you charge up a cap to any voltage then you discharge it: after a certain time the cap regains some voltage all by itself, without any wires connected.
The higher voltage you charge it up the higher the regained voltage will be but this is not linear of course.

This afternoon I charged up a Siemens 150uF 385V DC rated electrolytic cap to 300V from a Variac, then discharged it via a 2kOhm resistor to under 0.1V, then I let the capacitor alone and after about 10 minutes I measured 8.3V across it and after about 30 minutes I measured 10.14V across it. (I used a digital multimeter with 10 MegaOhm inner resistance.)

I can only explain this phenomena as a kind of electret effect inside the dielectric material of the capacitor, as if it would try to rearrange itself to the molecular setup the huge electric field strength (the 300V) earlier caused/arranged in it.

this is called the Casimir effect and the Casimir-Polder force.

it is more noticiable in electrolytic capacitor, because of their dielectric materials interactions.
compression of the dielectric materials under Casimir force and decompression, over time.
ex: oil going back into the paper structure that is separating the plates.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_force

[gyulasun]

@TheNOP

Thanks for this explanation,  the only missing item from the link is the effect of the DC voltage applied.

So I just did some search since then and found these further explanations:

http://www.rubycon.co.jp/kr/products/alumi/pdf/RecoveryVoltage.pdf   

this mentions space charge polarization taking place in a longer time than atomic / dielectric polarization, this is the cause of the reappearing voltage.

Thanks,  Gyula

EDIT:  further search revealed the effect is called capacitor "soakage" and a very good link is here:

http://www.national.com/rap/Application/0,1570,28,00.html

[wattsup]

@otto

Just short the capacitor for about 5 minutes, That usually kills them for me and you see not voltage rise. Then connect it to your tube to see if it will rise. I have been trying to find the circuit someone posted, I think it was @wings that put up a ambient energy recovery circuit working with 1 wire input. I built and tested one and it works. I wanted to show it to you because your tube is also a rectifier and this circuit was using four diodes and four capacitors. I am sure the circuit would be useful to know where to add some small capacitor to the tube and see if voltage will rise on his bigger capacitor. But I have looked and looked and cannot find which thread??

[Tito L. Oracion]

@otto

Just short the capacitor for about 5 minutes, That usually kills them for me and you see not voltage rise. Then connect it to your tube to see if it will rise. I have been trying to find the circuit someone posted, I think it was @wings that put up a ambient energy recovery circuit working with 1 wire input. I built and tested one and it works. I wanted to show it to you because your tube is also a rectifier and this circuit was using four diodes and four capacitors. I am sure the circuit would be useful to know where to add some small capacitor to the tube and see if voltage will rise on his bigger capacitor. But I have looked and looked and cannot find which thread??

hi sir wattsup good day ! 
is this what your looking of 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQeG4Qfi0YQ

tito