Cooling effects in Steorn eOrbo

[k4zep]

Okay, here are the readouts:

* Immediately after removing all of the clip leads to the toroid (took maybe 10 seconds) the temperature read 65.3F. It was 64.8F when all wires were connected. This is at 12:25 time mark (12 minutes & 25 seconds into video).

* At 12:52 (12 minutes & 52 minutes into video) it read 65.5F.

* At 13:14 it read 66.2F.

* At 13:47 it read 66.6F. I recall reading in the IR gun manual that it has a 0.2F resolution. Don't know the details, but I've seen it show 0.1 resolution. At this point I hear the rpms going down considerably, almost a stop.

* At 14:16 it read 66.9F.
 
(Removed IR-gun & began measuring temperature of the dremel, which showed up to 84F on the outer plastic casing.

* At 16:17 it read 67.9F.
   
 
Also, it's important to note that the IR gun was not pointed at the magnets, but the toroid. If memory holds true, this IR gun as a 12degree angle. So all of these temperature measurements are scaled down because a lot of what the IR gun was seeing was the wooden desk. So it's probably a lot more than a 3 degree F drop. Hopefully today we can find out with the tiny 402 SMD thermistors.

Good work Paul,

OK, tighten up your methodology a bit more, and a few more suggestions. 

Make a pick up coil and while watching waveform on scope, adjust Dremel for max. resonance in toroid.
See if you can add diode and cap from supply and scope without them (external cap and diode) and make the Toroid a compact unit.
See if it still works.  Diode, cap network in, Temp. goes down, network out, open circuit, temp goes up.  Small fan under toroid to speed up
heat gain back to background.

Keep at it.......Amazing ain't it!

Ben

[PaulLowrance]

Thanks Ben. Today's going to be an interesting day.

A few more updates on the wiring. The toroid is center tapped; i.e., two coils (100 ohms per coil). The scope (and also the 0.1uF capacitor) was connected to one side of the toroid coil, and the other toroid coil was connected to the dual power supply (no common ground) and the AM-240 DMM. The dual power supply was off and not connected to the 120VAC wall socket. The scope was on. As stated in a previous post, the dual power supply has about 600 ohms, and according to the AM-240 in diode mode it reads 0.570 volts.

[PaulLowrance]

Wow, this is getting exciting!

This is some very important info. I repeated the experiment this morning, and *nothing*! The temperature never decreased, and in fact all it did was *increase* by a few degrees F.  That was extremely disappointing. So then I turned on the dual power supply, thus applying 30V across the 100 ohm toroid coil, 0.3 amps, for a ~ 5 seconds. The dremel motor was off when the dual power supplies were on. The toroid coil temperature (according to the IR gun) increased from ~ 68°F to over 73°F. Then dual power supply was turn off, and the dremel motor was turned on. As soon as the dremel motor was turned on the toroid core temperature began to decrease!! It went down to 65.9°F. During this period when the core temperature was cold, I removed the dual power supply connection, and the core temperature remained. Then the 0.1uF capacitor was removed, and the core temperature remained! It does not appear to be due to the 0.1uF capacitor or the being connected to the dual power supply. So I don't know why the toroid core temperature suddenly increased after removing all of the connectors during yesterdays experiment. The only difference was yesterday I removed all of the wires, while today I only removed one wire from the 0.1uF capacitor and one wire from the dual power supply.

Furthermore, after staring at it for what seemed like a long time, maybe 10 to 15 minutes, I turned off the dremel motor to see if the core temperature would increase. At this point the toroid core was 65.9°F, and it did not change immediately. According to the IR gun, it stayed at 65.9°F for maybe a minute before it clicked up past 67°F, and continued to increase. So this effect is not due to air circulation and such. Besides, there's no metal exposed to the IR gun, just tape. The toroid core temperature began to *slowly* increase to normal temperature in the mid 67's (~ 67.5°F).

So maybe the toroid core's magnetic state (domains) change (equalized?) over night, and needed to be "reset." This is very important because the temperature did not decrease at all until after the core was momentarily magnetized by the 30V/100ohm=0.3amps of current. In fact, the toroid core temperature increased by a few degrees F prior to magnetizing the toroid core.

And remember, the toroid core was only magnetized with the 0.3 amps for only ~ 5 seconds. It was not left on. The dremel motor was off while the core was magnetized. Maybe it was just a coincidence that after magnetizing the core that the effect came back. Maybe it was not the DC current, but maybe the heat.

 

[PaulLowrance]

I just did another run, and was unable to get the temperature to drop regardless what was done. Tried magnetizing the toroid coil with the dual power supply numerous times, which resulted in nothing special.

Something strange is going on. Someone took an interesting video of Steorn guy (tachoman) where he basically said that he's puzzled why the eOrbo rpm's are varying so much. I can't even begin to hypothesize what's happening here. Is this related to the source that drives passive diodes & piezos. This is well documented in my diode & piezo research where the highly shielded passive component is easily disturbed. After it's disturbed it needs time to recover. Maybe the magnetic material is now recovery, lol. One can only guess right now, but I hate this kind of stuff because I've been doing it for ages with the diodes & then piezos!!! Argggg!

Lets hope Steorn's eOrbo stability issues is only the relays, but that doesn't make much sense to me. There's circuit board doesn't appear to have big power components, so it appears the current levels is nothing significant. Also, lets not forget that the Steorn guy, tachoman himself said on camera that he is puzzled about the wide variance in rpm. Maybe location makes a difference. Maybe location varies over time.

Anyhow, just prior to typing this post I replaced the IR gun with a contact temperature probe. A slab of thermal paste was placed on the toroid, and the tiny probe was placed on that. Note, this is not my highly sensitive 402 SMD thermistor temperature unit.

[k4zep]

I just did another run, and was unable to get the temperature to drop regardless what was done. Tried magnetizing the toroid coil with the dual power supply numerous times, which resulted in nothing special.

Something strange is going on. Someone took an interesting video of Steorn guy (tachoman) where he basically said that he's puzzled why the eOrbo rpm's are varying so much. I can't even begin to hypothesize what's happening here. Is this related to the source that drives passive diodes & piezos. This is well documented in my diode & piezo research where the highly shielded passive component is easily disturbed. After it's disturbed it needs time to recover. Maybe the magnetic material is now recovery, lol. One can only guess right now, but I hate this kind of stuff because I've been doing it for ages with the diodes & then piezos!!! Argggg!

Lets hope Steorn's eOrbo stability issues is only the relays, but that doesn't make much sense to me. There's circuit board doesn't appear to have big power components, so it appears the current levels is nothing significant. Also, lets not forget that the Steorn guy, tachoman himself said on camera that he is puzzled about the wide variance in rpm. Maybe location makes a difference. Maybe location varies over time.

Anyhow, just prior to typing this post I replaced the IR gun with a contact temperature probe. A slab of thermal paste was placed on the toroid, and the tiny probe was placed on that. Note, this is not my highly sensitive 402 SMD thermistor temperature unit.

Paul, is that IR probe battery powered?  If so are the batteries new??  I have "discovered" ou several times with DVM batteries going low in cheep DVM's and threw off calibration.  Threw them away and and only use FLUKE now.

Respectfully
Ben