Hi Skorch
I dont know if your switching idea is going to work very well (chevy V8 cam and mechanical switch from defroster) probably the swtich will be too slow, and also will break down from problems with backemf/recoil arcing in it, since you are going to be swithcing an inductor (coils) on off very fast and everytime it truns OFF there is big voltage kickback that will fry the contatcts - so you would need to have some diodes ont he switch to gather this "dextructive transident" *backemf/recoil spike" into DC caps...
also the mechanical swtich and cam will cause some mechanical-loss in the friction required...you really should go with hall effects or optic -timed switching, and have the swtichign be mosfets - its not that hard to do it "solid state"...
also the backemf/recoil can be steered out using mosfets easily into caps....But go ahead with what you are doing I might be worng and it will work fine (but I doubt it..its going to be slow and burn up the contacts)
it is very simple way to go that is for sure...
Other thing you can do is make your own copper-commutator like you see in DC motors all the time, with spring-loaded carbon brushes....vacuum cleaner brushes are good ones, you can get them at vacuum clenaer repair places or maybe take apart an old DC motor and use the brushes from that. You should have pulse-width adjustment too, of some sort wtih your brush-commutator as too wide of pulse widht and the coils are going to get hot and its ineffecient, and narrower the pulse widht the better for less draw...
The most  unique thing about the Romero UK design is those magnets on the back of the cores.
These in my mind is how Romero got his machine to go OU and eventually loop....What I found from doing lots of tests, is that you dont want or need to have these "backing"- magnets "directly" behind the stator coil cores as romero shows in his video and photos...this jsut happened to be how his worked.... 

You want a flat surface back there, and  be able to push the backing-magnets around as the rotor spins, and also be able to stack these backing magnets higher or less high, to give them more or less strength too...itts all going to be a lot of hours of experimnting with the rotor spinning to be done - its something you cant describe how to do exacltly with every particular motor everyone makes.....
also it will be some magnet are facing N some might be S...some postions you dont want any magnets there at all...
anyways when you mounts your coils in stators make the backside of the stator have lots of room, flat-surface to move and poistion those backing magnets however they might happen to work best - not necessarily right behind the stator-cores is where they are going to end up is what I am saying in nutshell
...anyways looks like really good construciton so far hope you have some fun with it....the goal is to have the generator loaded with some resistive load worth a lot of watts, and it speeds up in rpms....

Hey Konehead, thank you for the input, right now I am just sticking to, or going back to, the basics.

Have already had my previous build running with mechanical switching and using much larger coils with much larger wire.
But that build had it's own issues including coils wound with wire so heavy they measured less than .5 ohm and was actually over-heating a 40 amp SSR (no heat sink)
Coils coming un-glued, washers coming unglued, bearing problems, alignment problems, etc. And it was just a disaster waiting to happen so I am building a new, and improved, prototype.

I do intend to use an SSR, to handle the load, if I do manage to keep burning up switches even with these lighter duty bobbin coils.  And this build will be without cores or backing magnets.

Keeping it simple, for now, and will be a lot more like the QC motor generator demonstrated here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnGBSil-2Rs

Yes, I understand this is straying away from Romero's build but I am still learning and this is still totally experimental.
And I do appreciate the input as your comments do give me new ideas to try.

Thank you very much.

}:>

Quote from: konehead on September 15, 2012, 12:33:29 PM
Hi Skorch
I dont know if your switching idea is going to work very well (chevy V8 cam and mechanical switch from defroster) probably the swtich will be too slow, and also will break down from problems with backemf/recoil arcing in it, since you are going to be swithcing an inductor (coils) on off very fast and everytime it truns OFF there is big voltage kickback that will fry the contatcts - so you would need to have some diodes ont he switch to gather this "dextructive transident" *backemf/recoil spike" into DC caps...
also the mechanical swtich and cam will cause some mechanical-loss in the friction required...you really should go with hall effects or optic -timed switching, and have the swtichign be mosfets - its not that hard to do it "solid state"...
also the backemf/recoil can be steered out using mosfets easily into caps....But go ahead with what you are doing I might be worng and it will work fine (but I doubt it..its going to be slow and burn up the contacts)
it is very simple way to go that is for sure...
Other thing you can do is make your own copper-commutator like you see in DC motors all the time, with spring-loaded carbon brushes....vacuum cleaner brushes are good ones, you can get them at vacuum clenaer repair places or maybe take apart an old DC motor and use the brushes from that. You should have pulse-width adjustment too, of some sort wtih your brush-commutator as too wide of pulse widht and the coils are going to get hot and its ineffecient, and narrower the pulse widht the better for less draw...
The most  unique thing about the Romero UK design is those magnets on the back of the cores.
These in my mind is how Romero got his machine to go OU and eventually loop....What I found from doing lots of tests, is that you dont want or need to have these "backing"- magnets "directly" behind the stator coil cores as romero shows in his video and photos...this jsut happened to be how his worked.... 

You want a flat surface back there, and  be able to push the backing-magnets around as the rotor spins, and also be able to stack these backing magnets higher or less high, to give them more or less strength too...itts all going to be a lot of hours of experimnting with the rotor spinning to be done - its something you cant describe how to do exacltly with every particular motor everyone makes.....
also it will be some magnet are facing N some might be S...some postions you dont want any magnets there at all...
anyways when you mounts your coils in stators make the backside of the stator have lots of room, flat-surface to move and poistion those backing magnets however they might happen to work best - not necessarily right behind the stator-cores is where they are going to end up is what I am saying in nutshell
...anyways looks like really good construciton so far hope you have some fun with it....the goal is to have the generator loaded with some resistive load worth a lot of watts, and it speeds up in rpms....

Just another build photo.
Finished all the main mechanical stuff today including the stator plates, rotor, and coil mounting.

High resolution image here:
http://www.rodscontracts.com/images/projects/muller/NewBuildMechanicals.png

}:>

Quote from: Scorch on September 23, 2012, 09:13:17 PM
Just another build photo.
Finished all the main mechanical stuff today including the stator plates, rotor, and coil mounting.

High resolution image here:
http://www.rodscontracts.com/images/projects/muller/NewBuildMechanicals.png

}:>

nice vertical setup. ;]

Are your coils any special wound or just normal?

Mags

Coils, for now, are going to be litz wire, 8-36 AWG, utilized as a single conductor, similar to what Romero had used.
No bifilar or anything like that. Keeping it simple for now and currently waiting for the longer, SA156, bobbins to arrive and plan to use a sewing machine to wind the coils.

}:>

Quote from: Magluvin on September 23, 2012, 09:57:48 PM
nice vertical setup. ;]

Are your coils any special wound or just normal?

Mags