Citfa and Marathonman

As stated in my earlier posting, the design functions of the main exciter board and power supplies were verified. I also stated that the exciter portion of the project was planned, but not constructed. That is still true. I have the parts on hand, but do not have the backplane for mounting the devices in the enclosure. It is on back order but should be here soon.

Obviously, I have none NO testing yet. The waveforms I will use are complementary, sinusoidal, DC PWM at 25 KHz. That carrier frequency is subject to change. I know that some inverters use about 5 KHz for motor control, and some DC motor controls use about 15 KHz, and others use 100 KHz. I have no idea what frequency will turn out to be most appropriate, or if it makes any difference at all, but one must start somewhere.

As for the small excitation current producing a large output, you must remember that moving a magnetic field where there is no physical movement and no mechanical force on the generator parts due to Lenz's law requires very little power compared to that required by a conventional generator which must overcome the large retarding effect of Lenz's law due to the generator having to drive the conductors through the magnetic field. The static magnetic forces on the cores are proportional to the square of the flux lines times the area, but because there is no movement, no work is done.

Citfa, there is a difference between proven generator design and proven generator design principals. The design equations hold true in conventional generator designs as proven by a gazillion generators pumping out juice on a daily basis. The Figuera device uses the principles in a completely different scenario where no physical motion is involved, thus side-stepping Lenz's law. However, the equations describing how to produce a magnetic field are unaltered, and the equations describing how a magnetic field of a given strength moving across a given coil at a given frequency are unaltered. That is the implication of the statement that proven design principals are used. There is no magic here and no deception was intended.

Citfa, the test results you reported are disappointing because my tests will be similar to yours and the results may prove to be similar. As for gradual startup, the only load is the exciter coils at initial power-up from an external AC source. I don't forsee any problems. I could be wrong, but we'll see.

When I started this project, my goal was to have a functional unit or find why the Figuera device was never widely exploited. I defined success as achieving either result. If my tests have the same result as yours, then that's the end of it unless something else crops up.

So far, I've learned a lot  and enjoyed the experience. I spent about fifty years working on controls; guided missiles in the military and in industry working as a plant electrical engineer, a drives specialist, and doing specialty control work for my own company for over thirty years. Once I went over 15 years without a repeat, and in my career, only had three repeats. Everything I did worked as designed. A couple of times I was given the wrong target to shoot at, but the equipment worked as designed....and I got paid for it too. Along the way I got a good feel for what could work.

I would not have embarked on this project if I didn't have a sound technical reason to do so. That reason is that the collision point of two like but opposing fields passing over a motionless coil produces a generator effect, and the equations I found showed that the energy expended to produce that moving collision point is far less than the output from the motionless coil.

If the equations are wrong, then this project is toast, and I will be sadder but wiser. Until they are proven wrong, or I see that I have misapplied them, I'm going to keep hacking away at it.

Best regards
Sam6

MM
I forgot to mention that the PWM chips can be ramped up if that proves necessary. I did not enable that function in the first iteration of the PC boards.
Sam6

Hi Sam6,

Thanks for your reply.  I also worked in industry for many years.  Most of that time was troubleshooting CNC machine tools.  Of course that involved from time to time the drive motor circuits also.  I understand what you are saying.  I was fortunate enough to get to spend about 5 years in an R and D department.  That was really a lot of fun.  Designing and working on electrical and electronic test equipment for the Navy was a real neat job.

I sincerely hope that your test results turn out better than mine did.  I would really like to see this device work.  If yours works then maybe I can figure out why mine didn't.  I'll see if I can find the info from the other person that also did not have any success getting any more out than he put in.  Maybe what he did will give you some ideas for trying something different than what he did.

Take care,
Carroll

Do not underestimate the pressures between your primaries. your total is 340.4 lbs per square inch vibrating back and forth and can chop fingers off immediately if not secured.
another thing is the frequency of your core, i am sure you are aware standard material can't handle that high of a frequency so i am curious as to what the material for your primaries and secondary is.

Marathonman

MM

I am aware that core materials have frequency limitations, but am also aware that non grain oriented electrical steel used in motors has operated successfully with PWM signals in the KHz range. I plan to use M6 grain oriented silicon steel that is .014" thick. For experiments, I'll use something I can get my hands on to prove the principle, as the losses in non grain oriented steel, or even iron, are not nearly as large as the anticipated gain.....assuming this works.

There's a whole lot of stuff I don't know, and look forward to seeing what the experiments will bring.

BTW, I see that I used the wrong form of "principle" a couple of times in my earlier post.

Sam6