Energy from the Ground - Self powered generator by Barbosa and Leal

[Void]

Clarence, a.king21:
I'll try to keep this fairly short, since this is drifting off topic.
I am not trying to put down Don Smith in any way, but I have tested a fair bit with some of the things Don Smith
has talked about or shown, and I have found in my tests that things do not end up working like Don Smith describes it.

Regarding his capacitor plates driven by a high voltage AC driver, the first thing most people will probably notice is that
capacitors are used all over the place in AC circuits and they of course most certainly do draw energy from the driving device.
Don's premise seems to be that since you are drawing an arc from the HV driver to Earth ground, and Earth ground is
isolated from the HV driver (in the 2006 demo he used a battery powered power source for the HV driver), that no energy is
being drawn from the HV driver when the second capacitor plate is arcing to Earth ground. However, in my tests where I monitor
the input current to my HV driver from a 12V battery, the input current to the HV driver increases from about 350mA at idle to
about 420mA to 450mA or more when arcing to either Earth ground or even just to a completely insulated screwdriver tip.
This shows that any arcing (even to the insulated screwdriver tip) is drawing its energy from the HV power source to
cause the arcing.

With Don Smith's stuff it seems that it comes down to Don Smith either leaving out key info which you would need to
make his stuff work, or he was just plain wrong about certain things. Maybe Don Smith's use of an aluminum plate and a
copper plate makes some sort of difference, as I just tested with a normal HV pulse capacitor. It is probably worth a test
to see if there is any difference at all however. Also, in my tests, the voltage waveform on the Earth ground side
of the setup is identical to the voltage on the HV driving side, i.e.; if you are using a sine wave in, then you will see
a sine wave on the output ground discharge side as well. That's what I saw in my own testing anyway. If there is a way to get that 
sort of setup to pull in extra energy from the ambient to power a load without drawing its energy from the HV power source,
I personally haven't figured it out (yet) anyway. I am still experimenting away... Anyone can experiment for them self to see
if they can get different results, but make sure you know what you are doing first when experimenting with high voltage.
Good luck with the experimenting.
All the best...

[Clarence]

Clarence:

Hello Void, & All,

correct on all points Void - I know the experiences from past history personally also!

As I said I prefer my B&L device and am working to prove it as a proof of concept for my own personal interests
and am indeed willing to share the good points that I find and also point out some of my goof ups as well
when I discover them.

It is good to share what I find as this device build is NOT CHEAP (about 1200.00 so far). sharing helps others
from having to put out those expenses when it might not be possible to do so but allows them to obtain
the advantage of the information anyway.  Lovin it!

I am building my ring type Earth Grid System that I mentioned earlier (16 ft ring type with 8 copper clad rods
in the perimeter for the return from earth ground connected in series and left open ended. 1 copper clad rod in the exact center
as the input rod to earth ground). all of the connecting wire will be #6 AWG tinned battery cable wire..

all of this takes time and effort (lots) and add to this my farm duties (which come first) the time to complete
is made even even longer.
so hang on everybody! I'll get there.

thanks and Cheers.

Clarence

[Void]

Hi Clarence. I have been following along on your B&L experiments. You are doing a great job mate!
Appreciate the schematic and photos you posted, as it allowed me to get a much clearer idea of what you are doing.
I am patiently waiting to see if you see any improvement once you add your improved ground rod grid.
All the best...

[Clarence]

Hi Clarence. I have been following along on your B&L experiments. You are doing a great job mate!
Appreciate the schematic and photos you posted, as it allowed me to get a much clearer idea of what you are doing.
I am patiently waiting to see if you see any improvement once you add your improved ground rod grid.
All the best...

Hello Void & ALL, 

Clarence:

Just an update on progress on Ground Grid System:
had laid out perimeter and rod marks and had to posthole spots down into earth 12 inches so that they could be
covered over after assembly. at my site I could NOT leave the rods exposed above ground at all and the wire has
to be trenched also so that nothing interferes above ground level. definitely work involved.

will have the last of the rods in the ground by tonight and will start wire trenching tomorrow.
saturday and sunday I should have all the wire in and connected  and the connections sealed and wires covered over.

will not be able to start any testing until sometime tuesday or thursday as I just lately observed that my
tripp lite power supply was FRIED!!
at sometime when I was last testing and as the ground system wasn't feeding enough voltage back through the ground
return system only giving enough system voltage in the amount of 84 to 90v---this under voltage caused my
tripplite PR 15 to overheat severely and I did not catch this fact until after the damage had already been done!!!
it is factory designed the run on 120 volt AC and not 84 volt AC!  MY GOOF UP!

I have a NEW Tripp Lite PR 30 that should arrive monday thru wednesday sometime.
for testing the system THIS TIME I will be powering the PR 30 with mains voltage until I can see if the Ground
Return Leg is performing as it should or if I still have to increase the size of my Ground Grid a bit more.

as with all things time will tell!

Thanks, Later.

Clarence

[Void]

Thanks for the update Clarence. Sorry to hear about your power supply. These sort of
experiments we do here can be very hard on electronics! I blown more than my share of components
and equipment over the years.   Your ground rod expansion sounds like a pretty big job. Hope you
can get a farmhand or two to help you.
All the best...