Thane Heins Perepiteia.

[Groundloop]

Thanks for the info, clears things up. One question: Why is the reluctance dependant on the number of turns?

The total reluctance is equal to the ratio of the "magnetomotive force?  in a passive magnetic circuit and the magnetic flux in this circuit. In an AC field, the reluctance is the ratio of the amplitude values for a sinusoidal "magnetomotive force? and magnetic flux.

The reluctance definition can be expressed as:

R = F / PHI  (Where R = reluctance, F = is the magnetomotive force in ampere-turns and PHI = is the magnetic flux in webers.)  So the number of turns will give you a greater value of F thus a greater value of R. So R = is the reluctance in ampere-turns per weber (a unit that is equivalent to turns per henry). "Turns" refers to the winding number of an electrical conductor comprising an inductor.

Groundloop.

[Steven Dufresne]

Hi All,
As indicated in our lasts posts, Luc and I ended up going to Thane's home last night. Thane showed us some small coils and toroids he had hand wound for his first tests and quickly explained the evolution of his transformer. He then brought out three toroids but one at a time, since they weigh well over 30 pounds each. These 3 toroids were professionally built by a transformer company called ToroidTech: http://www.toroidtech.com/. Attached are photos of each Toroid. At the end of our visit Thane told us we could take all his toroids with us and experiment as we wish and share the results with everyone.

For a few years now Thane had been experimenting with a number of different hand wound toroids, lately having the 3 last ones made by ToroidTech. The only difference in each of the 3 was the number of turns wound on the secondary. We'll call them Toroid 1, Toroid 2 and Toroid 3. Changing only the number of turns allowed him to play with just one variable at a time. Here's the data for the core, which is the same for all of them:

Permeability: around 200
Outer diameter: 222mm (8.7")
Inner diameter: 117mm (4.6")
Thickness: 60mm (2.36")
Weight: approximately 14kg (31lbs)
Wire gauge: 24AWG

All dimensions are approximate since they are wrapped in paper and plastic and hard to measure. The weight is approximate since there is wire coiled around all of them but do increase in weight by about 8 pounds each for the extra windings. All are covered in transformer paper before winding so as to prevent cutting the wire insulation and then wrapped in plastic afterwards.

Each toroid has two secondary coils wrapped around it.

Toroid 1 has 2000 turns per secondary coil.
Toroid 2 has 4000 turns per secondary coil.
Toroid 3 has 5500 turns per secondary coil.

Thane used the same primary for testing all three by simply pulling out the primary from the center and inserting in the next toroid. Test results were done with watt meters so as to take power factor into account. Thane did not give us his exact test results since he wants to see what our independent tests would give. However he gave us sample figures to help us understand how the evolution would go. He said for example, if you were to feed the primary with 50 volts, 60Hz, 50 watts, with Toroid 1's 2,000 turns you would get about 12 watts out, with Toroid 2's 4,000 turns (double that of Toroid 1), you would get about 24 watts out, and lastly, with Toroid 3's 5,500 turns you would get about 30 watts out. From this you can see that the amount of output is proportional to the number of turns.

When Thane did his measurements, based on the results he got for Toroid 1, he ordered Toroid 2 with double the windings, 4,000 turns, to see if the output would keep going up with the more turns. Based on the results from Toroid 2 he then order Toroid 3 with 8,000 turns. However the manufacturer used the same wire gauge and was able to get only to 5,500 turns before finding that with any more turns the center opening would be too small to fit the primary.

He then asked the manufacture to continue to do the modelling in software. That did not work as the software was not able to even simulate what he was already getting with his first 3 toroids since the software had not been written to take in account his effect. So at this time Thane and a transformer manufacturer are working with the software developers to write a new program that can simulate his effect, including trying out many more parameters such as toroid and primary core materials, dimensions, wire gauge, ..., in order to design a toroid with the correct combinations, all the way to using state of the art core material such as supermalloy of permeability 1,000,000.

This is where Thane is at this point. Also note that he tested with only one simple hand wound primary (see photos below) which has a solid metal core, so further improvement could be done by us making more efficient primary combinations and see if we can boost output up.

If anyone has any input then please speak up.

We find Thane to be genuine and extremely helpful by allowing us to take his latest Toroids to our homes to experiment as we wish to our hearts content.
-Steve
http://rimstar.org

[JustMe]

Dear Luc,

Send them these letters - especially Dr. Townsend and Kirtley's from MIT.
I have an opinion but I ought to stick with facts for now.

Thanks
Thane

Hi all,

Don't know any more on this science than I've been able to wring out of google since I began to follow the Toronto Star story, however this thread has still been great.  It's not only the science that's intruiging, but how these potentially heretical ideas are received across the various communities.

I was interested to know how it went from "MIT ain't interested" to the demonstration Thane was able to do there last month.  What changed for MIT in the intervening year? Or was is it just a matter of hitting up the "right" person at MIT for this kind of flexible thinking?

Thanks so much to all of you out there trying to build a better mousetrap.

[gyulasun]

....
Each toroid has two secondary coils wrapped around it.

Toroid 1 has 2000 turns per secondary coil.
Toroid 2 has 4000 turns per secondary coil.
Toroid 3 has 5500 turns per secondary coil.
....

Hi Steve and Luc,

Thank you for this report, very helpful indeed.  I would have two questions if you or Thane could answer:

1)  the 2000 turns on Toroid 1 is meant for one side of the core, say on its left side and there is also 2000 turns on its right side,  so that all together Toroid 1 has got 4000 turns?  (Because you wrote 2000 turns per secondary coil and you also wrote each toroid has  two secondary coils, right?)

2) when the load tests were performed how much input energy increase has been noticed  on the watt meter in the moment of connecting the load to the secondary coils?  Putting it otherwise: the 50W input includes already the (possible) reflective effect of the load and if so then how much Watt the 50W input power decreases to when the load is disconnected?

Thanks,
Gyula

[aether22]

What a miracle, an honest straight forward inventor who can communicate clearly.

It would seem to me that the only way this can work is if indeed each secondaries flux shorts through the other* and this would leave little in the way of any net field from either of the secondaries freeing them up to have more ampere-turns than the field provided by the primary without canceling out the primary.

There are 2 other ways to improve output, one is to have an external C core primary with 2 toroids between the poles, a good way to double the output for free since the secondary toroids don't 'poison' the flux it can be used more than once.

The better idea being that since the primary is unloaded it should be possible to get any losses down by various means of reducing eddy currents and hysteresis and making it a tuned tank circuit with the input freq., In theory if everything worked perfectly and you used superconductors and lossless caps and laminated metglas core you'd never need to put more energy in ever, in reality you will always need to trickle energy in.

Another thought is that if the secondaries don't create a magnetic or inductive field then they should I think have a 90 degree phase relationship with the primary as opposed to a 180 degree phase relationship in a normal transformer. (except when it's unloaded then normal transformers show a 90 deg relationship)

It would be very cool to see if the phase relationship is 90 degrees!

I'd also note that the voltage should (assuming the secondaries have little if any effect) not drop just because more amps are drawn so it would be best to power a high current load and try to cool the coils for max power once adding more copper becomes too great a challenge.

*If they don't then it would spew out into the air and load the primary which I gather Thane hasn't witnessed.