David Bowling's Continuous Charging Device

[Dbowling]

I have been having trouble getting things working right, and some of the data I presented here, I needed to explain a little better.
I completely exhausted two 18Ah hour and one 33Ah battery by hooking them up to a headlight. I charged them through my system and then ran a 100 watt lightbulb for three hours before the AC inverter beeped at me and said I had no more power to run it. I did that three times. It produced .33 KWh hours of electricity according to the Kill_A-Watt meter and ran the light bulb 3 times for three hours each time. Each time I let it run to the 3 hour mark, even though it was beeping, because it was still going and three hours was a nice round number. On the fourth time my batteries I was using to charge with were dead. So I produced 990 watts. If ALL the batteries in the system had been fully charged there would have been about 1260 watts of power available. Since only two were charged, there should have been 432 watts available. So if the (2 18AH and one 33Ah) batteries were really dead, I produced more than I should have, but still not "endless energy" as I had hoped. I am assuming there was some life in those batteries, but enough to make up the difference between the 432 that should have been available in only two batteries and the 990 I produced, especially when I had been running the motor for 9 hours? I don't think so. I wanted to produce 10 times the 1260 watts the batteries were capable of, IF THEY HAD ALL BEEN FULL so the experiment failed, but I think the results were still significant. It would have been nice if I couod have produced at least 1260 watts and run the motor the whole time.

When I first started messing with this, I noticed that when I was charging a battery and connected my AC inverter to the battery I was charging and plugged in a light bulb, the motor sped up and the voltage on the first two batteries increased. At one point it showed 18 volts across the batteries and that scared us, so we shut it down. We let the two batteries set, and a half hour later they still showed 14 volts. We discharged them using small motors down to around 12 volts because we were worried. We also noticed that when we put a load on the motor by tightening the pulley, it increased the voltage measured on the charging battery. I don't remember if it increased the voltage measured on the other two batteries, and that is not in my notes, so I may not have measured it.

Now, when I put a load on the battery I am charging, the voltage in the first two batteries goes DOWN. I think this is where my problem lies. In the beginning it was going up, and those batteries were recharging. They aren't anymore. I've got some variables here that I need to isolate.
1. The batteries I am using now are from a different manufacturer----my original batteries are in California with the machine I built at a friend's house.
2. The batteries I am using now were charged using my system, and then charged from a wall charger. I noticed that took way longer than usual, and the meter never read "full" no matter how long I had them on the charger. Perhaps switching back and forth has done something to the batteries
3. I've run the heck out of this motor for three weeks now. Maybe when it was brand new it was capable of doing something it is not capable of doing now.

I am going back to the very first experiment I did with my original motor, two batteries and my original dead battery and start over from there. If I can't figure this out in a couple days, I will just post my circuit here and let the brainiacs on the internet have at it. This worked. It is not working now...or at least not like it was. I am still getting more watts of power out of this than it should be capable of producing from the two charged batteries, but they are running down after only charging the system a few times. Oh, and one other thing I noticed over the weekend as I kept trying to make this work.

I charged four batteries (two 18Ah and one 33Ah) three times before exhausting my two starter batteries
I charged TWO (18Ah) batteries three times before exhausting my starter batteries
I haven't tried charging just one battery yet, but I will do that tonight and see what happens.
It seems to be "charging sessions" but I will have to see.

[Guard_Dog]

Hey Dave,
Don't get too carried away. I'm inclined to agree with the 'keep it simple' approach. There will be plenty of brains on the job to refine, maximize, and quantify the actual limits in time. Hook it up to something and let it run indefinitely. All you need to prove is that it will keep regenerating the batteries on it's own without any outside help. If it can start and stop itself as it charges and recharges a worn out battery that won't hold its charge, then maybe you can try a good battery on the back end with a small draw that should slowly take the back end voltage down until the motor starts back up again.
I'm wondering also if you've thought of hooking it up at your fathers house in place of the solar array to see if you can keep his bank charged up for several days. Do you need to take all the load off the back end for it to do its thing or can you leave some load in place while you charge and it will still be capable of completing the cycle and replenishing the front end? In other words, like when you did the test with the old battery, if you had a light bulb hooked to the old battery on the back end, would it still kick back in (once the voltage has dropped enough) and the motor come on with that light bulb still hooked up (on the back end battery)? And will it still replenish the two front end batteries in the end with that light bulb still burning (a low load)?
Whatever the case may be, don't give yourself a headache: simplicity is the key in my opinion.
Cheers!

P.S. I just read your last post and it kind of answers what I was wondering about. It sounds like the draw might have to be removed from the back end before recharging... also sounds like you might be wearing out the brushes in your original motor... doh! (minor details)

[FatBird]

Mr Bowling,

Do you have the first 2 Batteries in Parallel for 12V out to the Motor?  Or do you have the first 2 batteries in Series for 24V out to the Motor?

I am asking because I think I know what the problem is.


Thanks.
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[Linearfashion]

David, i believe I have duplicated your experiment. Every description you have given I have also observed. I believe the there is an illusion going on here. By measuring only the voltage in the charging (charged) battery you are seeing what is believed to be a full charge, however the battery is not actually at full capacity. If you charge a battery your way then charge another identical battery using a conventional method then hook them up to separate and identical loads I'm sure you will find the conventionally charged battery will outlast the other. With the system running indefinitely your middle battery will go "dead" first and your "charging battery will be charged and your first battery will be at approximately 80%. I really really hope I am wrong!!

[FatBird]

David, i believe I have duplicated your experiment. Every description you have given I have also observed. I believe the there is an illusion going on here. By measuring only the voltage in the charging (charged) battery you are seeing what is believed to be a full charge, however the battery is not actually at full capacity. If you charge a battery your way then charge another identical battery using a conventional method then hook them up to separate and identical loads I'm sure you will find the conventionally charged battery will outlast the other. With the system running indefinitely your middle battery will go "dead" first and your "charging battery will be charged and your first battery will be at approximately 80%. I really really hope I am wrong!!

I totally agree.  I suspect that the old batteries being charged may have been sulfated & thus "APPEAR" to be 100% charged to capacity, but are really not.

I have tried 2 different DC Motors & I CANNOT duplicate anything OverUnity.  The only reason the motor speeds up when a 12V Bulb or (Inverter Load) is applied across the Output Load is because the TOTAL Load Impedance (Battery + Bulb) now is LOWER, hence pulling more current through the Motor.


 



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