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Author Topic: Simple to build isolation transformer that consumes less power than it gives out  (Read 361152 times)

wattsup

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A suggestion concerning getting a 1:1 ratio Transformer. 
Just get 2 rolls of wire the same awg. and wind a bifilar coil. 
Wind as many windings as you need to get the right impedance.

You are right about that but the problem is having the right amount of turns, output wattage, etc. It will be just another place where you can go wrong. At least with standard transformers you have the specs and a proven performance.

I am wondering, I have two good sized toroidal transformers that have two primaries and two secondaries each (Hammond 182P12) and they output 12v at 10 amps so input has to be 120 volts at 1 amp. Maybe by using only the primaries since they are identical and separately wound.
Shown here: http://www.hammondmfg.com/182.htm

I will try it tonight.

Also Hammond has isolated transformers here.
http://www.hammondmfg.com/169.htm
The 169VS seems to be the best choice.

wattsup




wattsup

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@all

Could not wait till tonight so I tried the two Hammond toroidals.

Input: 121.2 VAC at 0.24 amps
Output: 57.6 VAC at 0.50 amps
No capacitor used.

Sorry for messy photo.

Connected as per @JN's first photo, post #1.

Got to go to work now.

wattsup

JouleSeeker

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@all

Could not wait till tonight so I tried the two Hammond toroidals.

Input: 121.2 VAC at 0.24 amps
Output: 57.6 VAC at 0.50 amps
No capacitor used.

Sorry for messy photo.

Connected as per @JN's first photo, post #1.

Got to go to work now.

wattsup
Thanks for presenting these results, wattsup, and for the photo!

Input: 121.2 VAC at 0.24 amps = 29.1 W in
Output: 57.6 VAC at 0.50 amps = 28.8 W out

Efficiency = 28.8/29.1 = 97%, which is pretty good efficiency! 

(I wonder if these toroidals are rated that high...) 
Anyway, I'd say you are off to an excellent start here.
Steve

Efficiency

Lynxsteam

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An update, although its not much more than before.

I tried making a square wave (N-S) Bedini motor and failed to do so.  Back to the regular Bedini (N-N).  7000 rpm 42khz.  Can't seem to use the 1:1 torroid setup without burning up transistors.  The torroid acts like a dead short for the AC flyback.  I'll have to study the circuit a bit more, but a 1 Ohm winding is just about a dead short and not protecting the transistor.

So back to the manual AC.  Using the two transformers as drawn and with a capacitor across the second transformer.  A 4.5 volt LED string. 

I can't light the 4.5 v LED string with 1.2 - 2.4 volts directly wired with DC. 

But, striking the battery rapidly simulating 1/2 wave AC and through the transformers, the LEDs light brightly.  Doesn't matter which transformer lead is positive or negative DC.  Again this seems to be very much like Joule Thief action running the LEDs off flyback.  I am sure if I bothered to use these two 1:1 transformers in a Joule Thief they would work quite well to convey the spiked voltage.  While Joule Thiefs defy quick reasoning, they aren't Over Unity.

How the author of this thread increased voltage and amperage with this circuit is a mystery to me.  Perhaps the name of the invention "TrollBuster" is a clue. 

FatBird

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Watts Up,  Please try a Diode as shown in the schematic.
 
That should give O/U.  Also, try various size Caps in different places.
 
Thanks for sharing your set up.
 
 

T-1000

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On the Russian side... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHitE-1sZpw - Romanov explanation of same principles.
Someone need to translate this into English.

Here is self runner(?) based on same principle:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU_T4B4fQwQ

It is all about resonance and pushing current forward and backwards...

baroutologos

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Watts Up,  Please try a Diode as shown in the schematic.
 
That should give O/U.  Also, try various size Caps in different places.
 
Thanks for sharing your set up.

I do not think you want to use diodes in plain 50-/60 Hz mains transformers. it creates an one way current, that dramatically decrases impedance and heavily saturates the core thus causing a lot of idle current flowing. In the 220v winding the resistance will play a major role in limiting current that way.

...
One interesting thing i have noticed with common mains transformer is that they are in a "possitive feedback" state as they are permeated by alternating current. To put it another way, if you have a handy LC meter and measure inductance and then find out impedance of 50/60 Hz, you would realized that actuall impedance maybe a figure of x10 than that of estimated.

example 1

My big 200 VA 220/15 trafo has a 220v winding of 1.75 H. (The bigger the trafo the less inductance you will measure) By applying the impedance calculation for 50 Hz mains at 220vac, a 550 ohms figure is found. Then some 0,5 amp idle current should flow this way. The actual idle current is not more that 20-30 mA. So something is wrong either with meter of trafo working under those circumstances. I have not reasons to believe my LC meter is wrong.

example 2

one of 40va 220/12 trafo i have, measures at 12volts secondary 8.5 mH. The calculated impedance at 50 Hz is 2.67 Ohms. By having my 1KW variac output wired at that secondary and working at 12volt my clamp meter shows some 0,8 amps circulating in that 12volt winding, whereas according my calculation of impedance it should be 5-6 amps?

Can someone verify that or explain to me in scientific terms? What i uderstand is that in a closed magnetic circuit (especially of iron core trafos) there is a feedback effect that seriously enhances measured inductances. This of course in some limits.

Then, i found out by applying a diode (similar to magnetic applifiers) this effect is gone and you observe current flows (when working in the unsaturated area) that correspond to calculated impedance based more or less on measured inductance.
 :)

Jack Noskills

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Now what is this vacation that you cant sleep with this going on my head ? So I just had to drop in and check how are things going.
 
I have a reasonable explanation how this works, I try to write about this at some stage. It is easier if you think those inductors as virtual batteries that come to live when they are fed with sine wave. Amount of wire length on coils should be same , they form the - and + ends of the virtual battery. The junction is the + and other ends are the -. If lengths are not equal then you will see some losses as current may flow between different level of + potentials and it does not go through the load.
 
First thing that you need accomplish is to drive the idle current down when no load is connected. If your coils do not have enough turns then you need the tuning cap. If you have ferrite and sig gen, then just thrown in some cap and sweep for a sweet spot. If you can measure the L then you should know if your SG can provide needed frequency.
 
Diodes are not needed as this works on both halves of sine wave. Output should be rectified sine, so consider this if you do power measurements.
Two trafo setup might provide easier way to compare power in vs power out.
 
wattsup, thanks for looking into this. All we need next is just one successfull replication and then the fun starts, or a major shit storm. Depends on which side you are on, lol.

Jack Noskills

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I realised this is more about core performance than resonance so I want to explain my thinking before experimentations go further possibly in wrong direction.
 
First, lets say your trafo under test is 50 % efficient. You put 100 watts in and get 50 watts out when used as normal trafo. In one trafo setup 100 watts comes into upper winding, it creates 50 watts in lower winding. This 50 watts goes to load. When it goes there, it creates 25 watts in the upper winding in same phase as input so source needs to push only 100 - 25 watts. 100 watts still goes through the load and you now got 150 watts there while using 75 watts.

Tuning for resonance will drive the idle current down, but because of inefficient core you most likely don't get any more out.
With ferrite this is easy to fix by increasing driving frequency. Even if you have low performance core you can measure if the above theory is valid. The effect I observed comes only when core efficiency is high enough and at 50 % efficiency power increase is 2 times the input.
 
If theory is valid then this just got simplified as there is no need for tuning. Tuning did seem to improve my test setup a bit so it shouldn't be forgot altogether. It could be due to fact that my reassembly was not perfect or resonance has some effect.

broli

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@Jack Noskills

Are you willing to send your setup to someone nearby who does have the equipment for a correct power analysis?

JouleSeeker

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The isolation trafos that I ordered arrived, see photo and schematic below.
I did some initial measurements with one trafo using a 40W incandescent bulb as a load.  I put the bulb in my light box so I could also keep track of light output in lux.

Input from mains, 122V:
  46W input,  87.6V out at 36.2W, eff = 79%  (so-so), 2050 lux
  Turn light off (open secondary, no load):  2.8W idle

Input from variac, 100V:
   33.8W input,  70.2V out at 26.1W, eff = 77%  (so-so), lux 800
   Turn light off (open secondary, no load):  2.0W idle

Looking at the schematic, the input goes to the red wires in this case;
for the output I used the red/blk and green/blk wires.

Next,  I did some re-wiring to use both available coils as primary; thus connecting blk and red/blk also connecting yellow and green/blk -- to put these as the primary coils in parallel.

Then the red wires become the output.

The efficiency improves using both coils as primary:

Input from variac, 100V:
   52.9W input,  98.9V out at 44.2W, eff =84%  (better), lux 3480
 Vout/Vin = 0.989, nearly unity.

Input from variac, 110V:
   60.6W input,  108.3V out at 50.4W, eff = 83%  (good), lux 4810
   Turn light off (open secondary, no load):  2.6W idle

I will soon proceed to build Jack's 2-trafo design.
« Last Edit: July 12, 2012, 09:00:55 PM by JouleSeeker »

gyulasun

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Hi baroutologos,
 
 I also disagree with using a diode in series with a mains transformer primary coil, the simply reason is the diode does a half wave rectification and the created DC current in the coil creates significant copper loss AND may bias the core towards saturation (as you mentioned): this may reduce the self inductance of the primary coil too, increasing input AC current.
 
 Regarding your measurements on transformers, it is indeed strange and I also found big differences in measured no load input current and the calculated input current which came from measured transformer parameters. 
 
 The problem may come partly from the digital LC meter: it does not use 50 or 60 Hz test frequency for L measurements, my own LC meter (Maxwell DMM MX-25 304 old type) uses about 200 Hz in the some hundred milliHenry and Henry ranges and it is doubtful how the different mains transformer cores perform at such a "high" frequency, most cores may lose permeability to some percent but some other cores may lose even half of their '50 Hz' permeability.  This means that a 50 Hz test circuit should be used  for measuring the transformer coils.  I repeat this frequency difference does not fully explain the situation.
 
 However, here is a link which may shed some more light onto this problem:
 http://sound.westhost.com/articles/xfmr-dc.htm 
 
 It deals with DC component appearing across the AC line. The DC component can occur for instance from (say) the next door neigbour's hair dryer which uses a series diode in its control switch to adjust heat power, see Figure 1 and Table 1 and also Figure 2.  There are some other 'nasty' appliances that can 'distort' the pure AC voltage by adding a DC shift to the line.
 
 I wonder if you could use a decent 1:1 isolation mains transformer and drive from it the primary of your 200VA trafo and check the idle current, would you find similar 20-30 mA idle current (assuming the secondary output of the 1:1 transformer gives also 220V and not 210V or other different output).
 
 On your example 2: partly the output impedance of the variac plays a role also in the resultant current and it is in series with your secondary trafo coil of course, reducing the current but the difference you measured is rather big and it cannot fully explain the phenomena.
 
 Will ponder on this and if I have some further thoughts, will return.
 
 rgds,  Gyula
 
 PS:  In series resistor - inductance circuits like a transformer coil represents the coil's DC resistance is also to be considered, for a 200VA trafo the primary coil may have 10 -20 Ohm DC resistance, you surely know the formula for such cases:
 ( http://www.sweethaven02.com/ModElec/DcAc/acee/equ0704.gif )from this link: http://www.sweethaven.com/sweethaven/ModElec/acee/frm0702.htm  (I know that in case the inductive reactance is much higher than copper resistance, then the latter does not count much.)

gyulasun

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Hi Steve,

Normally a decent 1:1 mains isolating transformer has a single primary and a single secondary coil and they are labeled to identify for the user which is which.  The reason is that in the secondary coil the number of turns should be a few percent higher wrt that of the primary to "compensate" for all the losses at a given output power range, this means that the DC ohmic resistance of the secondary should be higher than that of the primary coil.  And if you happen to operate this 1:1 transformer backwards, naturally the original primary coil which is now the secondary will give way less output than used in the designed direction.  In the few percent higher secondary coil turns the approximate efficiency of the transformer manifests (i.e. assuming a 96% efficiency for a decent 1:1 mains transformer (above 100VA power level) the number of turns for its secondary coil is increased by at least 4% wrt the primary turns).

So I suggest to measure the DC resistance of all the 3 coils. Probably the way you connected the two coils in parallel is good but in this present situation where you measured 84%, try to use this backwards too to see how efficiency changes if it does at all.

rgds,  Gyula

T-1000

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The isolation trafos that I ordered arrived, see photo and schematic below.
I did some initial measurements with one trafo using a 40W incandescent bulb as a load.  I put the bulb in my light box so I could also keep track of light output in lux.

Thanks for a try.

The whole meaning of this experiment is to force condition where you make oscillating resonant circuit between 2 transformers + capacitor and when it happens, it should start pushing power back to the source. So your ampmeter will show least consumption as possible of both trafos. If phase is 180 degrees obviously the ampmeter will show maximum consumption of power rated on first transformer where no load is attached. The power taking out of resonant circuit without killing resonance is another matter and should be governed by opposite than Lenz law.  And the losses of transformers should be compensated by primary power source. When you get resonance with correct phase shift you only neeed support resonant circuit running while current in second trafo between capacitor and windings is on maximum level.

Cheers!

NerzhDishual

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Hi Baroutologos,

Very, very interesting experiments and remarks.
Actually, IMO,  your LC meter should be right!
What do you mean by idle current? (= With no load?)
Could you give some simple schematic?
I have a variac, a LC meter and some trafos and I would be pleased to
reproduce your measurements.
-----------------
I was in touch with a (French) guy who claims to get 'OU' out of trafos.
He uses 230 V/60 HZ AC grid current, tri-phases (often hand wound) trafos
and also 'off the shelf' 'normal' (2 or 3 phases) ones.
BTW: he sometimes also uses diodes. ???

Unfortunately, he was very obscure and refused to perform some measurements.
IMO, this person have some huge communicating problems (kinda schizophrenia issues). :(

So, I gave up, but I'm still believing that he is really into something and that
it remains some hidden secrets in trafos...
-------------------
BTW, thanks also to Prof S. Jones for his indefatigable experiments/measurements.
For my part, I'm more a 'contemplative' individual.
Anyway, I have ordered  two 65VA (2*115/230 volts) trafos...

Very Best,
Jean