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Author Topic: Simple to build isolation transformer that consumes less power than it gives out  (Read 361115 times)

JouleSeeker

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When I disconnected the load, the current drawn by the primary of the first trafo dropped to zero, 0.00, on two different meters.  So that's good.

 I tried reversing the coil that is parallel with the load (load in place, 40 W bulb) -- and the current draw went WAY up on the input trafo; from about 0.14A @ 100 V to over an amp.  I turned it off quickly.  A bit of a mystery there (to me at least).

Resistance of coil I used in iron trafo (5000 permeability) was 165 ohms, very thin wire, 0.0x mm. ...

Resistance of 280 meter Litz nanoperm (80000 permeability) is about 45 ohms.
Steve, I see your trafos are about the same size as mine, what is the resistance of your coils and permeability of the core ? Did you try reversing the coil that is parallel with load in the second trafo ? You should see major difference. What about idle currents without load ? If it can light up bulb (in series with those two coils in second trafo) without load then it will not work too well. I suspect that this is the problem now, impedance is too low and input power bypasses load and goes via coils. This will certainly ruin the OU effect.

Data sheet on the toroidal trafos I used is here: http://www.alliedelec.com/search/productdetail.aspx?SKU=70218083  but there is not much detailed data.
I measured the resistances as follows:

Primary:  21.3 ohms
Secondary:  35.9 ohms, which is a bit surprising since these are 1:1 transformers, but evidently a smaller-gauge wire is used on the secondary.

I have an inductance meter, but it only goes up to 20 Henry -- and both the primary and the secondary exceed this value.  I doubt the cores have high permeability; but have found no data on this.



Where you have wound your OWN trafos, Jack, I would say this may very well explain the difference in overall results.  For someone to replicate your exact build would take quite a few details from you I should think.   I would be willing to bring my equipment to you for some testing if you would like, including the photocalorimeter.  I would be glad to test it for input and output power, considering it a "black box" device if you wish.  But you've been generous with circuits and information, so it is more than that already!   PM me if you think this might be workable for you.  I'm traveling by car next week; if you're anywhere along the path, that would be great I think.  Just an offer; zero arm-twisting.

Jack Noskills

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This means you have the same effect I have, thats good. When coil is wrong way all the power goes via coils and bypasses load, hence no power at output but power is sucked from input and wasted. When I used 40 watt bulbs in testing I got the same effect, primary side was bright and no light on output. I did not try it without bulbs, good to know that when coil is wrong way there is major current draw occurring from source.
 
But there is not enough wire in the primary, this explains the difference. Also my quess is that permeability of your core is much less than 80000, it is most likely ordinary ferrite below 10000. The iron trafo I used was rated 20 watts, when I took two primaries and combined them into one I got output well above 20 watts in normal trafo mode also. Iron trafo weighs much less 0.4 kg, but there is 8 times as much resistance in the coils compared to toroid you are using. Also all the wire is within 10 mm while toroid is wound all over. I have read somewhere that turns per inch matters when creating magnetic field which makes much sense.
 
What is the idle current of just one trafo alone with no load ? It must be high enough to light a 40 watt bulb if put in series with primary.
 
I am located in Finland so unless you have a flying car I don't think we could meet, thanks for the offer though. The 'device' is too simple so there is no need to do any difficult stuff like travelling. It is just a matter of getting the parameters correct and debugging. I also thought about just sending those trafos to you for testing but I am not sure if the package would pass customs, especially if I mark the contens as 'free energy device' lol.
 
T-1000, I think you have access to decent signal generator and some ferrite. Any chance you could spend few hours and give this a try using higher frequency ? I feel like a bee doing dancing moves in front of the nest. The best dancer gets the attention of other bees, damn do I have to learn the Jackson moves or what ?

Jack Noskills

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Steve, I spotted one more difference in your toroid. The coils are unequal in length ! You could try swapping the coils so that hotline goes first to secondary of the toroid. I saw some effect with nanoperm with unequal coils but in my case one coil was only 20 % longer than the other.

Jack Noskills

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Steve, one more thing. You are using 40 watt bulb but the trafo is rated at 23 watts or so. If load exceeds what core can produce then it begins to draw from the source. If you have lower rated bulbs then try those. Put watt meter in mains, then connect just one trafo, use current limiter bulb just in case something goes wrong. Without load consumption should be close to zero which you have already observed. With load below 25 watts consumption should be less when compared to same load in normal trafo mode.
 
Remember that the output waveform could be rectified sine and watt meter at output could give false reading so better to measure consumption from the source.

wattsup

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@all

I had purchased the following two current transformers for the toroid cores, mainly to eventually make two SM style center bucking coils. But I think they would be good candidates for winding a coil per half core.

This two CTs are Simpson Model 01297.
You can see it on page 63 of their nice pdf catalog.
http://www.simpsonelectric.com/uploads/File/PanelMeterCatalog_Jan09.pdf

The Nanoperm core in the sizes around 4" diameter are somewhat expensive...
http://www.magnetec.us/shop/details.php?id=94&kategorie=7&main_kat=&start=0&nr=

wattsup

TinselKoala

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You took apart a precision Simpson current transformer just for the cores?

This makes my heart hurt.

http://www.surplussales.com/inductors/FerToro/FerToro-3.html

http://www.surplussales.com/Inductors/Inductors.html

gyulasun

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....
I measured the resistances as follows:

Primary:  21.3 ohms
Secondary:  35.9 ohms, which is a bit surprising since these are 1:1 transformers, but evidently a smaller-gauge wire is used on the secondary.

I have an inductance meter, but it only goes up to 20 Henry -- and both the primary and the secondary exceed this value.  I doubt the cores have high permeability; but have found no data on this.

....

Hi Steven,

The higher number of turns in the secondary coil(s) comes from keeping the 1:1 voltage ratio at full load and compensate for copper and core losses. I wrote about this for you here:
http://www.overunity.com/12487/simple-to-build-isolation-transformer-that-consumes-less-power-than-it-gives-out/msg328931/#msg328931  probably you did not notice it.  However, the difference between the primary and the secondary coils in their DC resistances seems rather high in your trafos case, do the secondary coils in parallel provide the normal 117-120V AC output when loaded (and the primaries are also in parallel).

To measure the coils inductance, try to connect the primary coils in parallel and also the secondary coils in parallel, this should bring the inductance below the 20 Henry range on your L meter.

rgds,  Gyula

wattsup

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You took apart a precision Simpson current transformer just for the cores?

This makes my heart hurt.

http://www.surplussales.com/inductors/FerToro/FerToro-3.html

http://www.surplussales.com/Inductors/Inductors.html

@TK

No I did not take them apart yet since I have them. I just opened the cover. That's why I am posting it here to see if it is a smart move or not to risk. I get what you mean about the precision.

Otherwise, let's cut through the chase and get some NanoPerms. hehe

Now when I search their web site.......
http://www.magnetec.de/en/nanopermr-products/

I am puzzled as to why there is no mention of their cores being used in isolated transformers. Mainly for chokes and current transformers but no mention of isolated or step/up/down transformers.

What model choice is the other question?????????
Something around the 4" (100mm) diameter range.

wattsup

Added:

My standard transformer X coils are 2.2 ohms and the H coils are 1.5 ohms. I had taken for granted that all the coils were identical. Seeing that, I connected the H side to the AC, since in my last trials the X side was on the AC. No difference in final results. So measuring the resistance or asking what the resistance of the coils are before buying them is a smart way to try and find the right ones.

Jack Noskills

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Yesterday I got me a watt meter, I wanted to see how much that 150 watt halogen uses. I realised I can do comparison so that I measure only what I take from the mains and just check out brightness of light.

First I measured the 2*400 meter nanoperm in normal trafo mode. Meter showed 87 watts in primary side and I got some light out. I estimate the efficiency of the trafo to be atmost 90 % to be on the safe side. In generator mode I got 37 watts going in primary side and halogen is significantly brighter, somewhere between 100 - 120 watts. When I used smaller 40 watt load the watt meter does not act realiably, it can only measure above 5 watts. Based on my earlier testing I know power consumption can be get close to zero, milliwatt range.

I also tried 300 watt halogen. In normal trafo mode primary used 92 watts and halogen had just a faint glow. In generator mode I got plenty of light, enough to burn the damn desk again and watt meter showed 76 watts.
 
Seems that this core can create about 70 watts by itself, just an estimate and not exact figure. How I would love to feed this bugger with higher frequency and see how much more efficient it would be. Idle power of one coil is way too high, I think it was close to 60 watts. If I could get this down below one watt using for example 500 Hz then I would get 10 times more power out with better efficiency too.
 
wattsup, I think it is better if you get metglass instead of nanoperm unless you have access to toroid winding machine. magnetec says they have cores with permeability of 200000 but when I tried to get them I did not even get a decent reply if they are for sale or not. If metglass has one million permeability cores then that is worth a try.

Jack Noskills

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I found nice DC/DC controller, it outputs squarewave if smoothing caps are removed and this could be fed in first trafo to make sine out of it. You can set oscillations from 1 kHz to 1000 kHz, there is a design example that shows how to make output 24 volts at 2 amps from 12 volt input at 600 kHz with schematics and equations how values are obtained.

Device costs less than one dollar, maybe it could be used as a driver.

http://www.ti.com/product/tps40210#feature
 
There are many others and did not check them out. Just made a search for a device that can output 220 volts and only this one came up. 100/220 volts would be nice to have directly as you dont need third core to step it down. Or maybe a proper voltage divider circuit could be used, dunno.

Jack Noskills

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I tried to determine what is the efficiency of the big nanoperm trafo in normal trafo mode but I was unable to do that. Damn watt meter showed 0 watts at output all the time, seems that it needs L and N lines before it works. Then I measured the idle power which was actually 134 watts and this means that light comparison with halogens is not fair. There is OU but figures are most likely somewhat off in halogen test. It is nice though that when in generator mode the idle power drops below one watt from 134 watts.
 
Finally I measured again 40 watt load and bulb was bright as usual, it is certainly above 20 watts and most likely below 30 watts. Watt meter showed 0 and 6 watts alternatively on the grid side. So still looking good though I made a mistake with trafo efficiency estimation, I now think its efficiency is below 50 %. There is still room for more wire, maybe I wind some more, not sure about that.

Jack Noskills

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There is EVM board available,
 
http://www.ti.com/lit/ug/sluu308/sluu308.pdf
 
costs 49 dollars, output 2 amps 24 volts at 600 kHz, well in nanoperm range. Makes one think...

TinselKoala

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There is EVM board available,
 
http://www.ti.com/lit/ug/sluu308/sluu308.pdf
 
costs 49 dollars, output 2 amps 24 volts at 600 kHz, well in nanoperm range. Makes one think...
Output is 24 volts, 2 amps DC, with a small ripple. The 600 kHz is the internal switching frequency.

Makes one think.... indeed.

Jack Noskills

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I read the specs and you can take the square wave as output via one pin, if I understood the spec correctly. Of course if it is only DC then it is of no use. I have a hardware guy who can double check this for me if I want to try this out. First I would need some other gear which I can possibly get for free for limited time. If I can put 600 kHz via nanoperm, then I will consider this EVM if hardware guy says there is square wave output. I also need to check first how the square wave behaves when it goes via nanoperm core. If I would see clean sine wave at output then there is chance EVM could work here. Plot thickens as new twists occur... I will keep you posted of my progess, if any.

T-1000

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The basic logic behind all of this should be inverted and I think this is what Jack is experiencing.  The maximum power consumption without load and minimal consumption with load because the load itself is what is cause of increasing impedance in primary coils of transformers...