Storing Cookies (See : http://ec.europa.eu/ipg/basics/legal/cookies/index_en.htm ) help us to bring you our services at overunity.com . If you use this website and our services you declare yourself okay with using cookies .More Infos here:
https://overunity.com/5553/privacy-policy/
If you do not agree with storing cookies, please LEAVE this website now. From the 25th of May 2018, every existing user has to accept the GDPR agreement at first login. If a user is unwilling to accept the GDPR, he should email us and request to erase his account. Many thanks for your understanding

User Menu

Custom Search

Author Topic: Auroratek demonstration from Bill Alek at TeslaTech conference  (Read 87513 times)

mscoffman

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1377
Re: Auroratek demonstration from Bill Alek at TeslaTech conference
« Reply #60 on: August 06, 2014, 10:58:29 PM »
Metglass Cores;

I noticed that none other then J. Robitelli of QEG fame, his store seems to be selling Metglass Inc. AMCC 320
Metglass cores. These cores were made famous in the Tom Bearden's MEG affair. These advanced technology
cores were then selling for $$$ in those years. Note, that there are no prices listed and I believe however
they were used they probably still retain their magic material specs. That high voltage insulation coil wire
looks good too.

As usual; Buyer Beware, especially in this case.

Web Link:

http://teslaenergysolutionsllc.com/store/


:S:MarkSCoffman

MarkE

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 6830
Re: Auroratek demonstration from Bill Alek at TeslaTech conference
« Reply #61 on: August 07, 2014, 12:35:48 AM »
Mark,

The secondary magnetic circuit is a COMMON MODE choke, meaning it doesn't contain differential mode inductance!
A CM choke is just a transformer. If the K factor is high, then the effective inductance seen by each side is twice that of either single winding in isolation.  Bill Alek's windings have low coupling coefficients:  K
Quote

That is, the magnetic fields of each winding null out to leakage levels. Assuming I understand how both common mode chokes work and Alek's circuit, your point about k<<1 might be off.
I think that you don't understand them well.  The idea is that the reactance of the magnetizing inductance in each winding is much greater than the impedance of the external circuit.  Current impressed from the dot end towards the non-dot end of one winding induces a voltage across the other winding that will ideally result in a matching current from the non-dot end towards the dot end of that second winding.  In a perfect world this results in nearly equal currents flowing in opposite directions, reducing the net common current in one direction or the other out of the choke to be very small compared to the original individual currents.  A common mode choke that has a low K factor performs badly.
Quote
  Of course it will be lower than a normal transformer because his windings do not completely enclose the primary core section--there is open space. BTW I've built magamps that use very similar construction to Alek's transformer and achieved rather high coupling coefficients. If you want I can take some pics and post the measurement results.'
I always like to see interesting data.
Quote

Also, your point about the coupling coefficient is wrong, in the sense that regardless of its value, the load impedance is reflected back to the primary. Thus primary inductance MUST decrease when the secondary is loaded, thereby lowering the primary impedance and appearing more resistive--however slightly this may be due to weak coupling. Why Alek's transformer does the opposite is the real question.
Take an ideal transformer and drive an inductive load.  The inductive load reactance reflects right back at the primary.  Shorting the secondary of a transformer with a low K has the same effect:  the leakage inductance becomes the load.  In a weakly coupled transformer, the primary current phase shift gets very close to 90 degrees for either condition:  open or shorted secondary.  Low phase shift is possible with a tightly coupled transformer such that the magnetizing reactance is much greater than the load plus winding resistance and the leakage inductance reactance is much lower than the load resistance. 

Bill Alek's windings are labelled:  120mH / 122mH for the secondaries, and 3.07mH for the primary.  Let's assume that those values were obtained with an LCR bridge one winding at a time with each of the other two windings open.  Using K values of 0.8 and loading with 0.01 Ohms, the phase shift at 3kHz in the primary is 84.6 degrees.  Loading with 1E9 Ohms (open) the phase shift is 88.6 degrees. Up the K to 0.99 and the 0.01 Ohm condition gets much better due to the winding resistance: 28.2 degrees phase shift, while the open circuit case remains unaffected.

I think that what we see is just a combination of weak coupling and poorly conducted measurements.  That seems to be the legacy of over unity transformer claims.



MileHigh

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 7600
Re: Auroratek demonstration from Bill Alek at TeslaTech conference
« Reply #62 on: August 07, 2014, 02:36:26 AM »
Look at this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddj85px00lM&list=UULuDKTNDFfat7iO7KGE7fQA

Russ was there!

Quote Russ:

Quote
ok, well there is nothing new here if you ask me, this has been demonstrated in the past in different ways.

but looks fun to play with..

note @ 42:00 i ask the right question and the answer was " im probably just a few weeks away from finishing it" how Manny time have i heard that...

I am pretty sure the question Russ posed at 42 minutes was about the magic bike!  I was dead tired when I watched it, perhaps someone can confirm.

Bill backpedaled!   Ouch!  lol

MileHigh

MileHigh

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 7600
Re: Auroratek demonstration from Bill Alek at TeslaTech conference
« Reply #63 on: August 07, 2014, 02:37:35 AM »
And not a single response from Mr. Drive-by-Shooter Acca.

G4RR3ττ

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 33
Re: Auroratek demonstration from Bill Alek at TeslaTech conference
« Reply #64 on: August 07, 2014, 03:13:58 AM »
Well Mark you can have high coupling factor indeed!

But first I want to point out, measuring magnetic circuits employing ferrite is a b*tch: changes in temp, slight mechanical shock and differing drive level (changes in applied H-field due to changes in number of turns) add much experimental error.

Now on to my little saturable reactor / magamp. Note that, for this circuit, tight coupling was intended for experiments exploring parametric variation (such as frequency conversion and AM modulation of an RF carrier). The tighter the coupling the less control winding current is needed to cause a change of inductance in the anti-series connected secondary circuit. Fundamentally the circuit is a variable load inductance programmed by a voltage controlled current source. All that said, the magnetic circuit closely resembles the primary half of Alek's transformer. At a later date, I'll put up some measurements of a full equivalent circuit, when I can find a CM choke to use for the other half of his secondary arrangement.

What's interesting about this circuit is that the primary winding is shared across two separate and isolated cores, which is exactly how Alek's primary circuit is wound. The only major difference is that of winding style and obviously the lack of the CM secondary arrangement--which I still feel doesn't contribute to large secondary inductance as you propose.

On to the measurements and Pics. First I want to say that both methods of determining k (shorted secondary and measured mutual inductance) were undertaken with the utmost care, all values are derived from measurement and not calculation, unless required. As is generally know to be the case, the mutual inductance method gives erroneous values, this is due to the greater number of ampere-turns that excite the core which shifts the incremental permeability to differing values, in this case greater u_i. Thus k is calculated as being greater than one, which is an invalid result. The arguably better shorted secondary test gives a a very high coupling coefficient of 0.99879.

Concluding, I think we can safely say his primary circuit isn't a major contributor of leakage inductance. However, large leakage in the secondary extraneous circuit is still on for debate. I'm thinking it's not going to be very large though, seeing as how the split secondary fields oppose one another and have the same turns ratio, they will likely have very low (possibly <200uH) leakage inductance.

TinselKoala

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 13958
Re: Auroratek demonstration from Bill Alek at TeslaTech conference
« Reply #65 on: August 07, 2014, 03:50:44 AM »
Both channels of the scope are AC-coupled.

 ::) ::)

Is there a scoposcopist in the haus?

 :o :o :'( :'( :'(

MarkE

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 6830
Re: Auroratek demonstration from Bill Alek at TeslaTech conference
« Reply #66 on: August 07, 2014, 03:55:36 AM »
Well Mark you can have high coupling factor indeed!

But first I want to point out, measuring magnetic circuits employing ferrite is a b*tch: changes in temp, slight mechanical shock and differing drive level (changes in applied H-field due to changes in number of turns) add much experimental error.

Now on to my little saturable reactor / magamp. Note that, for this circuit, tight coupling was intended for experiments exploring parametric variation (such as frequency conversion and AM modulation of an RF carrier). The tighter the coupling the less control winding current is needed to cause a change of inductance in the counter wound secondary circuit. Fundamentally the circuit is a variable load inductance programmed by a voltage controlled current source. All that said, the magnetic circuit closely resembles the primary half of Alek's transformer. At a later date, I'll put up some measurements of a full equivalent circuit, when I can find a CCM to use for the other half of his secondary arrangement.

What's interesting about this circuit is that the primary is shared across two separate and isolated cores, which is exactly how Alek's primary circuit is wound. The only major difference is that of winding style and obviously the lack of the CMM secondary arrangement--which I still feel doesn't contribute to large secondary inductance as you propose.

On to the measurements and Pics. First I want to say that both methods of determining k (shorted secondary and measured mutual inductance) were undertaken with the utmost care, all values are derived from measurement and not calculation, unless required. As is generally know to be the case, the mutual inductance method gives erroneous values, this is due to the greater number of ampere-turns that excite the core which shifts the incremental permeability to differing values, in this case greater u_i. Thus k is calculated as being greater than one, which is an invalid result. The arguably more useful shorted secondary test gives a a very high coupling coefficient of 0.99879.
I am good with determining K by measuring the inductance of a given winding first with all other windings open and then successively shorting one winding at a time. 

.999 coupling is a very high number especially with as few turns as are visible in your photos.  0.96-.99 seems more plausible to me.  Your structure is quite different than Bill Alek's.  In the case of your structure all windings closely hug one or the other of the toroids.  In Bill Alek's case, each winding extends far beyond any of the given cores.  I expect that to result in substantial leakage inductance and therefore K way below .99 that is achievable by tightly wrapping all windings tightly around a single core.  Flux transfer between the various cores is by way of induced currents in each of the windings, including through the copper losses of each.  To me the resulting reluctance will be much higher than where the flux couples onto a single closed high uR core such as a toroid of appropriate material.  The only way to really know for certain is to either build up 3D field model, or measure the device properly.  I submit that if you were to lay your two toroids flat with the openings facing up and wind one winding on each core and a third winding shared between them that you would be much closer to Bill Alek's arrangement, and your leakage inductance would sky rocket.
Quote

Concluding, I think we can safely say his primary circuit isn't a major contributor of leakage inductance. However, large leakage in the secondary extraneous circuit is still on for debate. I'm thinking it's not going to be very large though, seeing as how the split secondary fields oppose one another and have the same turns ratio, they will likely have very low (possibly <200uH) leakage inductance.
A few tens of uH in the clipleads and WW resistors at 3kHz is still small compared to the stated winding resistances.   I think that is potentially an error source of a few degrees but do not believe that it is the elephant in the room.  I disagree with your conclusion that his windings are tightly coupled for the reasons stated above.  I expect that the coupling is weak and that is the major source of phase shift.  Of course Bill Alek could measure his device properly and then we would know what the situation is without dispute.

TinselKoala

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 13958
Re: Auroratek demonstration from Bill Alek at TeslaTech conference
« Reply #67 on: August 07, 2014, 03:57:57 AM »
@Garrett: Isn't a coupling constant in excess of unity one of the ways that "OU" can sneak into a circuit? By dismissing this result as invalid you are semi-circularly rejecting the possibility that the measurement that leads to the "anomalously" large K is actually telling you that the FE is coming in here.

 ;)

Great work by the way, mucho respeto.

TinselKoala

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 13958
Re: Auroratek demonstration from Bill Alek at TeslaTech conference
« Reply #68 on: August 07, 2014, 04:02:00 AM »
"I am far less concerned by the clip leads than others. "

Ah, but you are a professional, or at least do a good job of acting. SO you have professional-grade clipleads. Many cheap Chinese clipleads look great on the outside but if you examine them closely they may have only one tiny strand of wire inside a big sheath of plastic insulation, and a crimp that doesn't even bother to strip the plastic, so it can be high-resistance or even intermittent. The tiny strand of wire probably has higher inductance than, say, a fully populated length of #20 stranded copper of the same length.

And the alligator clips suck, especially after you step on them a couple of times.

MarkE

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 6830
Re: Auroratek demonstration from Bill Alek at TeslaTech conference
« Reply #69 on: August 07, 2014, 04:30:51 AM »
"I am far less concerned by the clip leads than others. "

Ah, but you are a professional, or at least do a good job of acting. SO you have professional-grade clipleads. Many cheap Chinese clipleads look great on the outside but if you examine them closely they may have only one tiny strand of wire inside a big sheath of plastic insulation, and a crimp that doesn't even bother to strip the plastic, so it can be high-resistance or even intermittent. The tiny strand of wire probably has higher inductance than, say, a fully populated length of #20 stranded copper of the same length.

And the alligator clips suck, especially after you step on them a couple of times.
I try to keep the clip leads away from the stampedes.

G4RR3ττ

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 33
Re: Auroratek demonstration from Bill Alek at TeslaTech conference
« Reply #70 on: August 07, 2014, 04:59:26 AM »
Mark,

As I pointed out, the saturable reactor circuit is a close approximation of the first half of Alek's circuit--and by no means did I imply it was exactly the same to its entirety. As for my results, they demonstrate that coupling between secondary windings placed on isolated cores to a commonly wound primary winding can be very high. Nothing you've said refutes this. I want to point out that I didn't claim my circuit was exactly the same, only that certain elements are very similar.

I agree that his transformer would have a worse k factor than my circuit due to reasons I've already stated as well as the ones you have pointed out. We both agree that his exact arrangement will give a less than satisfactory k value. What we don't agree on is the exact amount of coupling physically possible. Obviously we both have our own experience and assumptions to support our arguments. Therefore, both of us need to prove our point more conclusively, either using a 3rd party authority (e.g. a texbook) or physical experiment.

TinselKoala

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 13958
Re: Auroratek demonstration from Bill Alek at TeslaTech conference
« Reply #71 on: August 07, 2014, 06:03:23 AM »
Is there anything in the way of circuitry on the "support board"? Sure seems like an expensive way to make a simple support for another part if there isn't any circuitry involved.


I realize that in this particular case it probably doesn't make much difference, but here is a question I would like to see asked, every time a demonstration of power happens and a scope channel is observed to be AC-coupled.

"Mister Alek, I notice that both your scope channels are set to AC-coupled. This removes any DC component in the signal, doesn't it? It is the equivalent of putting a capacitor in series with the probe tip as you measure, blocking any DC from reaching the scope's electronics, isn't it? So really, there could be literally any amount of DC power flowing in the system and your scope measurements would not show it. Is that right?"
Follow up:
"The AC coupling setting also moves the displayed trace up or down so that its average is on the channel baseline, doesn't it? What exactly does this do to the _values_ measured for peak voltages, the baseline zero crossings, and math that is done on the vertical values of the AC-coupled traces?"

TinselKoala

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 13958
Re: Auroratek demonstration from Bill Alek at TeslaTech conference
« Reply #72 on: August 07, 2014, 06:39:30 AM »
What, people don't think this is an issue, or that I am making it up? AC Channel coupling is by far _THE_ most misunderstood aspect of scoposcopy. Here is an excellent white paper from National Instruments that describes the issue, with waveform examples.

http://www.ni.com/white-paper/14753/en/

G4RR3ττ

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 33
Re: Auroratek demonstration from Bill Alek at TeslaTech conference
« Reply #73 on: August 07, 2014, 07:04:24 AM »
TK,

Interesting point about the PCB. However I disagree with the AC-coupling at the scope, it would show everything but the DC-offset. Are you implying that a DC-offset is doing some magic in the background? It's entirely possible that the secondary and primary aren't galvanically isolated and the PCB may be involved in some underhandedness. Certainly not out of the question. To be honest I played around with what I felt was an "equivalent circuit" and proved many of Mark's points wrong regarding both coupling efficiency and the phase angle at the primary, but nothing was observed that paralleled Alek's SFT effects. Fundamentally the effect--if real and not a bunch of smoke up everyone's ace--must be one to do with physics of the core material. Otherwise I'm just not seeing how the effect can be had through classical lumped elements and transmission line theory.

All I see the NI article pointing out is basic high-pass filter phenomena when the AC-coupling is engaged, particularly important with rectangular waveforms where large harmonic content is prevalent (mostly affects the LF spectrum of the signal). Outside of this it's not that big of a deal in my book, and I stare at scopes all day long. But maybe I'm desensitized...

Evidence against the DC-offset theory is the fact that "TRMS" measurements really aren't taking place. Most DMMs do not compute the true RMS of both the DC and AC component at the same time ("AC+DC"). That is to say, only the DC or the AC values are being reported. Few meters actually compute the AC+DC or TRMS, one in particular is the venerable HP 3403C, which uses thermal methods and is good up to 100MHz. So I think its safe to say any DC-offset isn't being measured even if it is leaking into an un-isolated secondary winding.

TinselKoala

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 13958
Re: Auroratek demonstration from Bill Alek at TeslaTech conference
« Reply #74 on: August 07, 2014, 07:25:33 AM »
as I said it is probably not an important issue _in this case_ as far as the measurements per se go, but it indicates a certain non-expertise in measurement and scope use, which is why I would like to see the question posed just as I have presented it. Here we often deal with claims of OU that are close to the noise floor, and cases of  OU indications have been tracked down to improper use of channel coupling. This is a very easy way for someone to inject lots of power into an input if they want to be deliberately  misleading, or to deliberately under-read an output power. Whenever I see AC coupling used for anything other than examining small signals on top of large known DC offsets, I want to know exactly why the channel is coupled that way, and I want to know that it does not affect the math that is performed on the traces.
It has even come to my attention that some qualified professionals don't even know what AC actually _is_. The NI white paper is an example. The writer refers to a sinus signal that is 100 percent above baseline as "AC". It isn't, though. It is a fluctuating level of current that always flows in the same direction. It does not become AC until there is current reversal happening, and this will not happen until the voltage signal actually does dip below the zero baseline and become negative at the measurement point. IOW, if the DC offset is _greater_ than the amplitude of the ripple, you don't have any AC at all because the current does not alternate, it simply rises and falls in magnitude in the same direction. It is only correct to speak of "AC with DC offset" when the offset is smaller than the ripple and zero-crossing actually happens.
This is overly pedantic and I generally know what people mean when they speak about AC with DC offset, etc. but it's easy to prove what I'm saying, if you don't believe or agree, with an LED, the scope, and an FG that has adjustable offset and can put out a 1 Hz sine wave. You can display the same sinus signal and have the LED on 100 percent of the time, off 100 percent of the time, or anywhere in between depending on the DC offset setting of the FG. LED on 100 percent of the time: NO ac! And if the scope is AC-coupled the signal will look exactly the same _vertically_ and appear as the identical AC signal no matter whether the LED is on 100 percent, off 100 percent or anything in between. You will be able to report and demonstrate all kinds of strange behavior if you just keep your scope on AC-coupled.

Quote
So I think its safe to say any DC-offset isn't being measured even if it is leaking into an un-isolated secondary winding.

That is exactly  my point wrt the scope but I don't know about the meters. DC offsets could be contributing to the actual power IN without being measured on the scope. However I think they would show up on the output DMMs, being included in their math. This is an interesting issue and I don't know the answer wrt the DMMs. I wonder if Poynt99 or MarkE can speak to this issue.

ETA: both of Alek's output DMMs are Flukes, one is a 187 TRMS I believe and the other is more modern but also, I believe, a TRMS meter, possibly a 175. I refer you to page 3-4 in the manual:
http://assets.fluke.com/manuals/187_189_umeng0200.pdf

If it works... it's a FLUKE!

(also... we know that a ripply DC signal applied to a primary of a transformer will, unless the core is saturated by the DC, produce an AC output in the secondary, with an amplitude that is determined by the p-p amplitude of the original ripple on the DC input. Right?)