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Author Topic: Recharging Batteries using only voltage spikes. A Results Log Thread  (Read 35857 times)

jeanna

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Hi everybody,

This thread is a place to post your results (or not) using high voltage spikes to recharge batteries.

Any batteries
Any voltage
Any frequency

It will be useful to include:
- the chemistry/type of the battery and its normal voltage level
- the type of circuit you are using to make the voltage spikes
- the beginning and ending voltage of the primary or source battery
- the beginning and ending voltage of the charged battery along with
- the charging time to raise it to that level
- the work it can do after it is charged

Since it is claimed that this type of charging can take over 20 cycles of charge and discharge to condition the battery to receive spikes, please include what number of cycles the battery has completed and other necessary details.

Thank you,

jeanna

jeanna

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Re: Recharging Batteries using only voltage spikes. A Results Log Thread
« Reply #1 on: March 23, 2010, 09:39:48 PM »
I began to experiment with this kind of charging over a month ago. Here is what I have seen.

The battery is a 1.2v Nicd battery with 500mAH printed on its label.
It was in a sorry state where it could only be recharged to 1.28v then would stop working at 1.23v.
So, I thought it was a good candidate for this kind of test.
Bedini says Nicd's recharge well with spikes.

I charged it from the secondary of a jtc which gives  70V spikes at a rate of 45khz.
After recharging, I either let it rest a bit or put it directly into a germanium based joule thief with 1 led in the C-E and count the time the light is on.

At first the light continued to turn off when the battery was at 1.23v, and it did this in less and less time.
I needed to take drastic measures to break into the lower end crystals.
I actually used the jtc with the germanium transistor to pull down the battery.
It did not work. The light went off at 1.23v

What really worked was to put the battery into a jtc running a LoA bulb from its secondary.
This circuit continues to drain a battery well below the turn on level of the transistor.
This worked and on the 5th cycle I had a working range of 1.19v -- 1.31v which immediately relaxed to 1.27v

However, by the next day the battery under load only flashed briefly then went out.

That was rock bottom. (and a little discouraging)

The range remained very narrow and I continued to drain the battery with the jtc with the LoA bulb on the secondary.

Finally on the 9th cycle, the range began to widen and the length of time under load increased.
After this 9th cycle, the Nicd filled to 1.36v after 10 hours of recharge.
The time it lit a jtc was just under an hour.

Each day after that it improved more.
The time to support the load increased and also the brightness of the light increased.

At the end of the 16th recharge the light went on very very bright and stayed bright for longer than 2 1/2 hours.

then I packed it away and must have shorted it.

-----------------

But, I did not need to start ALL over again.
It took 5 cycles to bring it back to the 2 1/2 hour load time.

I popped a normal healthy and charged Nicd into the same circuit and it light much brighter for over 5 hours, so there is a way to go.

Today, after 10 recharges since the short, the led is at full brightness for more than 2 1/2 hours.
---------------

I have devised a way to measure the brightness of the led.
I hold my hand or a paper a distance from the top of the bulb and measure the distance to where the light is too diffuse.
Soon, this will not be a good measurement, because yesterday the light hit the ceiling of the room for over 2 hours.

=============
Next time I will lower the charger circuit to have spikes just twice the height of the full battery level. I betcha I wasted about 67v in each spike.  :D

thank you,

jeanna

guruji

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Re: Recharging Batteries using only voltage spikes. A Results Log Thread
« Reply #2 on: March 24, 2010, 10:46:00 PM »
Hi Jeanna interesting what you've expermented. Today I was reading JB starters guide about batteries and he says the same what you've experienced that batteries after certain cycles of charge and discharges become better.
Thanks

The Observer

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Re: Recharging Batteries using only voltage spikes. A Results Log Thread
« Reply #3 on: March 25, 2010, 12:17:32 AM »
Here's some info.

The Observer

jeanna

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Re: Recharging Batteries using only voltage spikes. A Results Log Thread
« Reply #4 on: March 25, 2010, 03:01:15 AM »
Hi Guruji,
Yes, I got that info from John.
My hope was that a joule thief circuit could do it.
I know someone recharging a much bigger 12 or 18v battery, but he is not ready to post yet, so there will be some wonderful information.
Do you have a battery to charge with the secondary of a joule thief?
It will be great to hear how it goes for you too.

@observer,
I am not sure what this means??
It was resonating between 2 batteries?
Is this a recharging process?

thank you,

jeanna

The Observer

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Re: Recharging Batteries using only voltage spikes. A Results Log Thread
« Reply #5 on: March 25, 2010, 05:13:47 AM »
Jeanna,

There are 2 batteries in my circuit.

One is running a simple oscillator hooked up to an audio transformer.
The other is being charged by 3 volt pulses that occur on the secondary when the transformer is resonating.

Basically, I discovered the resonance at the frequency where the speaker got much louder.
              So... what was a very small sine wave output of half a volt becomes 3 volt pulses at resonance.
                       It will light a 3 volt LED brightly with a 1.2 volt battery.
                       Only at 1 particular frequency...1 in a million you could say.

I wanted to see if this charges a battery... hense the prior graph.

Since then, I found 40 volt back pulses on the primary side...
                                                                                            with which I have attempted to charge a battery while the speaker is going.
Experiment still pending.

The Observer
 


guruji

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Re: Recharging Batteries using only voltage spikes. A Results Log Thread
« Reply #6 on: March 25, 2010, 09:22:25 PM »
Hi Guruji,
Yes, I got that info from John.
My hope was that a joule thief circuit could do it.
I know someone recharging a much bigger 12 or 18v battery, but he is not ready to post yet, so there will be some wonderful information.
Do you have a battery to charge with the secondary of a joule thief?
It will be great to hear how it goes for you too.

@observer,
I am not sure what this means??
It was resonating between 2 A?
Is this a recharging process?

thank you,

jeanna

Hi Jeanna yes I did one on Gadgetmall circuit and it lights 4leds plus recharging another AA.
I did a bigger JT on slayer too but this one is more to light a CFL than charging batteries but surely I am going to build other Jt's to run leds and recharge batteries.
Thanks

crowclaw

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Re: Recharging Batteries using only voltage spikes. A Results Log Thread
« Reply #7 on: March 26, 2010, 02:51:25 PM »
Hi Jeanna,

I've been experimenting with charging circuits recently away from the JT thread. I have been using low frequency inductors i.e. mains chokes and transformers. What seems to be very... very critical is the frequencies and for my experiments with an old 12 volt / 2.8Ah gel cell hitting around 64Hz and also 104Hz seems to work. I'm using a function generator and produce spikes of 15% marks space for tests it's ideal for this type of work. One of the circuits I found to experiment with uses a 12 volt cell which switches across two capacitors in parallel, these are then connected in series and discharge across the battery. Relay switching was used... again the frequency was very critical and seemed to work best around 10Hz_20Hz. What I have noticed so far is that the cell appears to accept a charge and stalls at around 11 volts but doesn't give much back on load. This may have something to do with your charge / recharge cycling!!  Still experimenting know with charge/discharge to battery using photo flash cap.

jeanna

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Re: Recharging Batteries using only voltage spikes. A Results Log Thread
« Reply #8 on: March 26, 2010, 10:25:26 PM »
Hi Jeanna yes I did one on Gadgetmall circuit and it lights 4leds plus recharging another AA.
I did a bigger JT on slayer too but this one is more to light a CFL than charging batteries but surely I am going to build other Jt's to run leds and recharge batteries.
Thanks
Do you have any results to share about how long it took to recharge and how long the charge lasted under a load?
I am using a joule thief to test the recharge.
It is strange that it gives me different results on different days.

I would like to know what magic you are performing to get your AA to be fully recharged by a joule thief.
Or whatever you get. It would be great to see your results, if you are willing to post them.

@observer,
That goes for you too.
I am very interested in seeing the results.

@crowclaw,
Please could you provide scope shots?



thank you,

jeanna

crowclaw

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Re: Recharging Batteries using only voltage spikes. A Results Log Thread
« Reply #9 on: March 27, 2010, 12:41:46 PM »
@crowclaw,
Please could you provide scope shots?


Hi Jeanna

In the midst of so many variations! ... trying different ideas, so yes will post some shots when i feel results are good

jeanna

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Re: Recharging Batteries using only voltage spikes. A Results Log Thread
« Reply #10 on: April 04, 2010, 04:57:54 AM »
My Nicd battery is continuing to recharge and it seems to perform as well as it did 10 days ago.

It is interesting to point out that I can recharge it from a battery that is working at a much lower voltage than what it is causing to appear in the charge battery, but for durations tests from the charge itself, I do not think I am seeing anything great.

I did change the test circuit to a silicon transistor based one making the light from the secondary.
First I tried one I already had. which is now on the plant battery#1 and it ran for 10 hours with this recharged battery.

Then I made a circuit especially for testing this charger and it has a 2N3904 and a secondary and so is very similar to that one just mentioned, but it only runs for 3 to 4 hours before the light is a small dot.

I am a little tempted to stop this and use a normal amps recharge, but then I will not be able to return to this.

Monday, I will see what happens with the alkaline battery, since I have a box full of them.

thank you,

jeanna

stprue

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Re: Recharging Batteries using only voltage spikes. A Results Log Thread
« Reply #11 on: April 04, 2010, 09:26:57 PM »
Jeanna, this is a perfectly fantastic topic to start up!  I'm glad you are the one driving this  ;D

I thought I remembered Bedini mentioning that he had to "condition" his batteries!  Basically meaning that he charged and discharged his gel cell's a number of times before they preformed optimally.  It sounds similar to what you were describing with your ni-cad!  Anyways I thought I would share that piece of info if you haven't heard it already.

Keep up the good work everyone!

 8)

IceStorm

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Re: Recharging Batteries using only voltage spikes. A Results Log Thread
« Reply #12 on: April 04, 2010, 09:57:56 PM »
Take care to not sum both battery voltage to know if there a gain or not, battery discharge curve are not linear so voltage doesn't tell you anything useful, for example, a 12v battery at 13v for a load X can take 30 minute to go to 12.9v, so you assume a decrease of 0.1v per 30 min but the reality is it can take 45-60 minute for 12.9->12.8 and 20 minute for 12.8->12.7.

Best Regards,
IceStorm

jeanna

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Re: Recharging Batteries using only voltage spikes. A Results Log Thread
« Reply #13 on: April 04, 2010, 11:23:31 PM »
Welcome icestorm
Good point! thank you.

@Stprue.
Thanks.
In fact I did get that information from John Bedini.
I think I would have been stumped otherwise.
It makes a better recharge to cycle it more times than to have it recharging longer.
It is a good rule to remember about this.

@all,
This is odd.
Just after I said nuthin much yesterday, I am seeing great results.

Today's results are something like the day before yesterday.
I have been switching between 2 drive batteries.
I cannot say it is the drive battery, but maybe there is a bad drive battery which makes the results took not so good occasionally?

So anyway,
The light has been very bright and throwing the light for more than 24 inches since 6 hours ago.

I think I will need to make note of the drive battery from now on.
Maybe I can learn something else here.

jeanna

jeanna

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Re: Recharging Batteries using only voltage spikes. A Results Log Thread
« Reply #14 on: April 05, 2010, 04:23:16 AM »
OK I will keep the light on but I am going offline so I want to report.

The recharged battery which has never had anything recharging it but spikes since early feb this year has just run a jtc with a bright led on the secondary for

11 hours.

And the beam is still over 20 inches away from the light.
And, it was recharged for 14 hours with a jtc whose battery had dropped to  0.76v when I took it off this morning.

So, this is definitely a successful way to recharge a battery... at least sometimes.

Now, to figure what is wrong when it does not work very well.

More later,

jeanna