I'm an electrician by trade and I did an adult apprenticeship in my mid 20's. I really struggled with the class room side of things, particularly the maths. I find your teaching style with practical models and demonstrations much easier to follow as well as being far more enjoyable. Your enthusiasm is infectious and it makes me want to collect up materials and play around with them myself. Love your content.
Robert, I see a lot of unclear thinking in the comments about the point of building prototypes. I completely understand the frustration but rest assured that you’re pulling us all a little further down the path of understanding. Not everyone is going to learn in the same way or at the same pace. You’re doing your part.
Robert Murray-Smith I grew up with two teachers as parents. This is how teaching goes, for better or worse. If you stop caring entirely then you won’t be effective at teaching, but if you care too much then you’ll burn out. It’s one of those balance things that you never quite perfect, you just have to make constant adjustments over time. Anyway, I really appreciate what you’re doing so I’m trying to keep you making more. 😀
I have 30+ years experience in electronics. If you count my time as a hobbyist then more like 40+. I still do a "proof of concept" prototype before a full prototype. It usually does not save me much time these days (as I often get designs right first time) but it certainly used to. I suspect many of the people who don't understand this are still at school.
Great stuff Rob! Incidentally, I love your mounting the seat and handle bar of the exercise bike to your shop wall like a trophy bust of a successful scrap hunt!!
As always, great video! Practical use of things that would otherwise end up scrap metal. Now it just needs a 2m set of blades and a 5m pole! This could charge a capacitor bank and with a voltage regulator, charge batteries for an off grid lighting system. If I hadn't already aquired a load of 3 phase washing machine motors, I would be out looking for an exercise bike! I always thought of myself as a decent scrapper, but you are definitely deserving of some sort of trophy!
this kind of recycling is much more efficient. instead melting down and reshaping the material, you would just use it as it is. I hope this would inspire many to develop such processes.
Put a duplicate secondary from another MOT in series and you got twice the Volts, put in parallel and you'll have twice the amperage. Wrap fiberglass reinforced tape around the circuferance of the wheel and you'll be able to increase the RPM which = higher voltage. Position a series of MOTs around the PMG wheel so that the drags are cancelled out as much as posible and you should be able to get a Bedini Energizer to maintain the PMG. Awesome as always mate! I have always loved and seen the value in making things out of thing people throw out.
I think if you remove the core and just use the coil, bring it closer to the magnets, then rearrange the magnets so that only one pole is covering the whole coil at a time (NN, SS. NN. SS. for that size of coil and magnets it looks like), you will have very significantly better output. In fact use multiple coils, as you mention. I think the power output will improve dramatically.
that's a good result from some cheap magnets, I wonder, if the transformer was flipped over so the coil was closer to the magnets, would it create a stronger output ? too many people cry about efficiency because they live in their own little world of ideology rather than just pausing for a moment to think about what's actually being achieved. these videos are a regular part of my coffee break, just sit with my cuppa and " see what Rob's cooked up this time " lol, nicely done sir, keep up the hard work, always appreciated.
Wow.. Fantastic in its simplicity. Amazing in its capabilities. I think my favorite part of this is that you could easily retrofit that to an exercise bike. Now to come up with a great storage solution.
take all your old a4 paper bills,make each sheet into one of roberts batteries and cap's and stack them together in a ream charge ,test,and hang on your shed wall ready for use..
Bloody awesome mate 👍 Imagine if you had about 6 microwave transformers on a single flywheel connected in parallel, then imagine another 4 to 10 flywheels connected the same way and powered by a windmill or watermill. You would have something that could run a circuit that rectifies then regulates the power so it could trickle charge a battery bank of at least 200 to 500 Ah's continuously 24/7. Then connect that battery bank to an inverter to run a few appliances (Refrigerator, Television etc,) as well as all the lights (running on LED's) in your home for free. This combined with other generator projects around the house would save you hundreds off your power bill each year. This means that this project would pay for itself in the first year. Everything after that year is pure savings. Once again, great video Rob, you're a pure gem, one in a million. Thank you,
@@ThinkingandTinkering Don't connect the coils together unless you connect them so that they are in phase. Much easier to have a bridge rectifier on each coil and connect the DC outputs together.
One could reduce the losses of the system you've described quite a bit if they just ensured the coils were in phase, and connected them in series. There's enough room on that wheel to affix 8-9 coils, so as long as you use a mechanical speed regulator you could ballpark the 220-240(whatever your appliance wants) without conversion steps in between. Seeing as how rectification is ~70%, battery charge and return is 50-90%, and inversion runs from 80-95%, that means that on the low end you have (generator output × 0.7 × 0.5 × 0.8 =) 28% of the power you started with, and on the high end(as in, with expensive equipment) you have (generator output × 0.7 × 0.9 × 0.95 =) ~60% of the generator output after the inverter.
Well done sir. I believe those who spend time railing on about efficiency are missing the bigger picture. It's about a proof of concept and what amazing things can be done with scrap . We throw so much away that can be repurposed . Thank you for what you do sir.
You’ve cracked it with that exercise bike, I doubt if more energy could be got from it! Love how slowly you have to turn it, and the fly wheel effect keeps it generating, great stuff, best yet in my opinion! Re ‘under load’ I only mentioned it with your static charger cos it would just be interesting to see what it could do, not cos it matters, the device is excellent!
no worries mate - if something is truly experimental I tend not to put it under load because I know I am going to do something else with it so don't see the point but when it is reaching a conclusion I will give I try under load just to see for myself
love this - only today did I remove two transformers and also the two turntable motors , not to mention a handful of relays and microswitches. happy days. i even got a nice motor from one of those microwave - oven combination types which is great as it has a metal shaft and metal gears.
If someone had a few hamsters or a good horse working on an exercise wheel .. the possibilities are endless. 🤣 Love the demonstrations .. really amazing and infinitely wonderful. 169,000 subscribers .. that's an awesome classroom!!! 👍
That's good. You could fine tune it by spacing the magnets so that when a north is over the centre of the laminations you have souths over the ends, and vice versa. Re that blue coil, you're not getting much out because the magnets are rotating parallel to the windings, try turning the coil so that it is perpendicular to the flywheel.
I am not sure I think it was just too far from the field mate - field strength decreases with the square of the distance - and really the field was normal to the coil - but cheers, Rob
@@ThinkingandTinkering Ah but - the rotation was parallel to the coil, according to Flemmings Right-Hand Rule all three must be mutually perpendicular to generate a current
@@rogerbarton497 you mean a 'higher' current, thats the thing about following mathamatical rules to the letter, to cover 'more' of the perpendicular wire you would perhaps make the magnets follow a complicated mechanical sawtooth wave path
@@rogerbarton497 I am sorry mate - I don't really like to say this but Flemming's rule indicates direction of current flow in a given set of circumstances -it doesn't govern anything - Faraday's Law tells us the a coil moving in a field will generate an EMF and Ampere's law tells us about the current - actually I just replicated the same set up found in the synchronous motor that we pulled apart at the beginning of the video - so we have a good idea that the setup is fairly standard and works, which to my mind means the main issues are really about the specific implementation as opposed to the general structure
@@paulmaydaynight9925 Sure - the rules of basic physics assume perfect conditions, perhaps I should have "significantly more more current". EDIT - "make the magnets follow a complicated mechanical sawtooth wave path" or just mount the flywheel on wobbly bearings!
Thank you for letting me see ur projects. I have a learning curve and I have to see what you are doing for my brain to get it. Again I do thank you for your time and prayers for teaching me how to do things like that and I have tried my own heater experiment and it was fun and now I have a few more things to make
Very nice. One thing I saw is the LEDs seemed to get brighter when one part of the rotor went past. I'd wager that's where the gap in your magnets are. I'm sure you'd get more output if you spaced the magnets at the same distance apart as the fingers of the E in the transformer.
@@ThinkingandTinkering Well I've gone and ordered a bunch of magnets, so I might manage to actually get around to doing that soon lol. I've got couple of flyback transformers to strip down.
Yes, this is exactly right. The whole point of the iron core is to conduct the magnetic flux. If you want to apply a magnetic field to that assembly, then for maximum results you want to line up, for example, one of the core fingers with the N of one magnet while lining up the next core finger with the S of the next magnet, and so on. If you don't do that then you aren't really taking advantage of the actual physics, you're just waving some magnets around in the vicinity of a cut-up transformer hoping for something to happen.
I’d be curious to see you hook this to a battery with some kind of boost or buck converter or a charge controller. That would be awesome to see a battery getting charged with such little effort. Very awesome
Those light only need a few amps to run so it would charge just not extremely effiecent or fast just like he said. If we put a few on the same axle and hooked them up into parallel we could get more amps out of it👍
Forget the haters Rob, people point out negatives when they have nothing positive to add. I love the flywheel doing most of the work. I still think adding a median magnet between North and South would improve the output, but under the circumstances it's beautiful.
You were barely turning that too! That's really great for such little effort and certainly little expenses. Question, have you been working all weekend? Every few hours another video. I'll be posting my video later today I hope. I'll let know when I do.
Brilliant, I think you're absolutely right: efficiency is a holistic term, it's not just the percentage of energy conversion, it's also taking into account our needs, and the cost in time, money, effort, and other resources we spend to achieve something. The 80/20 rule probably applies to the "efficient vs sufficient" issue, finding the middle path between under-doing something and overdoing it. Having said that... I've noticed the iron core spans about 4 magnet widths. Seems to me that means about half the time you get a magnetic field that either cancels itself, or bypasses the coil, and never reaches its maximum. If you were to space the magnets a bit further apart, so that three of them fit the width of the core, you would get more energy for less magnets, (and less work attaching them to the flywheel:). Just because it's more efficient, doesn't necessarily mean we need to avoid it, right? ;) Thanks for this video and for all your good work.
I appreciate your creativity and sharing it with all. I love messing around with magnets. I have those same rectangle magnets. I took them and grinded them done to make a thin edge. I have also cut slots in ring magnets. Its interesting the different effects you can get out of them by changing the shape.
Awesome, weak magnets, 1 coil and no tweaking with a gentle spin and generating 1 watt+ RMS... now thats sweet, I can see you getting 20 watts out of that thing just doing more of what you have already done. I have always liked using washing machine motors and Alternaters for quick no fuss big energy builds (alternaters like a wicked step up gear like the one you pulled from the bike), but now I have something to do with the MOTs that dont make my high voltage experiment bench :)
Rob, your dedication and inquisitive mind is inspirational. I'd love to see someone take some of your ideas and develop them into equipment that could be incorporated in new build houses (maybe even retrofitted into older ones) to reduce power consumption. Given BoJo's recent drive towards renewables there ought to be a market out there for stuff like this. Cheers.
If u want more juice orient the magnets to where north is in the center and south is on on the outer prices of the transformer. It seems that 4 magnets come in contact with the dace of the transformer u may get better results with a NNSS magnet orientation that way 2 north or on the center and 1 south are on both the outer sides of the transformer plates u may get more complete u shaped magnetic fields on the transformer plates in turn making stronger output on the transformer
.....if magnet placements do work against each other then simply cutting off outer projections of iron core might give improved results . But accurate placement of magnets is preferred for top results.
When I explain something I've made with say a 60% efficiency, I get criticized. Yet upon reminding people their car is only ~22% efficient, they justify why that is great. People are weird.
Exactly. People put OFF others from even starting something, simply by "efficiency". I think they confuse it with the likes of a battery/power level, if its 20% then thats considered "flat" lol....... What they don't realise is that you can "store" this over time. It might not be much, but it does add up, and in a world were we need to use what ever we can get, isn't a failure. Doing NOTHING imho, that's a failure.
I know it drives me mad and Ronald is right - so often it is about putting people off and showing what an expert the poster island trying to do that at your expense I sometimes look at the account of such posters - normally they have no content - they are just armchair critics - I tend to have very little respect for that as there is just a huge difference between saying something and doing something and to my mind you don't understand anything unless you have done it and tried to explain it to others
Many things are less efficient. Power plant ( nuclear or coal thermal energy ) : 33 to 37 %. And that is when cooled by seawater. When cooled by cooling towers take 3% of. And the amount of measures taken to put efficiency to the max is extensive in these plants. There's no way these can do better with the designs currently employed.
wow, that flywheel makes me relive my youth in 1981 (The Land Of Make Believe) when my brother had a flashlight that you had to squeeze for power. Whenever you squeezed you could hear the little flywheel spinning inside. I didnt know why and how exactly I guess, but at 10 years old but I found it interesting. I loved doing science at home until they began teaching it to me at 14 yo.... I dropped he subject the next year with a 6/10 . What a damn waste, still!
Rules of thumb -- stronger magnet = more field lines per sq cm (more voltage and amperage). Smaller air gap between magnet and core = higher magnetic permeability (less magnetic lines being wasted between magnet and core). More turns in the coil = more voltage. Larger diameter wire = more amperage. Ideally, you want as large of diameter wire as possible for good current that you need for power, with enough turns to deliver the voltage you want. You need as powerful of magnets as you can get, with as many turns of wire per coil possible in the space available. With your coil, you could arrange several transformers around the circumference, but use the primary coils not the high voltage secondary coils. I keep thinking that the wire used is only good for a couple of amps before it starts heating and burns. That means it will only produce small amperage now matter how good of a rig you make. If you can get a bunch of microwave transformers, use two stacks of primary windings wired in series per transformer frame. Also, space your magnets out more (less magnets) as you want the fields to go through the transformer core, not sharply bend over to the next magnet in series due to close spacing on the wheel. On the cheap, smaller inexpensive neodymium magnets may well still give you more lines of force per square CM than much larger ceramic magnets. You can tell the gauss by the pounds of pull. A really small neodymium may have the same five pound pull that your magnets probably have. Overall, the total amount of lines of force will be approximately equal, but the lines per square CM are way higher in the neodymium. The core itself has a saturation limit on the number of lines of force that can go through it at once and this is not often considered by people buying the biggest neodymium magnets they can find, as they often waste a ton of money for wasted lines of force. The ideal is a big enough neodymium with a small enough air gap to fully saturate the core. That secondary winding would be pushing out 6 - 10k volts at that point in an inch long wide flame type arc to ground with each magnet pass.
if you are careful not to break the ceramics, there are 2 ring magnets on the magnetron of that microwave. Use a dust mask and gloves because the ceramic is impregnated with beryllium and highly dangerous to ingest the dust if broken. Just be careful and the magnets can be removed without incident.
@@mwm2929 In one of Rob's video, he explains how easy it is to avoid beryllium-infection. First, tip of the magnetron is pinkish of colour if there is beryllium in it, otherwise not dangerous material (aluminium oxide or something). Other thing is just to not touch the ceramic tip, simple as that.
@@Teknopottu For sure. I took a job in an appliance repair workshop and scrapped hundreds of microwaves before I learned about the beryllium ceramics. We were smashing the things with hammers to separate the copper core from the rest! lol We were given no training or PPE for the job either. As a result, I have hundreds of magnets and luckily no ill health because of it. They are quite strong for ceramic magnets for sure. My favorite ones I took out of dishwasher pumps. cylinder magnets with N and S on either side of the cylinder on a small shaft.
@@mwm2929 Jeez! That's awful! Gladly you are okay. Wouldn't be the first time worker wasn't given proper precautions; my father worked decades with asbestos as a builder. That was trend of the time and many got ill and have died because of asbestos, luckily my father is guite healthy. Any project in mind with those magnets or have you already made something?
Now children,put down your phones(in a bucket of water) pay attention,and do something amazing! This man is smiling when he sleeps,and I have not heard a notification
Now we're talking :-). If you could close the gap and curve the iron with the wheel radius it would still perform a lot better. It would be interesting to stop kranking wo load so it would continue to run as flywheel and short the output. If you don't notice anything on the flywheel speed the efficiency of the whole thing is bad. If it stops in seconds it's good.
Very cool. But the coils are far from the magnets and it gets it's induction from the steel plates so putting it closer to the magnets will generate more electricity.
That's neat Robert, I especially like the way the flywheel keeps it going so long. Would you get more current with stronger magnets and larger wire, I mean enough more to make it worthwhile to do it ? Thanks
Great video although a bit hard to see the meter readout. Here is a suggestion for what it's worth, if you have a second camera you could do a close up of the meter readout and do an in-screen display in the corner of your video. That would be helpful. Never done it myself so I don't know how easy or difficult that is. Cheers
Hey mate I love it! I am tempted to make one with neodymium magnets and try improve the coils and have them all round. I wonder is you could make a pulley system and lower a heavy weight but once its spinning already then hopefully you would end up with a long story flow of power. S
As always inspiring as fate would have it. I just pulled 2 of these transformers out of my old storage. I am stocking up for future projects. I will have at least a month's worth of projects to keep me busy. LOL 😆
Only recently found your channel. Huge fan of your videos! I'm getting into learning electrical theory... which unfortunately means I have to look up half the words you use haha. Would it be possible to mount multiple transformer coils - would that "double" the output? What kind of difference in output would you see if it was powering a light, versus if you were charging a 12.6v car battery for instance?
nice,jargon can be hard to visualise, in this case go with the originators classic electrical theory analogy 'water' one way to remember it is The voltage is equivalent to the water pressure, the current is equivalent to the flow rate, and the resistance is like the pipe size.
Cool to see how little it takes to produce useful output. Any chance you'll do a video showing what components it takes to use this to charge a battery (like a big zinc-bromine one)
Thanks for your video. Would I be able to hook this up to a mppt charge controller and charge a battery? I would love it if you could do a step by step video. I’m a novice when it comes to electronics.
Hello Bob Just to let you know relative permeability of MOT is between 8 to 10 It is miserable magnetic conductor By changing metal lamination for better ones ( 10000) you get much better results
What is the significance of the position on the magnets compared to the MOT ? I cant visualize the magnetic flux. Also you could improve efficiency by grinding the MOT to have a curve on it to get it as close to the magnets as possible. And then adding more MOT's and wiring them in series or parallel etc.
Love the concept I just need an old exercise bike now! Are you going to try with two or more of these Rob? in series and parallel? Also is the laminated Iron core useful I.E. will it give a lower or higher output without it?
In america a little known fact is a gallon of gas at 66 degrees has more density that a gallon at 76 degrees. The water jacket heats to around 180 degrees. So by heating the fuel with hot water it increases your gas mileage.
@@ThinkingandTinkering in the bible the thief in the night was explained using gasoline. You fill a glass jug in the late afternoon, seal it and mark the level. When you check in the cool morning the fuel is below the line. If you heat the fuel you will lose power. In drag racing a ice bath is used around fuel lines to get the most fuel into the combustion chamber. Another friend suggested using a ultrasonic mister on the intake as the fuel ignites it creates steam pressure. All sorts of tricks you can do to increase distance per volume. Government wants that tax. Why alcohol used to be illegal fuel. Now they add just enough to make mayonnaise in the old carburetor. Oil mixed with water based fuel. Mayonnaise you use a egg to bind the oil with water. Many have died trying to show how to use water as a fuel supply. You modify not only the carburetor but also the alternator. Mainly the voltage regulator. I know little tricks like if a car isn't charging check to see if the field coil is working by placing a screwdriver to the back of the shaft, when the car is running it should have a magnetic field. I always found alternators interesting how the battery makes the magnets and the stationary coil makes the current to charge the battery. Look at ignition coils on lawnmowers. Now increase the number of magnets on the flywheel :) why I used a double half wave rectifier to a voltage doubler. The microwave transformer has that W shape and if you space the magnets correctly the iron should have N-S-N then flip to S-N-S. You have to grind a arc in the iron to match the diameter of the flywheel. Which paper matchbooks are good for setting gaps. And the strikers are good for standing the points. FYI think about reported fuel consumption of jet engines. Measured in pounds/kilos per minute ;) this package was measured by weight not volume. ...anyways keep up the good work, you are inspiring many.
i made a high amp battery charger from one before. rewound the primary and salvaged diods from a old alternator. the thing works great better then some i have bought. but the duty cycle is bad but works great for jump starts. a true scrap battery charger.
I wonder what the dual output would be if you had kept both coils on the transformer. You would have one as a 'volt stream' and the other as an 'amp stream'
At Minute 3:12 you can see how the LED start pulsing, which is synchronous with the wheel rotation. i think this is due to the magnetic pattern of the many magnets on the wheel. Thx for the video!
As you said, the meter showed what is possible. you then hook up a load, find if it will provide the power you need, and you figure out if the effort to generate the energy is worth it.
Use the coils from the washing machine pumps just take out the existing magnet housing and cut the ends of the the fork so its flush with the coil housing. Will work better that the mot.
You have to love those microwave transformers! They are so versatile. I have four mounted in a box and wound with one turn of 50mm wire each to make a very powerful spot welder (I use it to pull bodywork dents). Obviously, I used the primary coils and removed the secondary. I do like this idea. If the transformer was ground down to fit closer to the magnets, would it be more efficient (I know you don't like that word)? Or would it be so little that it's not worth the effort?
the field strength decreases with the square of the distance mate so the nearer the 'fit' the higher the output and the increase is marked - so i would say it was worth it for sure
@m w mw, did you forget about roberts low power paper/stone heaters for all your cold working area's, time to make some aluminium can string collector/terminals and paint some diy heaters
@m w For the generator, I believe that parallel will give you more amps at the lower voltage and series will give you more voltage at the lower amps. I'm thinking about using four or six around the magnet wheel. My spot welded is four in series, but only one full turn of wire on each. This puts out about 8v at about 600amps. If I'm not careful, it will melt a hole in the car body!
Hi Robert, I am kind of new on the channel and I only watched this video now. I really like the idea and wondered whether the bike could not be converted to a gravity generator by adding a gearbox and a weight. The slow speed looks ideal for it.
I enjoy your videos but must say that your multimeter /VOM is very hard to see, making it difficult to see it on my computer screen. A darker or larger meter would be the icing on the cake. - Thanks for the great videos.
Sorry about that mate - it's what I've got but I am working on a solution - as you can tell I have taken on board a few suggestions and as long as they don't cost me much o am sure we will get there
Why have you left the transformer metal around the coil? Wouldn't that waste some of the magnetic flux? Especially as it's laminated and designed to minimise eddy currents? Or is this helping?
Magnets are so close to each other. I think if you half the number of them it can put more amps. The magnetic fields of those magnets interfere with each other
To take one coil out, you can cut the wires on both sides instead of opening the iron part. Then you take a rod and a hammer to push the inner copper wires out.
Hugues,oc doing it that lazy way doesnt reclaim the most valuable ready to go parts, the already processed insulated copper, its pritty hard to build anything by destroying your ready to go base materials
Impressed with the power output. 🤓👍 Many questions; How much power could be made with multiple transformers? (Simply proportionate?) Different transformers? Would the other windings from the MW transformer provide a different type or limit of power? Could the magnets from the MW magnetron work instead of the purchased bar magnets?
I would really really like to see the difference between neodymium and those ceramics I've always heard that the ceramics were preferable actually when making a generator and I've never heard why but I've heard so-called experts claim this it's too bad that this is a 2 year old project at this point I would even donate money to help pay for the neodymium. That's the problem with this project unless it could be reproduced exactly you get stuck with the bill because unless I could find the exact exact exact same components to replicate this it would be a different experiment I guess altogether I mean I reckon I could come up with my own comparison but you already have half the data right there. Do you have a good source for ceramic magnets that seems like a very reasonable price that you paid for those?
I am Completely Novice in electronics but i'm interested in this topic. My question is, Can i connect those wires to a car battery and charge it? If not, what do i need. I want to know the basics of once the structure is made, with magnets and transformers and motion, what/how do i wire this in order to charge a battery system with it.
Keep pushing forward. Loving your content, amazing energy to you and to flow. Thank you for helping. I am a romantic. I build from the drawing . The engineering, the genius. Together we move mountains and build unlimited possibilities. Thank you. Love, respect and gratitude
totally get what you're saying about sufficiency (and lots of other times you've made the same point and perfection being the enemy of getting /something/ going), ... BUT... you've triggered me to want to increase the efficiency of my vehicle. n_n ~ side rambles.... (hehe, sorry, these videos inspire me to sorta blog about my projects) ~ interestingly... a daihatsu hijet (wanted a bedford rascal really, but after many fails at that, an unexpected punt on ebay got me the hijet for £500). rediculous mpg for a 1990 vehicle that can sleep 2 (or 4 if i get hammocks made) or seat 6. ... the original "plan" was to get it converted to fully solar electric. poverty, ill health, procrastination, dauntedness, distraction and de-prioritisation have all played a roll in not getting that underway, as well as just not having a clue really how to start to go about that. having a "plan" (/goal) and no way to get there, may have potential, but (as you've inspired/convinced me) until i start to play around with things more, i wont have the repetior to know how to come up with the solutions to fulfil the remit. good grief that's clumsily worded. if i dont play around, i wont know how. ... yeah, that's the basic gist. gotta play around, before i get my solar electro ride around. it's failing to start now, as a petrol chugger ... idk where from battery to alternator or ... idk. idk enough. and i almost dont care to. would rather get it converted to live off the sun. ... though it's driver door's never closed right, so it's not water tight. ... but. sufficiency... i'm not vain, i'm sure i could jank something sufficient there. it's just a small gap. foam, an inch or two would do it ~ or some brave panel beating ~ or could turn it into a water capture with some cunning deployment of tarp and wire. sufficient... (along with some rust treatment)... to get it out into the sun... and then with that added trepidation out of the way (and not needing to spend over 2 grand on an antique door shipped from japan), then i could get underway... or at least have less excuses not to ... to proceed to what the next step might be... re-painting it with carbon nanotubules and buckyballs. ;) it's ok, i got over being triggered to want to increase my vehicle's efficiency. ~ well, how efficient can it be when it wont start without a jump. ... i've got this other idea while typing that... ensconce the whole thing in carbon fibre, with a few creative tweaks and bulges here and there, turn it into an amphibious vehicle. twill lose some efficiency, and gain a lot of functionality. and longevity. anyways, waffles aside... point being: get playing and learning, sufficiency behoves, efficiency haunts. yay! :)
I tested my microwave's screen by putting my smartphone inside the compartment (no, not turning it on). Leaving a Wi-Fi signal strength app running, the signal strength (2.4 GHz) was surprisingly strong - I was surprised.
Do you think if we splash out on the Neo Dyms I could make an 'exercise desk' to power my 60W computer ? I jest, -- of course I would include a bromide gravity battery in case legs get tired. Great stuff
no of course not - I am saying don't get too tied up with what folks tell you - use your own approach and measure success in your terms rather than other folks terms
I think the task he set himself in this video is simply to show a mechanism that puts out a non-trivial amount of power, and non-trivial in this case means enough to do one useful thing: power the lights. What’s “useful” is highly subjective. If you’re sitting in the dark, this contraption is already extremely useful. More broadly, we can attach all manner of things to this contraption, and possibly modify this contraption. For example, I have a flowing stream on my property that could be harnessed via a waterwheel to run this. If I built it, I might make it larger so I can put lots of microwave coils around it. And then the output would go to a charge controller, charger and battery bank system that I have, mostly because I already have it. What’s useful to you depends on what you have in your context. “Useful” isn’t a static concept and so cannot be defined or applied without knowing the context into which it’s going.
tony, Are you saying that influere (in rush,to flow into,heating amps) is more useful, then just leave and use the thicker primary wire already in there,remember to insulate the then unused secondary as that could be dangerous at the same time
@@ThinkingandTinkering In a generating system, we use work to create power. Power is defined by the product of Voltage and Amps. Voltage in and of itself is useless.
@@twestgard2 very well put mate. Useful is measured on personal requirements and needs. A larger waterwheel running a flywheel each with a number of coils connected in parallel, maybe even a few flywheels of the same specs then your batteries would always be charged.
It was a prototype, but certainly. I would also grind out the top to match the curve and use N65 magnets. I would also adjust the ratio of the pulleys a bit to use for a wind-driven generator. Perhaps adding 2 more coils to the transformer core would work to generate 3 phase? I would probably try a neon sign transformer as well..many things could be done to optimize the efficiency of the device Robert has built. As he says in the video, it is sufficient to prove that it is a working platform.
oh mister Murray, i am lost for words. Your knowledge is so incredible and entertaining. Thank you a lot. I watch many of your videos as I am subscribed with bell heheheh. Thank you.
The spacing of your magnets is not great enough and using spacing that matches alignment with each of the 3 legs of E-core would increase efficiency and output power. Ideally the spacing should be done so the centers of the grouping of 3 magnets locates over the centers of the 3 legs of the E-core. The air gap distance between the magnets and the core segments also greatly affects performance. With all of the 3 legs of the E-core flat and made the same length for the original application, a better use for the E-core is an axial architecture instead of the radial architecture that is used in your experimental model. The E-core should be positioned alongside the rotor oriented so the vertical spine of the E is aligned with a chord line near as possible the arc of the outer edge of the disk rotor, with the center leg of the E parallel to the axis of the rotor. As the magnets pass by the ends of the legs of the E-core there will be an attraction exerted at one point laterally loading the disk in an unfavorable way hard on the spindle bearings, but this is remedied by having an identical E-core located directly 180 degrees across the rotor to equalize lateral forces on the disk and spindle bearings, and smooth the mechanical operation. Such an axial architecture is adaptable to having additional E-core stator segments on each side of the rotor. Where polarity allows for the architecture used it is possible multiple cores can be in series to add their voltages or connected in parallel to combine their currents, or some of both effects possible depending on the number and arrangement of cores that is used. This axial architecture is good for a low rpm but high output machine adaptable to use as motor or alternator or generator. Removing the unused windings should have little or no effect, and those could all be left undisturbed and may be useful for other different voltage output applications. Where many stator segment E-cores are present as an array, those segments can be connected various ways for different outputs from those separate coils used as accessory outputs.
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I'm an electrician by trade and I did an adult apprenticeship in my mid 20's. I really struggled with the class room side of things, particularly the maths. I find your teaching style with practical models and demonstrations much easier to follow as well as being far more enjoyable. Your enthusiasm is infectious and it makes me want to collect up materials and play around with them myself. Love your content.
Robert, I see a lot of unclear thinking in the comments about the point of building prototypes. I completely understand the frustration but rest assured that you’re pulling us all a little further down the path of understanding. Not everyone is going to learn in the same way or at the same pace. You’re doing your part.
thank you mate for taking a bit of time to post that - I appreciate it and like everyone I need a reality check every now and then - cheers
Robert Murray-Smith I grew up with two teachers as parents. This is how teaching goes, for better or worse. If you stop caring entirely then you won’t be effective at teaching, but if you care too much then you’ll burn out. It’s one of those balance things that you never quite perfect, you just have to make constant adjustments over time. Anyway, I really appreciate what you’re doing so I’m trying to keep you making more. 😀
I have 30+ years experience in electronics. If you count my time as a hobbyist then more like 40+. I still do a "proof of concept" prototype before a full prototype. It usually does not save me much time these days (as I often get designs right first time) but it certainly used to. I suspect many of the people who don't understand this are still at school.
Dear God people think here. Without prototypes imagine how dangerous Boeing would make air travel.
@@worldsgonemad4600 lol, wait a 737 minute now…
Brilliant Rob! First use of the secondary coil from a microwave transformer. Well done sir!
awesome - cheers mate
@@ThinkingandTinkering what's the purpose in using the secondary coil instead of the primary coil?
@@jeffreyrood8755 What about using both?
Great stuff Rob! Incidentally, I love your mounting the seat and handle bar of the exercise bike to your shop wall like a trophy bust of a successful scrap hunt!!
lol - well spotted mate
Saw that too!
As always, great video! Practical use of things that would otherwise end up scrap metal. Now it just needs a 2m set of blades and a 5m pole! This could charge a capacitor bank and with a voltage regulator, charge batteries for an off grid lighting system. If I hadn't already aquired a load of 3 phase washing machine motors, I would be out looking for an exercise bike! I always thought of myself as a decent scrapper, but you are definitely deserving of some sort of trophy!
lol - cheers mate and nice suggestions cheers
this kind of recycling is much more efficient. instead melting down and reshaping the material, you would just use it as it is. I hope this would inspire many to develop such processes.
I hope for the same mate
It's not about efficiency but sufficiency. I love that. This is just another example of why I like this channel. Thanks Robert
Put a duplicate secondary from another MOT in series and you got twice the Volts, put in parallel and you'll have twice the amperage. Wrap fiberglass reinforced tape around the circuferance of the wheel and you'll be able to increase the RPM which = higher voltage. Position a series of MOTs around the PMG wheel so that the drags are cancelled out as much as posible and you should be able to get a Bedini Energizer to maintain the PMG. Awesome as always mate! I have always loved and seen the value in making things out of thing people throw out.
I think if you remove the core and just use the coil, bring it closer to the magnets, then rearrange the magnets so that only one pole is covering the whole coil at a time (NN, SS. NN. SS. for that size of coil and magnets it looks like), you will have very significantly better output. In fact use multiple coils, as you mention. I think the power output will improve dramatically.
give it a go mate - Ed R2 is right I am about getting it to do something and hopefully inspiring you to take it further
"Sufficient" vs "Efficient". I love that!
that's a good result from some cheap magnets, I wonder, if the transformer was flipped over so the coil was closer to the magnets, would it create a stronger output ? too many people cry about efficiency because they live in their own little world of ideology rather than just pausing for a moment to think about what's actually being achieved. these videos are a regular part of my coffee break, just sit with my cuppa and " see what Rob's cooked up this time " lol, nicely done sir, keep up the hard work, always appreciated.
like so much mate - the best answer is to try it and see - so I'll give it a go lol. and you're right there is a mile between saying and doing
Wow.. Fantastic in its simplicity. Amazing in its capabilities. I think my favorite part of this is that you could easily retrofit that to an exercise bike.
Now to come up with a great storage solution.
for sure mate
take all your old a4 paper bills,make each sheet into one of roberts batteries and cap's and stack them together in a ream charge ,test,and hang on your shed wall ready for use..
This is a grand opportunity to learn! Watch this man!
nice. what I like about this is the flywheel stores the energy put into it that isnt used - that probably actually makes it really efficient.
Bloody awesome mate 👍 Imagine if you had about 6 microwave transformers on a single flywheel connected in parallel, then imagine another 4 to 10 flywheels connected the same way and powered by a windmill or watermill. You would have something that could run a circuit that rectifies then regulates the power so it could trickle charge a battery bank of at least 200 to 500 Ah's continuously 24/7.
Then connect that battery bank to an inverter to run a few appliances (Refrigerator, Television etc,) as well as all the lights (running on LED's) in your home for free.
This combined with other generator projects around the house would save you hundreds off your power bill each year. This means that this project would pay for itself in the first year. Everything after that year is pure savings.
Once again, great video Rob, you're a pure gem, one in a million. Thank you,
tbh mate - I think this is very usable for something cobbled together from scrap
@@ThinkingandTinkering Don't connect the coils together unless you connect them so that they are in phase. Much easier to have a bridge rectifier on each coil and connect the DC outputs together.
One could reduce the losses of the system you've described quite a bit if they just ensured the coils were in phase, and connected them in series. There's enough room on that wheel to affix 8-9 coils, so as long as you use a mechanical speed regulator you could ballpark the 220-240(whatever your appliance wants) without conversion steps in between. Seeing as how rectification is ~70%, battery charge and return is 50-90%, and inversion runs from 80-95%, that means that on the low end you have (generator output × 0.7 × 0.5 × 0.8 =) 28% of the power you started with, and on the high end(as in, with expensive equipment) you have (generator output × 0.7 × 0.9 × 0.95 =) ~60% of the generator output after the inverter.
Imagine if you give this man a scrapyard a bunch of kids to teach and built we would have a very different world in just a generation !!
yes ;;; 100%
It would be my idea of heaven mate lol
Well done sir. I believe those who spend time railing on about efficiency are missing the bigger picture. It's about a proof of concept and what amazing things can be done with scrap . We throw so much away that can be repurposed . Thank you for what you do sir.
spot on mate and cheers
You’ve cracked it with that exercise bike, I doubt if more energy could be got from it! Love how slowly you have to turn it, and the fly wheel effect keeps it generating, great stuff, best yet in my opinion! Re ‘under load’ I only mentioned it with your static charger cos it would just be interesting to see what it could do, not cos it matters, the device is excellent!
no worries mate - if something is truly experimental I tend not to put it under load because I know I am going to do something else with it so don't see the point but when it is reaching a conclusion I will give I try under load just to see for myself
Brilliant idea. Never cross my mind to use an MOT as a generator. Thumbs up mate.
cheers mate
love this - only today did I remove two transformers and also the two turntable motors , not to mention a handful of relays and microswitches. happy days. i even got a nice motor from one of those microwave - oven combination types which is great as it has a metal shaft and metal gears.
If someone had a few hamsters or a good horse working on an exercise wheel .. the possibilities are endless. 🤣 Love the demonstrations .. really amazing and infinitely wonderful. 169,000 subscribers .. that's an awesome classroom!!! 👍
lol - for sure - maybe a small pet dog? lol
Put my kids computers on this thing, have some athletes in no time.
@@hissst69 🤣👍🏃♀️🏃♂️
That's good. You could fine tune it by spacing the magnets so that when a north is over the centre of the laminations you have souths over the ends, and vice versa.
Re that blue coil, you're not getting much out because the magnets are rotating parallel to the windings, try turning the coil so that it is perpendicular to the flywheel.
I am not sure I think it was just too far from the field mate - field strength decreases with the square of the distance - and really the field was normal to the coil - but cheers, Rob
@@ThinkingandTinkering Ah but - the rotation was parallel to the coil, according to Flemmings Right-Hand Rule all three must be mutually perpendicular to generate a current
@@rogerbarton497 you mean a 'higher' current, thats the thing about following mathamatical rules to the letter, to cover 'more' of the perpendicular wire you would perhaps make the magnets follow a complicated mechanical sawtooth wave path
@@rogerbarton497 I am sorry mate - I don't really like to say this but Flemming's rule indicates direction of current flow in a given set of circumstances -it doesn't govern anything - Faraday's Law tells us the a coil moving in a field will generate an EMF and Ampere's law tells us about the current - actually I just replicated the same set up found in the synchronous motor that we pulled apart at the beginning of the video - so we have a good idea that the setup is fairly standard and works, which to my mind means the main issues are really about the specific implementation as opposed to the general structure
@@paulmaydaynight9925 Sure - the rules of basic physics assume perfect conditions, perhaps I should have "significantly more more current".
EDIT - "make the magnets follow a complicated mechanical sawtooth wave path" or just mount the flywheel on wobbly bearings!
Thank you for letting me see ur projects. I have a learning curve and I have to see what you are doing for my brain to get it. Again I do thank you for your time and prayers for teaching me how to do things like that and I have tried my own heater experiment and it was fun and now I have a few more things to make
Robert, just a thank you for your daily enlightenment, we follow you and all the kids love you.
Wow, thank you mate
Very nice. One thing I saw is the LEDs seemed to get brighter when one part of the rotor went past. I'd wager that's where the gap in your magnets are. I'm sure you'd get more output if you spaced the magnets at the same distance apart as the fingers of the E in the transformer.
well worth a try mate - go for it and let me know how it goes - you know prefer experiments lol
@@ThinkingandTinkering Well I've gone and ordered a bunch of magnets, so I might manage to actually get around to doing that soon lol. I've got couple of flyback transformers to strip down.
Yes, this is exactly right. The whole point of the iron core is to conduct the magnetic flux. If you want to apply a magnetic field to that assembly, then for maximum results you want to line up, for example, one of the core fingers with the N of one magnet while lining up the next core finger with the S of the next magnet, and so on. If you don't do that then you aren't really taking advantage of the actual physics, you're just waving some magnets around in the vicinity of a cut-up transformer hoping for something to happen.
I’d be curious to see you hook this to a battery with some kind of boost or buck converter or a charge controller. That would be awesome to see a battery getting charged with such little effort. Very awesome
Those light only need a few amps to run so it would charge just not extremely effiecent or fast just like he said. If we put a few on the same axle and hooked them up into parallel we could get more amps out of it👍
Great stuff with the close ups! Helps to understand what's going on.
just trying to take on board suggestions mate
@@ThinkingandTinkering And it shows you also listen to your viewers, not everyone does it.
I'd be tempted to fix on as many transformers as humanly possible!:)
meeeee toooooo
go for it
Remember to put the coils as close to the magnets as possible.
You have a great and productive mindset and effective methodology towards these experiments Robert. Love watching your work
Awesome Rob! So innovative! You're a true inspiration mate.
cheers mate
Forget the haters Rob, people point out negatives when they have nothing positive to add. I love the flywheel doing most of the work. I still think adding a median magnet between North and South would improve the output, but under the circumstances it's beautiful.
cheers mate and spot on lol
You were barely turning that too! That's really great for such little effort and certainly little expenses.
Question, have you been working all weekend? Every few hours another video. I'll be posting my video later today I hope. I'll let know when I do.
I always work mate and please do I am looking forward to it
Brilliant, I think you're absolutely right: efficiency is a holistic term, it's not just the percentage of energy conversion, it's also taking into account our needs, and the cost in time, money, effort, and other resources we spend to achieve something.
The 80/20 rule probably applies to the "efficient vs sufficient" issue, finding the middle path between under-doing something and overdoing it.
Having said that... I've noticed the iron core spans about 4 magnet widths.
Seems to me that means about half the time you get a magnetic field that either cancels itself, or bypasses the coil, and never reaches its maximum.
If you were to space the magnets a bit further apart, so that three of them fit the width of the core, you would get more energy for less magnets, (and less work attaching them to the flywheel:).
Just because it's more efficient, doesn't necessarily mean we need to avoid it, right? ;)
Thanks for this video and for all your good work.
I appreciate your creativity and sharing it with all. I love messing around with magnets. I have those same rectangle magnets. I took them and grinded them done to make a thin edge. I have also cut slots in ring magnets. Its interesting the different effects you can get out of them by changing the shape.
You're right to preach, say it like it is. I like the way you think. Brother from a different mother.
awesome mate - thanks for saying that - all the best and cheers
Rob my uncle. I listen to every word he says. his "preaching" just remind me not to listen to anybody (but him)
Awesome, weak magnets, 1 coil and no tweaking with a gentle spin and generating 1 watt+ RMS... now thats sweet, I can see you getting 20 watts out of that thing just doing more of what you have already done. I have always liked using washing machine motors and Alternaters for quick no fuss big energy builds (alternaters like a wicked step up gear like the one you pulled from the bike), but now I have something to do with the MOTs that dont make my high voltage experiment bench :)
awesome mate - as I said we seem to collect them things lol
Rob, your dedication and inquisitive mind is inspirational. I'd love to see someone take some of your ideas and develop them into equipment that could be incorporated in new build houses (maybe even retrofitted into older ones) to reduce power consumption. Given BoJo's recent drive towards renewables there ought to be a market out there for stuff like this. Cheers.
If u want more juice orient the magnets to where north is in the center and south is on on the outer prices of the transformer. It seems that 4 magnets come in contact with the dace of the transformer u may get better results with a NNSS magnet orientation that way 2 north or on the center and 1 south are on both the outer sides of the transformer plates u may get more complete u shaped magnetic fields on the transformer plates in turn making stronger output on the transformer
.....if magnet placements do work against each other then simply cutting off outer projections of iron core might give improved results . But accurate placement of magnets is preferred for top results.
cheers mate
When I explain something I've made with say a 60% efficiency, I get criticized. Yet upon reminding people their car is only ~22% efficient, they justify why that is great.
People are weird.
Exactly. People put OFF others from even starting something, simply by "efficiency". I think they confuse it with the likes of a battery/power level, if its 20% then thats considered "flat" lol....... What they don't realise is that you can "store" this over time. It might not be much, but it does add up, and in a world were we need to use what ever we can get, isn't a failure. Doing NOTHING imho, that's a failure.
I know it drives me mad and Ronald is right - so often it is about putting people off and showing what an expert the poster island trying to do that at your expense I sometimes look at the account of such posters - normally they have no content - they are just armchair critics - I tend to have very little respect for that as there is just a huge difference between saying something and doing something and to my mind you don't understand anything unless you have done it and tried to explain it to others
Many things are less efficient. Power plant ( nuclear or coal thermal energy ) : 33 to 37 %. And that is when cooled by seawater. When cooled by cooling towers take 3% of. And the amount of measures taken to put efficiency to the max is extensive in these plants. There's no way these can do better with the designs currently employed.
Very satisfying watching it make light from little work! Great job
yes it was lol - nice to see it do something that's for sure
That's a very good demonstration of usage of a microwave Transformer
cheers mate
wow, that flywheel makes me relive my youth in 1981 (The Land Of Make Believe) when my brother had a flashlight that you had to squeeze for power. Whenever you squeezed you could hear the little flywheel spinning inside. I didnt know why and how exactly I guess, but at 10 years old but I found it interesting. I loved doing science at home until they began teaching it to me at 14 yo.... I dropped he subject the next year with a 6/10 . What a damn waste, still!
Sir i honestly think that you deserve a more than 10 million views as the way you explain a things are so simple.
Rules of thumb -- stronger magnet = more field lines per sq cm (more voltage and amperage). Smaller air gap between magnet and core = higher magnetic permeability (less magnetic lines being wasted between magnet and core). More turns in the coil = more voltage. Larger diameter wire = more amperage. Ideally, you want as large of diameter wire as possible for good current that you need for power, with enough turns to deliver the voltage you want. You need as powerful of magnets as you can get, with as many turns of wire per coil possible in the space available. With your coil, you could arrange several transformers around the circumference, but use the primary coils not the high voltage secondary coils. I keep thinking that the wire used is only good for a couple of amps before it starts heating and burns. That means it will only produce small amperage now matter how good of a rig you make. If you can get a bunch of microwave transformers, use two stacks of primary windings wired in series per transformer frame. Also, space your magnets out more (less magnets) as you want the fields to go through the transformer core, not sharply bend over to the next magnet in series due to close spacing on the wheel. On the cheap, smaller inexpensive neodymium magnets may well still give you more lines of force per square CM than much larger ceramic magnets. You can tell the gauss by the pounds of pull. A really small neodymium may have the same five pound pull that your magnets probably have. Overall, the total amount of lines of force will be approximately equal, but the lines per square CM are way higher in the neodymium. The core itself has a saturation limit on the number of lines of force that can go through it at once and this is not often considered by people buying the biggest neodymium magnets they can find, as they often waste a ton of money for wasted lines of force. The ideal is a big enough neodymium with a small enough air gap to fully saturate the core. That secondary winding would be pushing out 6 - 10k volts at that point in an inch long wide flame type arc to ground with each magnet pass.
I do have an old exercise bike and an old microwave, all I need is the magnets!
you could probably use the ring magnets from speakers
if you are careful not to break the ceramics, there are 2 ring magnets on the magnetron of that microwave. Use a dust mask and gloves because the ceramic is impregnated with beryllium and highly dangerous to ingest the dust if broken. Just be careful and the magnets can be removed without incident.
@@mwm2929 In one of Rob's video, he explains how easy it is to avoid beryllium-infection. First, tip of the magnetron is pinkish of colour if there is beryllium in it, otherwise not dangerous material (aluminium oxide or something). Other thing is just to not touch the ceramic tip, simple as that.
@@Teknopottu For sure. I took a job in an appliance repair workshop and scrapped hundreds of microwaves before I learned about the beryllium ceramics. We were smashing the things with hammers to separate the copper core from the rest! lol We were given no training or PPE for the job either. As a result, I have hundreds of magnets and luckily no ill health because of it. They are quite strong for ceramic magnets for sure. My favorite ones I took out of dishwasher pumps. cylinder magnets with N and S on either side of the cylinder on a small shaft.
@@mwm2929 Jeez! That's awful! Gladly you are okay. Wouldn't be the first time worker wasn't given proper precautions; my father worked decades with asbestos as a builder. That was trend of the time and many got ill and have died because of asbestos, luckily my father is guite healthy. Any project in mind with those magnets or have you already made something?
Now children,put down your phones(in a bucket of water) pay attention,and do something amazing! This man is smiling when he sleeps,and I have not heard a notification
That is indeed awesome. How do you squeeze so much work into a 24 hour day?
lol - I don't sleep much
Now we're talking :-). If you could close the gap and curve the iron with the wheel radius it would still perform a lot better.
It would be interesting to stop kranking wo load so it would continue to run as flywheel and short the output. If you don't notice anything on the flywheel speed the efficiency of the whole thing is bad. If it stops in seconds it's good.
Very cool.
But the coils are far from the magnets and it gets it's induction from the steel plates so putting it closer to the magnets will generate more electricity.
That's neat Robert, I especially like the way the flywheel keeps it going so long. Would you get more current with stronger magnets and larger wire, I mean enough more to make it worthwhile to do it ? Thanks
Always interesting stuff you're doing. 👍🤓
I imagine that if both coils were left on the transformer, two different outputs would have been achieved.
Could be
cp,you still need to remove the "i" so as to make better use of the inner and outer winding polarity as the magnet goes by,testing required
Great video although a bit hard to see the meter readout. Here is a suggestion for what it's worth, if you have a second camera you could do a close up of the meter readout and do an in-screen display in the corner of your video. That would be helpful. Never done it myself so I don't know how easy or difficult that is. Cheers
Thanks for the tip mate
I learn something new every time I watch this video. Actually from learning better questions :)
Hey mate I love it! I am tempted to make one with neodymium magnets and try improve the coils and have them all round. I wonder is you could make a pulley system and lower a heavy weight but once its spinning already then hopefully you would end up with a long story flow of power. S
Robert you should try 4 microwave Trans. primary windings under those magnets to see what you produce.
As always inspiring as fate would have it. I just pulled 2 of these transformers out of my old storage. I am stocking up for future projects. I will have at least a month's worth of projects to keep me busy. LOL 😆
You are so right about efficiency and sufficiently
cheers mate
And that's only with ceramic magnets if neodymium were used it be way higher in voltage and milliamps
I may well try it
Only recently found your channel. Huge fan of your videos! I'm getting into learning electrical theory... which unfortunately means I have to look up half the words you use haha.
Would it be possible to mount multiple transformer coils - would that "double" the output? What kind of difference in output would you see if it was powering a light, versus if you were charging a 12.6v car battery for instance?
nice,jargon can be hard to visualise, in this case go with the originators classic electrical theory analogy 'water'
one way to remember it is The voltage is equivalent to the water pressure, the current is equivalent to the flow rate, and the resistance is like the pipe size.
Paul's suggestion was awesome mate - I really good way to think about it is like water and yes you could put multiple coils on it
Hmmmm ! we will just have to rename you Mr Wizzard !!............Good job Rob......!!
Cool to see how little it takes to produce useful output. Any chance you'll do a video showing what components it takes to use this to charge a battery (like a big zinc-bromine one)
yes mate I will - it is on my to do list
Thanks for your video. Would I be able to hook this up to a mppt charge controller and charge a battery? I would love it if you could do a step by step video. I’m a novice when it comes to electronics.
Hello Bob
Just to let you know relative permeability of MOT is between 8 to 10
It is miserable magnetic conductor
By changing metal lamination for better ones ( 10000) you get much better results
cheers mate
What is the significance of the position on the magnets compared to the MOT ? I cant visualize the magnetic flux.
Also you could improve efficiency by grinding the MOT to have a curve on it to get it as close to the magnets as possible.
And then adding more MOT's and wiring them in series or parallel etc.
Can i ask where you get your ceramic magnets from please,keep up the good work
Love the concept I just need an old exercise bike now! Are you going to try with two or more of these Rob? in series and parallel? Also is the laminated Iron core useful I.E. will it give a lower or higher output without it?
In america a little known fact is a gallon of gas at 66 degrees has more density that a gallon at 76 degrees. The water jacket heats to around 180 degrees. So by heating the fuel with hot water it increases your gas mileage.
now then that is an awesome tip - cheers
@@ThinkingandTinkering in the bible the thief in the night was explained using gasoline. You fill a glass jug in the late afternoon, seal it and mark the level. When you check in the cool morning the fuel is below the line. If you heat the fuel you will lose power. In drag racing a ice bath is used around fuel lines to get the most fuel into the combustion chamber. Another friend suggested using a ultrasonic mister on the intake as the fuel ignites it creates steam pressure. All sorts of tricks you can do to increase distance per volume. Government wants that tax. Why alcohol used to be illegal fuel. Now they add just enough to make mayonnaise in the old carburetor. Oil mixed with water based fuel. Mayonnaise you use a egg to bind the oil with water. Many have died trying to show how to use water as a fuel supply. You modify not only the carburetor but also the alternator. Mainly the voltage regulator. I know little tricks like if a car isn't charging check to see if the field coil is working by placing a screwdriver to the back of the shaft, when the car is running it should have a magnetic field. I always found alternators interesting how the battery makes the magnets and the stationary coil makes the current to charge the battery. Look at ignition coils on lawnmowers. Now increase the number of magnets on the flywheel :) why I used a double half wave rectifier to a voltage doubler. The microwave transformer has that W shape and if you space the magnets correctly the iron should have N-S-N then flip to S-N-S. You have to grind a arc in the iron to match the diameter of the flywheel. Which paper matchbooks are good for setting gaps. And the strikers are good for standing the points. FYI think about reported fuel consumption of jet engines. Measured in pounds/kilos per minute ;) this package was measured by weight not volume. ...anyways keep up the good work, you are inspiring many.
i made a high amp battery charger from one before. rewound the primary and salvaged diods from a old alternator. the thing works great better then some i have bought. but the duty cycle is bad but works great for jump starts. a true scrap battery charger.
I wonder what the dual output would be if you had kept both coils on the transformer. You would have one as a 'volt stream' and the other as an 'amp stream'
At Minute 3:12 you can see how the LED start pulsing, which is synchronous with the wheel rotation. i think this is due to the magnetic pattern of the many magnets on the wheel.
Thx for the video!
Amazing! Great job! You can build the best stuff, love your videos.
To scale, one could add a second coil directly opposite, and, use an oscilloscope or even a voltmeter to match them up.
Et cetera.
very cool. a little creativity combined with a little stubborn gets results.
for suremate lol
As you said, the meter showed what is possible. you then hook up a load, find if it will provide the power you need, and you figure out if the effort to generate the
energy is worth it.
yep - it's just an internal yardstick to guide what you are doing as a very quick and dirty guide - that's all
I like it Robert. Thanks for the upload.
cheers mate
Use the coils from the washing machine pumps just take out the existing magnet housing and cut the ends of the the fork so its flush with the coil housing. Will work better that the mot.
cheers mate
Im trying to find the generator you made by welding the magnets into a circle and fit a flywheel in the center?
I would like to see what transformers full of wire all the way around would output. I bet it would run a home.
That rocks, so now you should be able to charge up some of your batteries/capacitors.
yep
What happens when you use the primary coil? The amps will go up considerably as the wires are thicker. We do not meet 50 volts but we need amps?
You have to love those microwave transformers! They are so versatile. I have four mounted in a box and wound with one turn of 50mm wire each to make a very powerful spot welder (I use it to pull bodywork dents). Obviously, I used the primary coils and removed the secondary.
I do like this idea. If the transformer was ground down to fit closer to the magnets, would it be more efficient (I know you don't like that word)? Or would it be so little that it's not worth the effort?
the field strength decreases with the square of the distance mate so the nearer the 'fit' the higher the output and the increase is marked - so i would say it was worth it for sure
@m w mw, did you forget about roberts low power paper/stone heaters for all your cold working area's, time to make some aluminium can string collector/terminals and paint some diy heaters
@m w For the generator, I believe that parallel will give you more amps at the lower voltage and series will give you more voltage at the lower amps. I'm thinking about using four or six around the magnet wheel.
My spot welded is four in series, but only one full turn of wire on each. This puts out about 8v at about 600amps. If I'm not careful, it will melt a hole in the car body!
U can also spread out the magnets to and do the same NSNS orientation.
for sure mate
Hi Robert, I am kind of new on the channel and I only watched this video now. I really like the idea and wondered whether the bike could not be converted to a gravity generator by adding a gearbox and a weight. The slow speed looks ideal for it.
Me now looking at the coils in my old beat up welder and spare washing machine motors
I enjoy your videos but must say that your multimeter /VOM is very hard to see, making it difficult to see it on my computer screen. A darker or larger meter would be the icing on the cake. - Thanks for the great videos.
Sorry about that mate - it's what I've got but I am working on a solution - as you can tell I have taken on board a few suggestions and as long as they don't cost me much o am sure we will get there
Why have you left the transformer metal around the coil? Wouldn't that waste some of the magnetic flux? Especially as it's laminated and designed to minimise eddy currents? Or is this helping?
it probably acts as a flux pathway guiding the flux to the coil
Magnets are so close to each other. I think if you half the number of them it can put more amps.
The magnetic fields of those magnets interfere with each other
To take one coil out, you can cut the wires on both sides instead of opening the iron part. Then you take a rod and a hammer to push the inner copper wires out.
cheers mate - I have done videos on extracting the coils
@@ThinkingandTinkering yep, new here
Hugues,oc doing it that lazy way doesnt reclaim the most valuable ready to go parts, the already processed insulated copper, its pritty hard to build anything by destroying your ready to go base materials
Impressed with the power output. 🤓👍
Many questions;
How much power could be made with multiple transformers? (Simply proportionate?) Different transformers?
Would the other windings from the MW transformer provide a different type or limit of power?
Could the magnets from the MW magnetron work instead of the purchased bar magnets?
I would really really like to see the difference between neodymium and those ceramics I've always heard that the ceramics were preferable actually when making a generator and I've never heard why but I've heard so-called experts claim this it's too bad that this is a 2 year old project at this point I would even donate money to help pay for the neodymium. That's the problem with this project unless it could be reproduced exactly you get stuck with the bill because unless I could find the exact exact exact same components to replicate this it would be a different experiment I guess altogether I mean I reckon I could come up with my own comparison but you already have half the data right there. Do you have a good source for ceramic magnets that seems like a very reasonable price that you paid for those?
I am Completely Novice in electronics but i'm interested in this topic. My question is, Can i connect those wires to a car battery and charge it? If not, what do i need. I want to know the basics of once the structure is made, with magnets and transformers and motion, what/how do i wire this in order to charge a battery system with it.
Keep pushing forward. Loving your content, amazing energy to you and to flow. Thank you for helping. I am a romantic. I build from the drawing . The engineering, the genius. Together we move mountains and build unlimited possibilities. Thank you. Love, respect and gratitude
absolutely mate - it is together we move forward for sure - cheers
totally get what you're saying about sufficiency (and lots of other times you've made the same point and perfection being the enemy of getting /something/ going), ... BUT... you've triggered me to want to increase the efficiency of my vehicle. n_n
~ side rambles.... (hehe, sorry, these videos inspire me to sorta blog about my projects) ~
interestingly... a daihatsu hijet (wanted a bedford rascal really, but after many fails at that, an unexpected punt on ebay got me the hijet for £500). rediculous mpg for a 1990 vehicle that can sleep 2 (or 4 if i get hammocks made) or seat 6. ... the original "plan" was to get it converted to fully solar electric. poverty, ill health, procrastination, dauntedness, distraction and de-prioritisation have all played a roll in not getting that underway, as well as just not having a clue really how to start to go about that.
having a "plan" (/goal) and no way to get there, may have potential, but (as you've inspired/convinced me) until i start to play around with things more, i wont have the repetior to know how to come up with the solutions to fulfil the remit.
good grief that's clumsily worded. if i dont play around, i wont know how. ... yeah, that's the basic gist.
gotta play around, before i get my solar electro ride around.
it's failing to start now, as a petrol chugger ... idk where from battery to alternator or ... idk. idk enough. and i almost dont care to. would rather get it converted to live off the sun. ... though it's driver door's never closed right, so it's not water tight. ... but. sufficiency... i'm not vain, i'm sure i could jank something sufficient there. it's just a small gap. foam, an inch or two would do it ~ or some brave panel beating ~ or could turn it into a water capture with some cunning deployment of tarp and wire. sufficient... (along with some rust treatment)... to get it out into the sun... and then with that added trepidation out of the way (and not needing to spend over 2 grand on an antique door shipped from japan), then i could get underway... or at least have less excuses not to ... to proceed to what the next step might be... re-painting it with carbon nanotubules and buckyballs. ;)
it's ok, i got over being triggered to want to increase my vehicle's efficiency. ~ well, how efficient can it be when it wont start without a jump.
... i've got this other idea while typing that... ensconce the whole thing in carbon fibre, with a few creative tweaks and bulges here and there, turn it into an amphibious vehicle. twill lose some efficiency, and gain a lot of functionality. and longevity.
anyways, waffles aside... point being: get playing and learning, sufficiency behoves, efficiency haunts. yay! :)
I tested my microwave's screen by putting my smartphone inside the compartment (no, not turning it on). Leaving a Wi-Fi signal strength app running, the signal strength (2.4 GHz) was surprisingly strong - I was surprised.
interesting - cheers mate
Do you think if we splash out on the Neo Dyms I could make an 'exercise desk' to power my 60W computer ? I jest, -- of course I would include a bromide gravity battery in case legs get tired. Great stuff
I think Ed R2 is right in what he says mate
30w is useful especially a next to free 30w well done RMS
Are you saying that Voltage alone is everything Robert? Surely power V*I is the way to determine how useful it is?
no of course not - I am saying don't get too tied up with what folks tell you - use your own approach and measure success in your terms rather than other folks terms
I think the task he set himself in this video is simply to show a mechanism that puts out a non-trivial amount of power, and non-trivial in this case means enough to do one useful thing: power the lights.
What’s “useful” is highly subjective. If you’re sitting in the dark, this contraption is already extremely useful. More broadly, we can attach all manner of things to this contraption, and possibly modify this contraption. For example, I have a flowing stream on my property that could be harnessed via a waterwheel to run this. If I built it, I might make it larger so I can put lots of microwave coils around it. And then the output would go to a charge controller, charger and battery bank system that I have, mostly because I already have it.
What’s useful to you depends on what you have in your context. “Useful” isn’t a static concept and so cannot be defined or applied without knowing the context into which it’s going.
tony, Are you saying that influere (in rush,to flow into,heating amps) is more useful, then just leave and use the thicker primary wire already in there,remember to insulate the then unused secondary as that could be dangerous at the same time
@@ThinkingandTinkering In a generating system, we use work to create power. Power is defined by the product of Voltage and Amps. Voltage in and of itself is useless.
@@twestgard2 very well put mate. Useful is measured on personal requirements and needs.
A larger waterwheel running a flywheel each with a number of coils connected in parallel, maybe even a few flywheels of the same specs then your batteries would always be charged.
very Good video. Moving the coil closer to the magnets would help, that's a big gap.
It was a prototype, but certainly. I would also grind out the top to match the curve and use N65 magnets. I would also adjust the ratio of the pulleys a bit to use for a wind-driven generator. Perhaps adding 2 more coils to the transformer core would work to generate 3 phase? I would probably try a neon sign transformer as well..many things could be done to optimize the efficiency of the device Robert has built. As he says in the video, it is sufficient to prove that it is a working platform.
it is indeed and yes it would help a lot - field strength decreases with the square of the distance
oh mister Murray, i am lost for words. Your knowledge is so incredible and entertaining. Thank you a lot. I watch many of your videos as I am subscribed with bell heheheh. Thank you.
The spacing of your magnets is not great enough and using spacing that matches alignment with
each of the 3 legs of E-core would increase efficiency and output power. Ideally the spacing should
be done so the centers of the grouping of 3 magnets locates over the centers of the 3 legs of the
E-core. The air gap distance between the magnets and the core segments also greatly affects performance. With all of the 3 legs of the E-core flat and made the same length for the original
application, a better use for the E-core is an axial architecture instead of the radial architecture
that is used in your experimental model. The E-core should be positioned alongside the rotor
oriented so the vertical spine of the E is aligned with a chord line near as possible the arc of the
outer edge of the disk rotor, with the center leg of the E parallel to the axis of the rotor.
As the magnets pass by the ends of the legs of the E-core there will be an attraction exerted
at one point laterally loading the disk in an unfavorable way hard on the spindle bearings, but
this is remedied by having an identical E-core located directly 180 degrees across the rotor to
equalize lateral forces on the disk and spindle bearings, and smooth the mechanical operation.
Such an axial architecture is adaptable to having additional E-core stator segments on each side
of the rotor.
Where polarity allows for the architecture used it is possible multiple cores can be in series to add
their voltages or connected in parallel to combine their currents, or some of both effects possible
depending on the number and arrangement of cores that is used. This axial architecture is good for
a low rpm but high output machine adaptable to use as motor or alternator or generator. Removing
the unused windings should have little or no effect, and those could all be left undisturbed and may
be useful for other different voltage output applications. Where many stator segment E-cores are
present as an array, those segments can be connected various ways for different outputs from
those separate coils used as accessory outputs.