January Technical Group Meeting

This month's meeting was held on the 24th of January and began at 8pm with Ken welcoming everyone and opening the proceedings. Before the official start of the meeting, I had already given a demonstration out in the car park of a solar panel running a 12 volt pump, using an electronic circuit between the panel and the pump. Without the circuit the panel would not provide enough voltage/current to start the pump, but with the circuit fitted, the pump began running and pumping water. As the first presenter, I explained how the circuit was called a Mini-maximiser, the design of which came from the ATA publication, Renew magazine. Because the solar panel can only supply about 3.5 amps maximum at 12 volts, if more current is drawn, the panel voltage goes done. When placed directly across the pump motor, the panel voltage drops to about 3 volts and so the pump will not start. (The motor startup current is 5 amps, run current is 3 to 4 amps depending on the load on the pump)  The Mini-maximiser circuit works by supplying short pulses at 12 volts while the pump is starting up and drawing most current. As the pump gets up to speed, it does not require as much current and so the pulses become longer. The panel is not providing any more power but what is being supplied is used more efficiently. By providing pulses at 12 volts, the motor is still going to produce maximum torque and so will start. 

I also brought along an esky that I have fitted a Peltier device to so I can plug it into the car cigarette lighter. It is a very simple configuration with the Peltier device sandwiched between two large heatsinks, one on the inside and the other on the outside of the cooler. A 12 volt fan is fitted to the outside heatsink to help get rid of the heat. Peltier devices work by applying 12 volts DC to them with one side becoming hot and the other cold. Thus the cooler can be turned into a "warmer" if required by reversing the polarity of the supply. I bought my Peltier device from Oatley Electronics and is a 6 amp version so it is not recommended to leave it plugged in while the car engine is turned off unless you have a good set of jumper leads!

Randal was next with his "Phase and Pulse Controller" that he is building to enable him to experiment with charging and discharging capacitors at different rates with the aim of getting more power out than he is putting in along the lines of the podmod device. The controller operates at 50hz and has three control pots, one for adjusting the phase angle at which switching occurs, one for changing the pulse width and the third for adjusting the position of the pulse. He is charging two 2,200uF capacitors at 400 volts. Peter suggested that the Pod circuit operates at 6 to 12 Hz input and so this may be a good starting point.

Ken displayed some new equipment that he has recently constructed to measure the specifications of valves as he sells radio valves over the internet and it is important to have accurate measurements of how good each valve is. The first piece of equipment was the heater supply which is rated at 300VA and can produce up to 9 amps and 30 volts. The voltage is adjusted by means of a variac. The second piece was to supply the HT voltage. This consisted of a 240 to 110 volt isolating transformer, a 110 volt variac which gives an isolated supply of 0-125 volts at up to 5 amps current. This is then applied to a full wave voltage doubler circuit to give 350 volts DC with a very low supply impedance. Ken also explained how he recalibrated the meters and produced new meter scales to match the calibration. This equipment was constructed from secondhand gear, bought at minimal cost and is a credit to Ken.

Jan was next, talking about his balls again! He gave his explanation of an animation of his latest design which can be seen on the ASTRO website. Jan drew the individual pictures and Ken put them together electronically to produce the animation.

Andrew was next with a box of previous car experiments from when he was playing with steam injection. These included an air cleaner coated with thermal paint and the Mk1 and Mk2 steam injection units, both also coated with the thermal paint. Andrew claimed 200 mpg on one trip, but when tested under laboratory conditions on a Valiant engine, no improvement was shown. Andrew now has a theory that the thermal paint on his steam unit acted as an orgone accumulator and that is why the unit worked on his engine but not on the Valiant test engine. Andrew has made a version of his Ecovortec unit and run  fuel through it on an engine. He claims that when the unit is pointed at the engine, rpm's rise and when pointed away from the engine, rpm's fall.

Matthew gave  a demonstration of a laser acupuncture machine made by Laser Dynamics Ltd. One probe locates the acupuncture point and then the laser is applied to it. Ron was used as the guinea pig for this demonstration. Fully charged up from this treatment, Ron demonstrated a high intensity LED light that he has built onto a 9V battery combined with a magnifying glass for looking at markings on surface mount electronic components. I think a few of us in the group could do with one of these!

Various other subjects were discussed during the night which included using an alternator to assist car braking, making an orgone detector, orgone energies,Tom Beardon's work, Daniel Dingle's water powered car, the Natural Health Society's next meeting (website: www.oneheartbe.com) and how to wire a panel meter to measure down to 0.5 volts. a.c. (see Ken for info if interested) The meeting closed at 10.15pm with people escaping outside into the cooler night air.
..................Bruce.

The word esky upset the spell check! Could it be an Australianism?.............Ken