Links
(right-click the link & 'Save As')

'Ringwood Bootstrap' circuit PDF (0.7Mb)
(full circuit details & construction info for self-sustaining circuit attempt, see graph below)

The Secret Life of Capacitors PDF (7Mb)
(cyclic anomalous voltage behaviour of capacitors revealed)

Interesting development... (29th June '10)

a recent circuit, developed from the circuit posted below in April, is now showing some interesting behaviour:

     it can raise the voltage across its own supply battery,  whilst operating   (see below):

the graph above shows the on-load voltage across the depleted battery (8.4V 150mAh NiCad in parallel with a 22uF cap) vs. hours since the start of the test run (27 Jun '10):  initial off-load voltage of battery was approx 7.5V

after around 15 hours the voltage had increased by approx. 1V and then following that the voltage has continued to increase slightly  

i'm not claiming that this is adding significant charge to the battery, but i find it difficult to see how the battery can supply power to the circuit if the steady DC supply voltage during operation is GREATER than the battery off-load voltage

...there is something unusual about this circuit!


i'm posting a PDF here with full circuit details and construction info (at 700Kb, the PDF is too large to upload to my usual thread at overunity.com)

'Ringwood Bootstrap' circuit PDF (0.7Mb)
(right-click the link above & 'Save As')

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'Energy Anomaly' data review (Apr '10)


the experimental data confirms two things:

a) the circuit efficiency is close to, but doesn't appear to be greater than, 100%

b) the ratio of charging to stored energy varies with different experiments - it doesn't appear to be a regular 1:1 ratio


i revisited my result data and using an Excel spreadsheet i was able to show the accumulated value of energy transferred from input to output

the graph now clearly shows that the conventional explanation is not correct - it's just an approximation!

Switched charge energy transfer rates
red: Ein accumulated - yellow: Ein/2 - blue: Ec2 accumulated

the input energy flow is exponential approaching a maximum value, whilst the output shows a close approximation to a linear increase

the energy consumed by the load to charge the output capacitor is the difference between Ein and Ec2

the third line on the graph shows the half-value (Ein/2) of energy input

If the textbook teaching was correct then the Ec2 curve should closely follow the Ein/2 curve

what ACTUALLY happens in the results shown, is that the load dissipation energy is greater than half up to a certain point and then the output energy becomes greater than half the input

SO - apart from one single (non-zero) point on the graph, it's not valid to use the textbook statement as a rule and double the output energy on the cap to find the total energy used


if you can make use of the energy dissipated in charging the capacitor, the switched-charge circuit is very efficient

is there any way of drawing on energy from the 'environment' to achieve a COP > 1?


i have another long-term experiment running which builds on some of the principles learned from the switched-cap experiment - it's looking hopeful at the moment, but it's very early days:-

a) the test circuit is VERY low-powered in order to gain sufficient influence by the environment

b) due to the low-power nature of the experiment it will probably need months of elapsed time to confirm if the energy in the system is increasing or decreasing

the circuit generates current pulses, flashing LEDs and feeding the current back to the rechargeable battery

if the circuit 'captures' sufficient  environmental energy then the battery voltage will not decrease

preliminary data looks interesting:

the graph below compares the off-load voltage of the battery with two other conditions:

  - battery loaded with the operating pulse circuit, with feedback disconnected

  - battery loaded with the operating pulse circuit, with feedback connected

as expected, the battery voltage falls from its no-load value to its 'loaded, no feedback' value

however, when the onload circuit has its feedback connected to the battery, then the battery voltage rises

results so far show a very slight increase of battery voltage from offload to 'onload with feedback'

Battery terminal voltage (approx 8min samples)
 blue: off-load    -     red: onload, no feedback    -     yellow: onload + feedback