Very cool Art, thank you Jeff.:cool::D
Jeff Nading
RE: Let's build A "Popper" Noble Gas Engine AKA Ppap Engine.
« Reply #225, on September 13th, 2012, 04:29 PM »
The more I think about this plasmerg-supposed-to be-public-domain-but-is not-popper-kit, the more I get pissed off!!
I may be building a John type engine, but as of now, I'm joining the Bob team!
A note to Mr Bob Rohner: You may already have a controller for your 2 cylinder engine, or maybe it still needs to be made. Either way, I have a controller, of my own design, that is fully adaptable for 1, 2, 4 cylinders, a separate MPU for each subsystem (makes programming much more straight forward) that may suit your needs. I will post the schematic and code here for everyone to use and modify to suit their own needs.
kcd
Hello ,Quote from ~Russ/Rwg42985 on September 13th, 2012, 03:45 AM Chuck only has a popper kit. Under the agreement of the information that you receive from the kit you're not allowed to share it as it's semi disclose for use of purchaser only..
Chuck is doing a wonderful job and he is trying to open source the information. Unfortunately that's not going to happen. i stated this in the video. you'll see right now,
Please see my latest update video. Here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Efw9SJzlhOw
I need everyone to go here and make a vote:
please answer the poll here:
http://rwgresearch.com/open-projects/the-papp-noble-gas-engine/
Also got the test replica done. And, the piston! This turned out surprisingly well and I'm extremely happy with it here are some photos this is not yet in the video I just got done with that...
just watched your video thanks for posting update . About putting epoxy on glass view port , I would not recommend this as I suspect you will get outgassing and contamination when you go to vacuum out cylinder .. (if you put epoxy inside cylinder)
Joe.
Joe.
got the buckets done:
use 1/8" pipe to 1/4" tube fittings, cut off the 1/4 tube side, driled and taped the brass to except the 1/4" rod, then the buckets will " seal" as the AL is taperd pipe thread...
cool. works really well!
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nice going Russ!!
I see you also have a gas mixture, and you have a frequency for the RF (what i was searching for...) Hoping it does the job.
(if you would use them) Do the alpha rays go through the metal of the buckets?
And how well is your compression/vacuum on the piston and cylinder? Should ye do a duration test first?
Like placing the piston up and put a weight on top and in the morning measure if it has dropped somewhat?
(Hmm now i go ahead of.."first get the first pop done.." 100% seal is for the engine, not for the test)
The rubidium will react with the aluminum to the point where it probably will react a little bit. Alpha radiation is the type from thorium and rubidium , it probably will not make it through the bucket but it still there for a "purpose that is not really known"... stated from BobQuote from ~Russ/Rwg42985 on September 14th, 2012, 04:36 AM got the buckets done:
use 1/8" pipe to 1/4" tube fittings, cut off the 1/4 tube side, driled and taped the brass to except the 1/4" rod, then the buckets will " seal" as the AL is taperd pipe thread...
cool. works really well!
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nice going Russ!!
I see you also have a gas mixture, and you have a frequency for the RF (what i was searching for...) Hoping it does the job.
(if you would use them) Do the alpha rays go through the metal of the buckets?
And how well is your compression/vacuum on the piston and cylinder? Should ye do a duration test first?
Like placing the piston up and put a weight on top and in the morning measure if it has dropped somewhat?
(Hmm now i go ahead of.."first get the first pop done.." 100% seal is for the engine, not for the test)
Ah yes,
Update 7 video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6w1m1S2DftI
As far as pressure / vac test...
10 hrs it dropped from -28 to about -26 so on the vac side of things... Its good! And really the gas is more prone to externail gas gettin in... So a pressure test is not really nessacery.
A new seal may help and the bottom glass port is cracked... May be where the leek is...
Also the fittings holding the eletrods and such are not over tight... I can still Move the eletrods even while it's tight... So all in all I'm happy with it!!!
Thx ~Russ
Russ,
SWEET JOB on the Bopper!!!! (that's a Bob Popper)
kcd
-/* KC - It sounds like you have a good start on building a controller. While that may work great, I think a better approach may be done by defining common pieces that everyone can buy openly. For example, a Raspberry PI is cheap and has a lot of free support. The group could develop plug in m0dules, such as spark and hall sensors to plug this. That would save everyone from building and testing their own controller. What processor are you using?
BobN,Quote from BobN on September 13th, 2012, 05:23 PM -/* KC - It sounds like you have a good start on building a controller. While that may work great, I think a better approach may be done by defining common pieces that everyone can buy openly. For example, a Raspberry PI is cheap and has a lot of free support. The group could develop plug in m0dules, such as spark and hall sensors to plug this. That would save everyone from building and testing their own controller. What processor are you using?
I just looked up what a Raspberry PI is. Sounds very cool, but not one that I have programmed B4, and I'm not sure I am ready to learn new tricks.
I am using a Microchip PIC12F683 - a small 8 pin microcontroller, (MCU) or actually I should say I am using several of them. These chips are less than $2 each and program in a $50 or so PICKIT kit using a USB port. My one cylinder controller uses 5 of these chips, may need 6, don't know yet until I get my cylinder coils wound this weekend.
Anyway, here is the layout.
The first chip is simply configured as a comparator, ins and outs available on external pins - this one captures the one-per-rev pulse from the magnetic flywheel sensor.
The second chip takes the signal from the first chip, runs a timer to time the interval between pulses, and sends out a 'cly0' pulse that is 135 deg before TDC, a 135 degree advance notice if you will. It also takes in a 0 to 5v analog signal from a throttle position sensor (TPS), and outputs an analog voltage (PWM out with R/C filter) that is the difference between the TPS value and the calculated speed of the engine (speed demand signal). 2.5V is a speed match, above 2.5V is a speed up signal, and below means slow down. There is also an output to an LED to indicate that the cranking speed is sufficient (too slow overflows a register), and also a Ignition on/Reset switch input.
If someone is interested in running 2, or 4 cylinders (1 or 3 more output pins needed), then the same program (with very minor modifications) can be put in a PIC16F688 (14 pin) or a PIC16F690 (20 pin) MCU.
The third chip takes the 'cly0' input and fires four HV spark coils simultaneously. It factors in a charge time, or dead time, for the coils, and has a speed dependent look up table for a user defined spark advance curve.
The forth chip takes the 'cly0' input and the speed demand signal. It too can factor in a dead time, if it is needed, and has two speed dependent look up tables for a user defined advance and pulse duration. It also puts out a 0 to 5v analog signal (filtered PWM, calculated from the speed and the speed demand signal) to ultimately control the RF frequency, or VCO.
The 5th and/or 5th and 6th chip(s) will do much the same as the forth chip above, except control the advance, duration and voltage for the cylinder coils.
Most of this work is done, or at least in my head to do. I will provide the schematic, and the .asm and .hex files for programming the chips.
My reasoning for using separate MCU's is to make the separate subsections truly separate - there are no intertwined programming gotchas where one change unintentionally affects three other things. It is also well commented so others can understand, make there own changes to the timing, etc. and quickly explore what are the best parameters for running this thing as an engine.
Buy the programmer, the chips, assemble a small board and go!
kcd
Russ are you planning on going “ live “ with your first testing of the Popper? If so please update count down. :P
I think there may be a lot of us that want to see the first pop or attempt at a pop.
Hats off to you so far! You have done a really great job of building the stuff.
Looking forward to the pop testing. :D
element 119
This is a very interesting read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashtube
Was curious if there were any statements about an increase in pressure during operation. And well.......
"A major factor affecting efficiency is the amount of gas behind the electrodes, or the "dead volume". A higher dead volume leads to a lower pressure increase during operation."
"Flashtubes operate at high pressures and are known to explode, producing violent shockwaves."
If this has been known about xenon flash tubes, WHY can't folks (Dr. Feynman, et al) wrap they little heads around the Papp engine?? Poo!!!
kcd
http://youtu.be/dW0moXn9y9U[/url]
even police... http://youtu.be/MUgUF5M3FTI (well..HHO)
Do you have the gas or plan on ordering some?
Thx!
The Reason to use alpha radiation/ionization.Quote from FaradayEZ on September 14th, 2012, 05:35 AM The rubidium will react with the aluminum to the point where it probably will react a little bit. Alpha radiation is the type from thorium and rubidium , it probably will not make it through the bucket but it still there for a "purpose that is not really known"... stated from BobQuote from ~Russ/Rwg42985 on September 14th, 2012, 04:36 AM got the buckets done:
use 1/8" pipe to 1/4" tube fittings, cut off the 1/4 tube side, driled and taped the brass to except the 1/4" rod, then the buckets will " seal" as the AL is taperd pipe thread...
cool. works really well!
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nice going Russ!!
I see you also have a gas mixture, and you have a frequency for the RF (what i was searching for...) Hoping it does the job.
(if you would use them) Do the alpha rays go through the metal of the buckets?
And how well is your compression/vacuum on the piston and cylinder? Should ye do a duration test first?
Like placing the piston up and put a weight on top and in the morning measure if it has dropped somewhat?
(Hmm now i go ahead of.."first get the first pop done.." 100% seal is for the engine, not for the test)
Ah yes,
Update 7 video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6w1m1S2DftI
As far as pressure / vac test...
10 hrs it dropped from -28 to about -26 so on the vac side of things... Its good! And really the gas is more prone to externail gas gettin in... So a pressure test is not really nessacery.
A new seal may help and the bottom glass port is cracked... May be where the leek is...
Also the fittings holding the eletrods and such are not over tight... I can still Move the eletrods even while it's tight... So all in all I'm happy with it!!!
Thx ~Russ
Alpha radiation is an ionized helium nucleus, a helium atom without its two electrons that occasionally comes out of the nucleus another atom at high energy. This is called a double ionized helium atom. This ion has a positive charge and when it flies through the air, it leaves a trail of ionize air along its flight path. That flight path is limited to only a few inches. It doesn’t take much resistance to slow this particle down so that it will reacquire its two electrons and become ordinary helium.
But the path of ionization that this particle leaves behind can becomes a “leader” for an electric spark to follow in the same way that a scratch on the surface of glass will provide a weak point or path that the plate of glass will follow when it breaks during bending.
A leader is a hot, highly conductive channel of plasma that plays a critical part during dielectric breakdown during the formation of a long electric spark.
This ionization track is like a vapor cloud that a jet plane leaves when it flies at high altitude but only very much smaller.
The ionization leader becomes a very thin short circuit that the spark will follow as it finds its way from a cathode to an anode.
The function of alpha radiation in the papp process is to reduce the electric voltage that is required to jump across a spark gap.
Because he does not use alpha ionization, this is why J Rohner says he needs 400K volts to jump his spark gap and the original papp design which uses radioactive alpha ionization needs only 40K volts.
The bucket design is not effective.
In your bucket design, the alpha particles will be almost completely blocked by the metal of the bucket.
A better design is to affix a large grained thorium powder (5 micron) to an aluminum or copper ribbon substrate so that one side of the powder grain is exposed to the air.
Radioactive powder is very dangerous.
It is important to firmly attach the particles to the substrate so they do not fly around during handling.
Nano-sized powder grains are extremely dangerous because the alpha radiation will cause the nanopowder to evaporate and fly around in the air.
Always use a large micro-grain sized powder and a perfect particle breathing filter when working with alpha emitting powders. Breathing just a few grains of this fine powder without particle filtration will eventually kill you if they get inside your body.
The Reason for a powder.
Alpha radiation is self-shielding, which means that alpha particles only emit from the surface of an element. It cannot get through any depth of the thorium metal so a powder will maximize the surface area of the thorium.
Welding the particles to the substrate.
Thorium has a high melting point, If the copper or aluminum ribbon substrate is heated to just below melting point, the thorium powder will weld to the surface onto the ribbon.
Checking to see if you alpha emitting device works.
Whatever your design will be, you can check the effectiveness of your design by placing this device into a cloud chamber to see if the alpha particles are becoming airborne.
A cloud chamber is cheap and easy to build.
A commensal radiation counter is also effective but relatively expensive.
Rubidium is dangerous if it vaporizes.
Do not use rubidium because it melts(103F) at too low of a temperature and it might explode when exposed to air or water.
.
I have been trying to stay quiet but the "little heads" faux pax needs attending to.
Of course Feynman knew. Why do you think he pulled the plug.
If you have a gas/plasma in a contained area that is rapidly heated. What do you think is going to happen? Add to that too much energy, a poorly designed glass envelope or any number of 'failure modes' and you get a firecracker.
The important thing to note is the energy expended by that shockwave is less than the electrical energy input into the flashtube. The rest being expended as heat and electromagnetic waves (light).
In other words don't mistake an exploding flashtube for some sort of overunity device.
I am bemused by the following comment from zerwell "the kit is worth a lot more than the $350...just in intelectual property alone"
I hope that he is not talking about how to get a spark plug to fire. That IP has been common knowledge for rather a long time.
'CuriousChris'
I have been trying to stay quiet but the "little heads" faux pax needs attending to.
The Reason to use alpha radiation/ionization.
The bucket design is not effective.
Radioactive powder is very dangerous.
The Reason for a powder.
Welding the particles to the substrate.
Checking to see if you alpha emitting device works.
Rubidium is dangerous if it vaporizes.
Please re-read the post I was referring to in my comment before you attribute blame.Quote from FaradayEZ on September 15th, 2012, 07:56 AM 'CuriousChris'
I have been trying to stay quiet but the "little heads" faux pax needs attending to.
But I do apologise for being confrontational. I sometimes get short when on forums I see people attribute something complex to something simple. While I think Feynman made a huge mistake, its not because he has a little head.Some excellent points Axil.Quote from Axil on September 15th, 2012, 10:33 AM The Reason to use alpha radiation/ionization.
The bucket design is not effective.
Radioactive powder is very dangerous.
The Reason for a powder.
Welding the particles to the substrate.
Checking to see if you alpha emitting device works.
Rubidium is dangerous if it vaporizes.
Particularly about the buckets, I had wondered myself how they could play into the effect if the contents are sealed.
Russ do you do this fulltime? because your work is exceptional and must take a significant amount of time. just reverse engineering the dimensions is a gem.