My adventures with the white wire
So, in this recent thread duivendyk helped me with his electrical know-how on how to get some solid data from the white wire.
The low down -
After some measurements, we found that the white wire on my HT puts out roughly 6v positive, and 18v negative. Obviously, theres more output on the negative part so using a charging circuit using the positive side is a bit of a waste. Duivendyk suggested using a diode connected to the battery and white wire, with a capacitor, in both directions to find out this peak voltage. (figure 1). This is how we arrived at the 6v+, 18.8v negative voltages.
After finding this out, using a negative charge circuit with a peak to peak rectifier (and a shunt connection to my multimeter to read lower) we came up with the following figures for current and therefore wattage. I butchered one of my nicads (came from a power drill) to make a 6v battery to get our 6v numbers.
Below are the numbers.
wire wire to ground resistance = 2.8Ohm
12v circuit
Idle
0.175A * 13.9v = 2.4w
Peak
0.328A * 13.9V = 4.55w
6v circuit
Idle
0.348A * 6.6V = 2.3w
Peak
0.725A * 6.6 = 4.8w
I'll note that all of these were numbers tested tonight in one run, with the engine going the whole time, so they should be consistent.
Using this circuit, we can see that it is possible to get useful wattage out of the white wire. My next mission is to make a charging circuit with overvoltage protection for an SLA battery. I myself may not end up using it, as ill probably use my power tool nicads since they're lighter, and will go to waste.
I will add the circuit diagrams later on, i have to go out to my fiancees work do now. Hopefully this'll be useful and consolidate into a decent thread on the white wire, and making a charging circuit, since theres not any real solid information on making a circuit at present. I am also hoping that if anyone else follows my testing here (circuits are easy and very cheap to build) we will get a nice range of white wire tests to see how consistant the white wire output is across numerous engines.
So, in this recent thread duivendyk helped me with his electrical know-how on how to get some solid data from the white wire.
The low down -
After some measurements, we found that the white wire on my HT puts out roughly 6v positive, and 18v negative. Obviously, theres more output on the negative part so using a charging circuit using the positive side is a bit of a waste. Duivendyk suggested using a diode connected to the battery and white wire, with a capacitor, in both directions to find out this peak voltage. (figure 1). This is how we arrived at the 6v+, 18.8v negative voltages.
After finding this out, using a negative charge circuit with a peak to peak rectifier (and a shunt connection to my multimeter to read lower) we came up with the following figures for current and therefore wattage. I butchered one of my nicads (came from a power drill) to make a 6v battery to get our 6v numbers.
Below are the numbers.
wire wire to ground resistance = 2.8Ohm
12v circuit
Idle
0.175A * 13.9v = 2.4w
Peak
0.328A * 13.9V = 4.55w
6v circuit
Idle
0.348A * 6.6V = 2.3w
Peak
0.725A * 6.6 = 4.8w
I'll note that all of these were numbers tested tonight in one run, with the engine going the whole time, so they should be consistent.
Using this circuit, we can see that it is possible to get useful wattage out of the white wire. My next mission is to make a charging circuit with overvoltage protection for an SLA battery. I myself may not end up using it, as ill probably use my power tool nicads since they're lighter, and will go to waste.
I will add the circuit diagrams later on, i have to go out to my fiancees work do now. Hopefully this'll be useful and consolidate into a decent thread on the white wire, and making a charging circuit, since theres not any real solid information on making a circuit at present. I am also hoping that if anyone else follows my testing here (circuits are easy and very cheap to build) we will get a nice range of white wire tests to see how consistant the white wire output is across numerous engines.
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