Solid HT white wire data

[duivendyk]

ET,You mean to protect the battery from over charging?.yes a 1 Watt zener should do.You could also rig up a zener + LED series combination using the LED as an indicator to stop charging or turn on the lights to keep from overcharging.About those diodes the 8000 rpm actually means a frequency of 8000/60= 133 Hz which is not all that high.With the short ac pulse,the 'freq' in the pulse is really 10 times as high.I was going to take a look at diodes in pulse circuits and found out that my superduper Tektronix scope has bitten the dust.Looks like high voltage supply or CRT, a bummer.Hard to troubleshoot without another scope.I'm sceptical about the high speed diodes.But if they don't cost an arm and a leg,what the heck.It certainly wont hurt anything.Schottky diodes have no charge storage,but maybe pricey.

 

[duivendyk]

IMP,your schematic has the wrong polarities.The pos. side of your 6V battery goes to ground (frame,motor body) the diode needs to be turned around you don't need that resistor on the way to the battery but it would not be a bad idea to leave connections open on your connection strip to add one if you want to cut down the charge current later for some reason or other.That is if you have room,you can short it out for now.There is one thing about this negative battery deal.The entire 3.6 volt system must be either be floating,that is have no connection to ground or have the positive side of the 3.6 V battery grounded.To check things out take your meter(it's supposed to have battery in it if it's one with LCD read out.Put it on 'Ohms' (resistance) and check from either side of 3.6V battery output on torch (with torch mounted) to bare metal on frame and nothing else connected to output.Should read very high resistance on both sides.
OK, now put meter on dc volts and check 3.6 V battery output,identify the pos. & neg output.Good thing to mark it somehow,so you don't forget what's what.
Cable to the rear light:We are going to find out if the rear light is connected to ground or floating.Put meter on Ohms again and check continuity to ground (bare metal on frame),one lead to frame other lead to either side of plug connector with it disconnected from the torch. If both have open circuit (high resistance) to frame the rear light is floating (assuming of course that the cable is hooked up to it).If one side is grounded see whether it's the pos or neg side by checking how it is connected to the battery(to the pos or negative side of the plug),and label it as ground.Please report back to me as to how you are doing

 

[duivendyk]

IMP, you told me that your elecronics know how is sketchy to say the least.I'll attempt to get you on a better footing,this stuff is not all that hard really.As an analogy think of hydraulics or pneumatics.
Voltage is like electrical pressure, current is like flow (of water or a gas under pressure) but of charges,electrons actually.To be frank e don't really know all that much about them but we can get them to do our bidding as long as there are zillions of them around (an electron by itself is another matter altogether).But we are certainly not going to get into particle physics,no way.
A volt meter measures the electric pressure like a manometer,a current meter the flow of current.Resistance is the ratio between the two V/A,if the voltage difference between two points in a circuit is one volt,say across a resistor and one ampere goes through it ,the resistor has 1 Ohm resistance,if it took 10 V it had 10 Ohms.It tuns out that as luck (or physics) would have this ratio stays quite constant for a lot of materials (metals for instance,but of course individually different,copper is a good conductor,iron a relatively poor one)This is the basis for Ohms law.If you put 10 V across that resistor you get 10 A (unless it got hot then you'd something a bit different depending on the material).
Power is VxA= Watts, like Pressure x Flow, 6 Volts from a battery going through 60 Ohm resistor (0.1 A) delivers 0.6 Watts or 600 mW. A diode is like a one way check valve in hydraulics,current can only go in one direction through it.Diodes are not perfect there is someforward drop across them 0.6-0.7V ,depending on current and they cannot take any reverse voltage,this is called reverse breakdown,unless the current is controlled it usually means the end of the diode,too much power dissipation.In zener diodes this breakdown voltage is accurately controlled.if you supply the thing via a resistor from a voltage source you can stabilize a voltage.Zener diodes behave like normal diodes in the forward direction,this can get innocents into trouble.End for now,next installment ac&dc.Ask questions if you don't understand something.

 

[etacovda]

ET,You mean to protect the battery from over charging?.yes a 1 Watt zener should do.You could also rig up a zener + LED series combination using the LED as an indicator to stop charging or turn on the lights to keep from overcharging.About those diodes the 8000 rpm actually means a frequency of 8000/60= 133 Hz which is not all that high.With the short ac pulse,the 'freq' in the pulse is really 10 times as high.I was going to take a look at diodes in pulse circuits and found out that my superduper Tektronix scope has bitten the dust.Looks like high voltage supply or CRT, a bummer.Hard to troubleshoot without another scope.I'm sceptical about the high speed diodes.But if they don't cost an arm and a leg,what the heck.It certainly wont hurt anything.Schottky diodes have no charge storage,but maybe pricey.

Yep, to prevent going over 15v - i have the original charge circuit from the power drill, which uses a plugpack at 15v, 400ma - so as long as i limit to 15v hopefully that'll be fine. I'll use a decent cap to smooth ripple somewhat - cant imagine the circuit will complain to being slightly under the rated current of the power pack, but i guess ill see...? It has overcharging protection with an LED in it already to show charge status.

 

[loquin]

Recovery time on the IN5404 diodes (200 volt versions) is in the 500 ns range. (For lower voltages, the recovery time is less.) 500 ns is one-half of one-millionth of a second. So, for the frequencies that we talking about, the recovery time isn't an issue. For a ballpark figure, I wouldn't worry too much about recovery times for the 1N5404 until the frequency gets over 100,000 Hz.

 

[impression]

Thanks people for your help in here

I'll be able to put some more time into the bike on Sunday. for the mean time i'm pretty busy with work and class

 

[etacovda]

Ok, im set

my final circuit (it works, i believe its right, but not sure!) - connected this directly to my power tool charger cradle for my nicads, the charge light starts right up, with decent brightness, so im definitely charging the battery! Ran it for 10 minutes or so, no issues. Motor started EXTREMELY easily, possibly easier than before (not sure why...?) didnt even require choke, which is odd. Doesnt appear to alter revs at all, very quick response.

After dissection i found my nicad batteries have small temperature probes that be checked whilst the battery is charging to detect overcharge. Am in the process of putting the two batteries into parallel and will make a small waterproof case for the new circuit, charging circuit and paralleled batteries - ill have 12v, 2.4ah, more than enough to keep my eventual luxeon/cree/whatever i go with working well. I'll aim for a final working wattage of my light system around the 5w mark, should be bright enough for my aims without significant discharge, and should give me around 5 hours without running the engine.

Parts list of attached circuit.

2 x diodes, 5w
1 x zener, 1w 15v
2 x capacitors - 1x 220uf @ 25v, 1x 470uf 50v(could be a 25v, i got this out of a computer PSU)

thats it. For charge regulation, i am using the charger from my nicad batteries, which came with my power drill.

Total cost shouldnt exceed $5US for this small circuit; probably around $3 max.

 

[etacovda]

I still want to help with a simple SLA battery charging circuit with overcharge protection - i think any form of manual switching should be avoided, it should be a turnkey and go operation from the get go, only needs to be touched if something fails... I dont personally like the idea of having to flick a switch to stop charging... surely a transistor or what-have-you could be used to dump extra power? I think this would be very useful. Ok, so for over charge protection for SLA...?

 

[etacovda]

http://www3.telus.net/chemelec/Projects/Charger/Charger.png

found this, looks very simple to build, and cheap... might just need to figure out a way to up the charge rate, maybe... or would that lead to premature battery wear?

found it here
http://www.electro-tech-online.com/general-electronics-chat/35372-sla-battery-charger-help.html

 

[impression]

etacovda wow

if that all works out over the next few days could i ask you to post up a diagram in the same style as this one
http://www.motoredbikes.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=16122&d=1237345566

as the one you have up i can't understand it very well and i don't want to break anything

Also should i go 12v as it seems that is the way to go for as parts are easier to get for it ?