Imhotep's Lab Interactive FAQ

Just an update: I have all my parts ready to go and tonight is the night! I just wanted to thank you all once again! I will post all of my results in this thread:)

Wish me luck!

UPDATE ALTREZ???

What happened? been a month?!?!?

I have spent the last few nights working on the IRO and can simply not make it work. Here is what's happening. I wire up the Radio Shack Relay and then I plug that lead from the relay to the (-) post on my 12 volt source battery.

I then take leads 85 and 30 that I have attached to one side of the diode and one side on the neon and place the other side of the diode to the (+) post of the target battery.

I then take lead 86 that is also attached to the other side of the neon, and place it on the (-) of the target battery.

I then place a lead from the (-) side of the target battery to the (+) side of the source battery.

At this point the relay clicks once and then stops. If I move the (-) lead around on the target battery the relay will keep clicking faster and faster. If I stop moving it the relay quits altogether.

Now if I take the (+) side off the target battery the neon will flicker when the relay click's. but it will still not run unless I move the (-) lead around on the target battery.

I have no idea what I could be doing wrong. And I have made 3 diffrent IRO's now all with new parts. I even had one of my electrical engineer friends come over and bulid one from scratch and his did the exect same thing.

We used diffrent batterys for each test. 3 diffrent relay's and neon sources and diode's.

I am so lost!!! Any help would be great!!!!

Thank you!!!

On my 5th Relay from radio shack I must be missing something easy. I have tried placing the wire on the silver arm of the relay the one that moves back and forth between the two contacts. I have also scraped the gold contact and placed the wire there.

If I solder the wire on the scraped off contact point on the gold connector the IRO runs constantly with a very high pitched sound, the silver arm does not move back and forth and the neon will only light if it is not connected to the target battery.

If I place the wire on the silver arm that moves back and forth the neon will light and the silver arm moves back and forth only if I tap the (+) side of the source battery.

Radio shack has one relay left and I really want to get this to work. Where can I possibly be going wrong?

Thank you all so much!

I'll say you are missing something... Here is what it is supposed to do!



NEON only lights if a target battery is NOT connected! You do not even need neon at all, it's just there
to tell you the circuit is working if there is no target battery. The silver arm DOES move, but it moves
such a small distance, that it appears still. The noise is the indication of running! You can fix all your
other relays properly now. Put a finger in there on the silver arm, you will feel it vibrate. I did not check
all your other connections (as I do not have a diagram or relay in front of me) but this last post makes
sense, you had it but was looking for the wrong effect apparently! The source batt. negative is soldered
to the scratched off gold contact, the electrons enter there and energize the coil, then the silver arm
BREAKS the circuit, letting the backspike exit out thru the diode leg. You had it, just fix it back like that
and remember, the neon is only operating without a target battery!

Not to be crunk, but...
Apparently you needed an Electrician as opposed to an EE

This is a totally non-standard hookup of a relay, it used to be common when they
used buzzers for doorbells, but I only remember those in really old buildings. If your
friend did not know what the circuit was supposed to do (oscillate) then he would have
connected it in a more conventional way. It is easier and better to get the BOSCH relay.
Easier to wire up (no soldering) and it has real contacts that last longer than the "gold one".

Thank you JAE!! I had configure the IRO correctly the very first time However I am now more confused then ever! I was under the impression that this device could charge a battery plus do extra work using BEMF?

So what I was looking for was the ability to charge the battery with a radiant charge while also lighting the neon at the same time. Below is what I read about the IRO. And I thought that it would work this way.

"...Spikes occur every 2.5 ms in excess of 300 to 400 volts. An automotive relay can be wired as a buzzer and it produces 400 volt spikes suitable for radiant energy charging of a battery,
and/or lighting a fluorescent tube at low current draw. This shows how to do this, using just three components: 1 relay, one diode and one neon...."

Its the "and/or" part that is really confusing me. Why doesn't the neon light while the target battery is charging with the IRO?

Or do we lose all the bemf using it to charge the target battery? I really would like some more understanding if you could please help

I guess I just do not see the IRO really doing anything other then basic oscillation of dc current on a magnetic coil? the high voltage spikes will condition battery's this is true. And I am so happy to have found a very cheap and easy way to recondition old battery's. You can buy these types of chargers / re conditioner's for around $200 from this website http://www.theworldsbestbatterycharger. ... ering.html. Do you think that this guy stole Imhotep's design?

The whole idea that for 8 bucks you can make your own device thanks' to Imhoteps IRO being open source is truly impressive.

I just still really do not understand the full scope of the project at hand. I have my IRO now three in fact lol and I would like to power 3 CFL's while charging a 12v battery all at the same time so I can show myself that this really will work.

Is that possible?

Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I would also like to know if anyone can recommend a good Oscilloscope for use with this circuit and other projects? I want to build a home lab and would like to start buying the much needed tools to be a dedicated FE researcher:)

I figured my first step would be to get a good scope an learn how to use it.

I have charged a battery with the IRO but I can not get it to light up a cfl so that is confusing me still. I have some many things to learn!


Thanks!

You need a secondary coil off a car to light the CFL. It still charges batteries,
but the extra components are needed. Check out Imhotep's Radiant Osc. Lite forum...
It's a simple upgrade from what you have now, I bet you can get it to work the first time!
Remember to modify the CFL first, I think the video is still operational for that one.
Lidmotor has good vids of this one too, (IROL) he has built many useful variations of it!

That's John Bedini's design, and is a bit more complex and faster charging than our IRO's.
Not sure who made who, but they are 2 different designs, the IRO is so good and so cheap!
A Joule Thief is a double coil solid state version of the IRO, that is likely my next iteration,
or something like it that charges faster than a simple IRO. Imhotep has more advanced
versions I'm sure, he is a big time member of overunity.com and this IRO is just to show
us "noobs" a dead simple proof-of-concept to get us started!