Imhotep's Lab Interactive FAQ

Well, after accidentally finding the IRO video on youtube and checking out Imhotep's site and (energetic forum, as well) I have stared at this circuit for almost a month.
I liked the way it read at first sight. Sure, I'm a bit of a weirdo, I fix electronics for a job but my brain won't grab on to the existing EE theory and so I don't know how half the junk is supposed to work anyway.
The radiant oscillator had the oddity of 'looking right' to me.
So I stared at it for a month.
Then, I stripped all the parts but the coil and relay off of an early-2000's Akai tv chassis (since my junk lawnmowers didn't want to give up their condensers [under the flywheel, ack] I pulled the biggest non-electrolytic cap off the Akai). Bought a RS275-0226 SPST 30A12V relay for about $6, the only spst they had.
Attempted to use the flyback instead of a car coil... hooked up the wrong primary, got no light, and melted a wire off the relay. Briefly fused the relay, but a tap got it going again .
Ditched the flyback and pulled the coil off my '76 lincoln (460 v8). Let it sit for two more days...
First attempt after installing the coil, using a 12v large deep-cycle and a smaller 12v deep cycle... big at 12.3V small at 11.55V...
using small as primary battery (power source) and big as charging, connected primary.
Light!
Horrid self-resonant relay buzz!
Whee!

Definitely charging secondary (big) battery, 12.5V after 1/2 hr.
Primary reads 11.5V when connected to circuit, 11.56V when disconnected after 1/2 hr.
All voltages drop slowly when disconnected, I assume because of the radiant effects/short application time and these batteries having sat for a while partially discharged.
After 1/2 hr, I swapped the big deep cycle for a regular car battery which has sat for months (probably 5 or 6) reading 10.5V.
When 'deader' battery was connected initially, it jumped to 14.5V, as it sits on the circuit the voltage has dropped to 12.6 or so after 1/2 hr, back up to 13.1 after a full hour from hookup.
However, the small deep-cycle source (hasn't been at its stock 13.2V for at least a month or two) seems to be fading after a full hour and a half of draw. The bulb is getting faint. I disconnect the source and hook up the long-deader which wouldn't start the circuit initially. Get around 30 sec of function including charge for the original source battery before relay slows and bulb goes out.

Congratulations, Your IRO is working as expected. each time you charge and discharge your battery you are removing sulphation from the plates. you will find that after every charge there is more capacity in the battery untill it reaches its maximum capacity.

As the capacity increases it will take longer to charge

thanks for the battery info.
I got an extra 15 minutes of functional time after the small deep-cycle ran down the first time by charging it for less than a minute with the formerly dead battery as the source... it had been on the charge side for about 1 hr.
Also, I forgot to mention... when choosing a cfl, I was trying to decide which one to sacrifice, and one in the house went dead. very serendipitous. so, after modification per video, it is working fine.
reminds me of how modern fluorescent designs are a sabotage of tesla's originals, his had electrodes in the ends of the tubes, but the modern ones have little wimpy coils instead of electrodes, so they can burn out. I assume that tesla's worked until physically broken... I've taken 'burned-out' 4-foot tubes and flickered them with a static spark from myself to a doorknob through the bulb.
Can't wait to recondition as many of my old dead batteries as will respond!

well, an update...
My old sulfated 12v car battery now holds a fluffy charge of 11.x V after a few hours of IRO treatment. It drops to 7.x V on cold nighttime still, but jumps back up after a few minutes of treatment. Haven't really tried the trickle low-amp charge yet, just the IRO.
It does something neat now, though.
I can run my little 350W older inverter off it for minutes without the inverter going into low-V shutdown (beeeeep!) after a few minutes of IRO charge. If I plug anything into the inverter (even a little digital clock) it runs a few seconds then shuts down.
However, I thought I'd sacrifice my older inverter for testing. Didn't know if anyone else had dared risk an inverter to see if it could run off the charging battery on an IRO setup without it getting fried by the spikes so I though I'd give it a go.
Well, short story long, it works. A cheap little 350W modified-sine 12v to 120v inverter. When the IRO charging output is hooked to the same battery that runs the inverter, the inverter can run the digital clock as long as the IRO is running. The most interesting thing... You know how digital clocks flash 12:00 when the haven't been set? It flashes 1 flash/second I believe... well, when the IRO is hooked up to the battery with the inverter on it, the clock flashes faster! NOTICABLY faster! I assume the frequency of the AC is being modified somehow from the IRO being connected to inverter input (with the battery there to control the voltage, support surge demand, and moderate the spikes...)
Also, somewhat unrelated:
I read elsewhere on this forum someone using welding xformer parallel with coil primary? I tried it, since I had an old 110v junky welder laying around.
Don't remember exactly how I had it hooked up when it 'worked'... very scientific, eh?
But, I was getting 100V-300V spikes off whichever end I was using for output showing on my digital meter when I connected to the coil primary with jumper cables. Touch the + cable to the welder xformer terminal while IRO running, fuses relay and produces lovely spike. Flick/thump relay and try again. Another spike. Sometimes runs for a second or two before relay fuses. EEK!
So, interesting, must play more later.
After fusing relay a bunch of times, took case off to clean terminal contacts and look for diode. Couldn't find diode, cleaned contacts with metal nail file but it still worked afterwards. Much quieter with case off as per another suggestion on this forum. Noticed another interesting effect as well. The relay contacts have a lovely blue arc between them most of the time this IRO is running, it only cuts out for fractions of a sec at a time, and not in a predictable pattern.
Neat stuff! I now have 3 batteries which seem to be in better shape than before I started using them to experiment with this for a few hours, IRO treatment only (no conventional charging yet), and this is really psyching me up about trying something like earth battery to supply IRO...
YeeHaw!
Thanks Imhotep for open-sourcing this data!

To fully desulphate your battery you have to charge with IRO until the voltage will no longer rise, discharge and then recharge again several times. each time you do this you will get more capacity in the battery until the maximum is reached. The fluffy charge is because the plates are only partially desulphated. as the plates desulphate you will find the battery takes longer to charge.

Using the charging battery to power something at the same time is not a good idea. Batteries cannot charge and discharge at the same time without causing damage to the plates, eventually you will destroy the battery doing this. I have destroyed 3 batteries this way.

the spikes will effect the operation of your digital clock causing it to keep inaccurate time and will probably destroy the chip inside it. they may also destroy your inverter.

Sorry about the bad news but it is better to be aware of the dangers.

I was the one that first posted about the welding transformer. I suspect the power in those spikes is potentially hazardous to the battery causing risk of explosion so be careful. I would charge large capacitors then discharge these to the battery, I believe this is what Tesla did

bad news? nah. I fully expected the inverter to fry when I first hooked it up. if it dies, then so be it. the clock is pretty much junk, anyone but me would've tossed it in the trash years ago.
I still appreciate the info... especially battery conditioning data. I will observe the no-load while charging in the future as I'd prefer not to destroy any battery plates worse than they already are! also, I have one HUGE capacitor I need to find for this, like a 4 farad or so, about the size of a 1-liter soda bottle! It was made for buffering power draw with big car stereos so the amplifier could draw short bursts of power greater than the auto electrical system without shutting down. It does have some solid-state board on top w/a voltage readout, might fry that, but oh well! It's just another item in my packrat pile :p

lots of great raw battery data here guys!
thx for the suggestion to search your posts MBrownn, you are a great wealth of knowledge!

Squid, doing great work, keep sharing! Inverters may be an answer to my quest of directly using radiant,
??Bedini sometimes uses inverters after charging to extend runtimes??
I saw that reference in the "practical guide to free energy devices"
you could be on to something...