Imhotep's Lab Interactive FAQ

Hello everyone!

I'm new to this site and a bedini- (imhotep- ) circuits newbie. I managed to find all the required components to build Imhotep-Bedini Fan, but one component I still cannot find, at least not in my country (Croatia). Funny as it may sound, but it's the neon bulb. At some electronic shops I'd searched for it the staff have even never heard of it(!!) Telling them the type (e.g. NE-2) or value (e.g. 110VAC) didn't help either. I searched the internet, but all I could find about the neon bulbs was on American sites.
So, my question is if someone knows how are those called in Europe, and under which types/values are they sold here? I'd like to order some via inernet, but before I do it from an American site, I'd like to try one last shot to find them somewhere in Europe (e.g. Germany).

Thank you for any information!

I have a Croatian friend ill ask him.

The neon bulb is the small bulb that you find on mains powered devices that glows with a flickering orange. you also find them in cheap electricians screwdrivers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neon_lamp

You do not have to use the neon but if you run the motor without it, when it is not connected to a charging battery, it will blow the transistor. Im sure you will find one in some old electrical equipment

i have 2 imhotep bedini fan and i tried to use it to charge on 2 very old heavily sulfated lead acid batteries : 12v 6Ah and 6volts 4Ah and both of them got up to 12+ and 7+ but when i use it , it dies quickly, what seems to be the problem? i use a voltmeter to read the voltage when charging

do you have a time frame on how long the charging must take place??

I recently bought 2 defective used car batteries from an auto supply shop at sells car batteries lead acid 45Ah and 70Ah and i used 2 imhotep bedini fan connected to DC regulated power supply at 12V 3A and charged them for 2 days, the voltage on the car battery rises but when i connect it again it dies very quickly, what seems to be the problem?

But the good news is that the Imhotep works very well on my new lead acid batteries 60Ah, 100Ah, 12Ah, 12Ah which i observed that the staying power and longer than expected

i have another observation, i tried to run imhotep bedini at 3A 24Volts DC Regulated Power Supply and the 2N3055 heats up but charges very fast on batteries

After 2 to 3 days the 2N3055 does not work anymore, i have destroyed around 3 to 5 pieces already, what is the solution? shall i connect it to a heatsink? big heatsink and try to run it for 24volts 3A?

Hello franzik,

As what i understand the Bedini charging system is effective on battery only after many (Don't know exactly) cycle of charge and discharge.

Also you should't know that a voltmeter or multimeter is not the best device for make measure on Bedini output, because it's not designed for measure pulsed current or volt, the voltmeter show only "a part" of the oscillating values, let's see this screenshoot take on my system with 12 v supply and potentiometer @ 0 Ohm:


As you can see this is a pulsed tension, max pulse is between 45V to 100V maybe more and if you take measure with voltmeter it show 2,5 Vcc, that is the spectacular particularity .

It's very interesting that it work on new lead acid, what is your voltage supply for charge them ?

For the 2N3055 problem i think that the best supply voltage is 12Vcc, with 24Vcc it's maybe too high and the pulsed peak too.

I hope help you,
See ya...

When recovering sulphated lead acid batteries, charge until the battery will not rise in voltage any more. With 70ah and 100 ah batteries using a Bedini fan this will take a long time, maybe weeks. Then discharge at a c20 discharge rate and repeat 6 to 10 times.

when the battery discharges fast it is showing you there is still a problem such as the plates are still sulphated or something else.

each successive cycle will reduce the sulphation more.

You need to get the charging voltage measured across the battery as high as possible on each cycle. if it is not reaching 14.4+ volts it is not fully charged or the battery has faulty cells.

Read the working with batteries posts as all the info is there.

It is important when using the fan that you have neons connected when it is not connected to the charging battery or your transistors will die. even when you do have the neon connected it is possible to kill the transistor. Bad connections to the charging battery will also do this.