The Newman's Energy Machine

EXPERIMENTERS' FEED-BACK

created on 07/07/98 - JLN Labs - last update on 11/17/98

Hi all,

Over the holiday weekend, anxiety built up to the point that I finally built a Newman Motor/Generator from the various junk lying around in my machine shop.
I've had this coil of mag. wire intimidating me for quite a while now. It's about 29,000 ohms and right around 16 miles long. I wasn't about to re-wind this into new coils, so I opted for a Newman design based on his portable...but smaller. If you read the book, you know its the one with a free-standing coil and the mag rotor/commutator off to the side.
I've also had a whole lot of Neo's daring me to put them to good use as well. Here's a description of what I built, how it runs, what it seems to be doing, and my next steps.
My commutator is about 4-1/2 in in dia. It's flat like JL's but machined out of double clad circuit board material, .1 thick. It has 36 pulsing segments...18 for each 1/2 rev/polarity. It's slip-ringed for direct application of D.C. or rectified A.C. Also, the machined out insulation spaces between the segments have been filled so that the
surface of the commutator is smoothe all over.
My Neo's are stacked about 3 inches long and about 1-3/4 square. They're mounted at one end of a SS shaft...Neo's one end, Commutator the other, needle bearings in the middle...about 4 in. separation between
the Neo's and the Comm.
My "burshes" are just wires wrapped around insulated posts that drag on the commutator surface. Because the commutator is smoothe, the wires don't jump any as they make and break with the segments.
At present, I am powering the thing with rectified 'wall power'. When running, It draws about 3/4 milliamp...that's right, less than a miliamp and turns at about 90 RPM. Timing is set at around 30 (thirty) degrees advanced.
If you read the book you recall that you can place a neon tube in parallel across the coil and light it up. Well you be you can. I put an 8 (eight) foot neon across my coil and it almost stays ignited continuously. It's not as bright as fully lit, but it's impressive nontheless. In addition, with the neon lit, the current dropped to 1/2
(one half) milliamp!!!! and the thing sped up perceptibly!!!!.....as Newman teaches.
On the scope: Negative current? You bet! By inspection, if integrated, the negative current is likely greater than the supply current. Next I'm going to go to higher voltage, screw around with the timing, sophisticate the instrumentation, improve the brushes and all that good stuff. These things I will do when I have another block of free time.
Meanwhile, I'll just watch it run while the neon glows.
I did this in less than two days. If I can, so can all of you. Try it, you'll like it. I must admit, JLN and Stefan Hartman have been quite the inspiration. Thanks guys.

Happy building,

Greg East

Hi all,

Just an update here. I have taken the next, simplest step and 'upped' the input voltage from 145VDC to 257VDC (NOT doubled). What do you think happened??. Well even though the 'coupling' in this style of Newman Mot/Gen is not very good (rotor-coil coupling), I was amazed to find the rotor RPM doubled, the Fluorescent is really cracking and the input current only climbed 2 (two) percent. All that higher-speed pulsing seems to be forcing the coil to stay in the high-slope region of
the induction curve. This is really exciting!!! It's also running really, really 'cold.

I also changed the timing a little, and it is now running almost 45 degrees advanced!! Don't really know the effect until I switch to batteries instead of my present full bridge rectifier. Additionally, I can't wait to go to batteries because I don't really think all those 'camel humps' are the best input for a DC machine. At some point there may develop some weird harmonic or something???

Later,

Greg East

Hi All,

I just came back from our Technical university in Berlin, where I made today new scope measurements on my old Newman
machine setup now in various conditions.

I think we found now the MAIN EFFECT on which the Newman back current spikes are based on :

It is a corona discharge effect when using big coils and a mechanical arc gap !!! It only appears, when the arc gap makes a "hissing" sound !!! These huge negative back current spikes which flow back into the power source only occur, when we had a "hissing" sound at the contacts !
Jean Louis Naudin was right, when he stated, that he could optimize the negative current pulses, when he used a very washed out aluminium sliding contact commutator, where he had lots of sparks ! Now I know it really depends on the "spark flame" and the hissing sound !
When we had a blue flame at the arc gap, there was no hissing sound ! Then the input current stayed just at a constant DC amperage level!

If I did further open the arc gap contacts, suddenly the hissing sound appears and then the negative staircase back current pulses appear ! They last as long as the "hissing sound" can last !

That means, the effect must be based on a special corona discharge effect.
Maybe it is related to the work of Mr. Corea with his "abnormal glow discharge effect" and the work of the Russian Chernetski, who also claimed 5 times more output than input when using special tubes plasma discharges !

I found the effect, when I also tried the coil without the magnet. It seems the permanent magnet motor rotor effect is only a "byproduct" of the Newman machine and does not account much to the duration of these back current pulses !

It works already alone with the coil and just when pulsing DC voltage across the coil via this "hissing sound spark gap" !

I guess with the right contacts and the right distance of the spark gap one can generate already a higher negative output than input , so that it stays for longer time in "hissing sound" mode ! Then an input current amperemeter will just read negative values, which means, power is coming out of the device !

The trick is now to find the right optimized arc gap. The effect scales up with the size of the coil and its weight !

This is why Newman got much better results with his first big units. There the coils were very big and the commutator was still so crude, that he had a big spark and much "hissing sound" at the commutator when the current was reversed to the coil.

I have recorded the negative current spikes and my experiments today at the university onto digital DV camcorder and will post later some pics and movies to my Website www.overunity.com .

Stay tuned !

Best regards, Stefan Hartmann.
--
email: harti@harti.com Web site: http://www.harti.com

Hi Dave,
well yes, I will study these effects on upcoming friday, when I will be again at the university.

I will try to build various spark gaps now to see, what kind of metal or carbon electrodes arc gaps will produce the best "hissing sound" sparks and at what setup there will be the best negative current output.

As the non hissing blue arc crosses a longer distance, it is the white colored flame hissing sound spark, which just makes the
effect. And the white spark only appears before the blue arc or after the blue arc.
So it depends on the distance of the electrodes ! I would say:
about 0.1 to 0.3 mm electrode distance: White arc hissing sound, big back current pulses !
about 0.4 to 1.5 mm electrode distance: Blue arc, NO hiss, NO back current pulses !
about 1.5 mm electrode distance: blue arc goes into white arc and disappears, hissing sound, big back current pulses !

Although I have to recheck that again next friday.
That was related to about 620 Volts of DC input voltage into the 16.9 KOhm coil.

Best regards, Stefan Hartmann.
--
email: harti@harti.com Web site: http://www.harti.com

I had about 620 Volts DC supply voltage rectified with a voltage doubler circuit from the main grid.

I tried various angle setup magnet versus commutator and always had about 3 to 5 msec lasting negative back current pulses.

When the magnet rotor was halted, the coil drawed about 33 mA DC and the voltage dropped a bit. (We only had 3 x 10 uF caps as the supply caps)

When the rotor versus commutator angle was optimal, the whole circuit drawed only about 4 mA RMS input current and the rotation of the magnet was about 4 to 5 rev/sec.
Still many back current pulses, but the positive going input current was still bigger than the area
under the negative back current pulses.

When I just used the coil and the metal electrodes to put the 620 Volts across the coil via this "hand driven" (manualy adjusted) spark gap, I could get negative readings of my RMS input current meter
for some half seconds or so ! (but only, when it had the white flame and the hissing sound appeared !)

>Maybe the "hissing sound" arc may have more metal electrode ions, so
> even though the arc is longer, the loss (resistance) is less???

Maybe it is just a plasma effect based on the right ionic oxidation ??
Maybe it is a chemical process, where the ionic oxidation process energy of the metall electrodes are converted into electricity ?

Best regards, Stefan Hartmann.
--
email: harti@harti.com Web site: http://www.harti.com

I fully agree with Stefan, I can also confirm this fact, if there is a white and bright spark the back current vanish. This is the reason why I ahev been conducted to build my special commutator design v1.4. All details about this special commutator are explained in my web site at: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/jlnaudin/html/NMac0629.htm

> Although I have to recheck that again next friday.
> That was related to about 620 Volts of DC input voltage into the 16.9 KOhm coil.

Good !!! we have approximately the same setup : I use 623V and a 17k Ohms coil, so we can compare our results... What is your inductance value ?

Stefan, could you please:

1) Send us some scope pictures about your negative spikes observed ?, I would like to compare with my previous measurements..
2) Conduct some rotation speed measurements ?
3) Build my special spikes currents rectifier ( see at: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/jlnaudin/html/NMac0702.htm )
and tell me if you notice the asymetrical current flow that I have measured ? (don't forget to use fast switching diodes ( like shottky diodes ))
4) Check is the effect with and without the HV capacitor C1 ( a mica capacitor ) ?
5) Tell us how much time the Newman's machine is able to run itself after the power-off sequence ? I have been able to get 4mn30....

Thanks again for all your efforts, good luck in your experiment,

Best regards

Jean-Louis Naudin (11-19-98)

See the first test feedback from Stefan Hartmann :

11-18-98 - Back current flow measurement also confirmed by Stefan Hartmann

If you need more informations or if you have any suggestions send me your Feedback

Email : JNaudin509@aol.com

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