Lharvey

Back EMF is a reversed polarity power spike that happens when a coil's magnetic field collapses when power is turned off. all could do this, from transformers, relays, and even motors.

electrical engineers call this "noise", and consider it a nuisance. such back emf is shunted away with a diode typically.

my question is: why don't we capture that power spike and put it to use??

here is the interesting thing: back emf voltage is several times more voltage than the voltage used to energize the coil in the first place! this is because the coils magnetic field collapses very powerfully, generating this spike.

I built a simple back EMF scavenger with a 12v car relay, and a 250v capacitor attached to the coil taps, blocked by two reversed diodes (so power only goes to the cap when the polarity is backwards), then wired the power to the relay coils through its NC contacts. when powered by a 9v battery, tne relay cycles on and off very rapidly.. each off cycle generating a back emf spike that gets shunted through the diodes to the capacitor. the voltage reading at the capacitor? 70vdc!

9 volts generating 70 volts, just by energizing and de energizing a relay over and over again, with minimal power actually used.

so, why haven't we (electrical engineer culture) put this phenomenon to actual use?

No matter what I try, the hard drive just goes crazy, and my computer goes unresponsive in the beginning scene of chapter 16 (the scene where they just arrive at rivendell and gandalf tells thorin "we have questions that they can answer")

Right at that point, everything freezes. hard drive light goes on nonstop, and the only thing that frees up the system is to eject the disc.

I load it again, jump to that chapter, it locks up again at the same point, I try to skip shapter 16 and goto chapter 17, it locks up. I try to slide the play timer past the point of lockup, it locks up.

So.. bad dvd? Full price: half the movie? What can I do about this? Is anyone else having this problem?

OK, let me preface that I am a bit beyond blitzd (that means drunk) at the moment, so bear with me, but a realization came to me in this "liberated" state of mind:

I may have seen a connection between matter, energy, mass, and time.... all aspects that make the Universe act the way it is. Maybe this is already established, but then I wouldnt be aware of it if it was. So here goes:

Matter is merely concentrated bundles of energy- each proton/neutron/etc are compact bundles of immense energy, equal to E=MC^2. This massive amount of energy is encapsulated in these subatomic quanta of this thing that we call "matter". This matter, in its encapsulated form, has the 4 forces of nature (Gravity, Electromagnetism, Strong, and Weak Nuclear forces), but these four forces are only present because of the encapsulated nature of the energy locked into its semi permanent form. Its not the energy that makes these forces, its the framework of how they were locked in place that causes them to be.

The Big Revalation of matter and the forces of the universe is; The Universe cannont tolerate such an imbalance of energy held and persistant in such confined and concentrated forms... so there are consequences... checks and balances, that works to mitigate these energy imbalances (the energy present within a proton, compared to the empty space/time around it)- to"break even" in a sort of energy over space sort of manner.

Thus, we have Mass. Mass is a way to "zero out" the average energy density of the space time continuum, as that is the lowest energy.. "default" state that the space time needs to be! Its like the universe was some disgruntled banker, saying "Fine!! you can KEEP all that energy, but there is a COST to keeping it HERE!". And that cost is Mass.

Mass is a form of "IOU" of energy disbalance. The more massive a given amout of atoms there is, is simply a measure of the amount of energy locked away there. A ball of 11-tey gazillion Lead atoms has more mass than the same 11-tey gazillion Aluminum atoms, simply because each Lead atoms has more Neutrons and Protons (bundles of raw energy) than the aluminum atoms do. Thus Lead is " more massive" and behaves differently in the physical world. Its all because of the measure of bottled energy, as I have said above, but more detailed-ly explained now.

How Mass is an "IOU" of matter is in the energy it takes to move it. Or divert its course. It costs more, doesnt it?! A resting mass of matter has a rather large amount of IOU built up as mass... for that lead ballbearing to remain resting motionless in space- the mass of it is the "negative" energy IOU surrounding it, and infusing it. It exists... but if you want to move it, you have to PAY.. in energy! When you spend enough energy to overcome the mass IOU, you finally get to move the lead ball. Int THIS particular, non intuitive (only see-able when the room is spinning, frankly) sort of way, the energy held in that lead ball is countered by the mass that it exibits in space-time. Adding energy to the ball to move it wont do a thing because of all the negative mass-iou you have to pay FIRST shows how the concentrated levels of energy are negated by its inability to move freely. Matter has its Price, and that is Mass.

Finally we get to Time. We were talking about energy being the counter pole to mass, and energy needing to move that matter by overcoming the mass... Movement is meaningless without a measurement of Time (if time didnt exist, movement over a measure of not time could either take zero time, or infinite time to travel- and the motion would seem the same). What mass didnt collect in the disproportionate concentration of energy, Time calls the rest the bill. That lead ball sitting at rest is ticking away at a certain rate of time. and any motion put into it will cost it a bit slower ticks in time, as a consequence of its mere motion. Try to move it fast enough, and the mass will get even higher (the energy of the matter itself, PLUS the energy YOU added to it by overcoming its mass IOU and moving it faster!)

And what do you get when you factor in the IOU of Mass to move that lead ball, and the energy you added to move that lead ball at the speed of light? Well, you have overcome the mass restrictions of the lead ball, as well as the self reinforcing feedback of accelerating it to lightspeed, with all of ITs mass added IOU.. so what is the total of energy expended to move that ball through space-time?

Well, I never went to high end physics, so dont have the math, but my drunken epiphany leads me to think that the energy spent to move that bundle of energy(matter) to lightspeed, is E=MC^2 of the energy in the matter being moved!! in THIS way, the Universe "breaks even" on energy levels- because while the enrgy of matter is allowed to exist, there is still the Price to get it to DO anything!

This is just a what-if.. but what IF redshift is NOT a product of space-time expansion.. but rather that the EM wavelengths simply do NOT travel at the same amplitude and frequency indefinitely.. and that they attenuate over vast distances and times to a lower energy state- they redshift as a function of travel distance and time spans?

Ok, so IF this is the case- how can we find out if it is true, if none of our test light can be measured over these distances and time spans? And if we cannot verify this, then how can we discount this?

But to the more important question: IF this is true, what would that mean for Universal-expansion, Dark Energy, The Universal Constant, and all other implications based solely on this "observation" that distant light is undergoing a Doppler Effect? Would it turn everything on its head? Would gravity and the Big Crunch be a possibility again? Would our map of the distant universe be of the same timescale and scope? Would the Big Bang date be affected? Would the Big Bang even be discredited??

Funny how such a small change in the fundamentals can have such huge implications. So tell me... What IF we misunderstand Red-Shift- and how would we be able to be certain what we know now is in fact reality?

No I don't mean pirate or download it. I. Mean it like:

" I have a credit card ready and am happy to purchase the 1996 album digitally for my Cloud"

... only I can't seem to be able to! :( if I'm left to just buying the CD at a music store (remember those?), but its not on the shelf anymore... then what option do I have?

Who would have thought it would be do difficult to give somebody some money?

I read an interesting Article (Jan2013 Scientific American) about a Carbon Exoplanet discovered, which has more Carbon in its planetary makeup than Oxygen. Here on Earth, we have approximately .01% carbon, and some 20% oxygen- meaning we are an oxygen/silica rich planet, the majority of our rocks being silica/oxygen silicates.

On this Diamond Planet, The Rocks are not rock(silica)-based as we would call them, but Carbon based.. Graphite as the sand and dirt, And deeper down, where the pressures are just right: Diamond bedrock. Seriously.

They would throw away Diamonds like we would throw away... gravel. In fact, they may view Granite or Quartz the way we would see Diamonds, simply due to its rarity or outright absence on their world.

Its hard to believe, but alien visitors from their world may marvel at the sparkly shiny silicates just laying everywhere all over our beaches, the same as we would marvel at the diamonds all over every square inch of their gray beaches.

It opens my eyes to what "a different life supporting planet" could truly imply. If the very bedrock of the crust could be so different from what I thought a "crust" could even be in my limited experience, just imagine how different evolved LIFE could be under such fundamentally different origins!

But to the question; if it was a Diamond planet, with Carbon as common as Silicon is here, what would THEY view as a "Diamond engagement ring"? And would we find that silly?

[echoed question from Physics forum- getting Alternative opinions here]

This is that whole Black hole paradox thing- that on a quantum level, no information is ever completely gone nor destroyed... only converted. There will always theoretically be a way to backtrack the conversion to re read the information in question.

So what about the Mind? What about the unique insights and intuitive leaps that the Mind made over its life? All the memories and self aware interests? Is it ever "simply gone"?

In short, is this some quantum mechanical model that could validate the physics of Ghosts/Souls?

This is that whole Black hole paradox thing- that on a quantum level, no information is ever completely gone nor destroyed... only converted. There will always theoretically be a way to backtrack the conversion to re read the information in question.

So what about the Mind? What about the unique insights and intuitive leaps that the Mind made over its life? All the memories and self aware interests? Is it ever "simply gone"?

In short, is this some quantum mechanical model that could validate the physics of Ghosts/Souls?

The story is a planetoid the size of Mars struck the Earth in its early formation- the debris cast off in the impact forming our Moon. A little under spoken side benefit of this impact is that the Earth gained two planets worth of accumulated Iron and Radioactive core-materials... correct?

So we have an Earth today with a vigorous active Core, with no signs of cooling down or stopping any time soon. The heat is generated mostly by our healthy abundance of radioactives in our core. Our Geology is active, our magnetosphere protects our atmosphere, and the Carbon Cycle of life gets renewed with plate subduction and volcanic release (the carbon trapped in living organism remains in the seafloor eventually get subducted, melted in the mantle, and then released as Carbon Dioxide from volcanoes- keeping the Carbon atoms liberated from the remains and recycled). Without the active Core, Our planet would be cold, its atmosphere stripped away, and all life stopped because there was no more Carbon to build Carbon based lifeforms with- it ran out billions of years ago.

In short, we would be a lot like Mars. The Core of Mars has cooled and solidified. Its atmosphere stripped away by the solar wind, and its now a dead vacuum world. Is this the normal fate of a planet if left to whatever inner core composition it was able to accumulate during planetary formation? Is it simply not enough to keep geology going? Does a planet need to have an "extra serving" just to remain active?

So that is my question: IS the Earth a "double serving" of core materials- due to that fortunate impact? Does this mean that non impact planets in other Earth habitable zones would not stay geologically active without such a fortunate impact? Does this make a life bearing planet such as ours much, much more rare than we may think- as it REQUIRES such an impact of just the right size to barely NOT obliterate the planet to give its core the materials needed to run in perpetuity (well, for the life of the star, at least)... OR am I overstating the importance of all this?

So yeah, I was just wondering if we took into account the extra help the Earth got with that impact... or if we just take it for granted that other planets can retain active cores like ours pretty much indefinitely... when it seems other planets in our own system have all cooled down by now.

First, a little explanation, so we all know what I'm talking about more precisely.

A BEAM "photovore" is typically a solar powered little robot, with cellphone vibrator motors, or something equally tiny, used to drive it around. Its called a Photovore ("eats light"), because the nature of its engine, and photo diodes, means that the motors will alternate which one pulses, depending on which direction the source of light is strongest.

Here is an example, of a very active, but not solar powered photovore behavior:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ji0wx4b9SM&feature...

A solar engine is a way to get a small solar cell to actually drive a motor in a pulsed fashion- as the cell does not provide enough current by itself to drive a power hungry motor coil. It uses a large Capacitor (4700uf) that gradually builds up a charge, with a 1381 Voltage trigger watching the rising voltage level. once the triggers' voltage setting is reached, it energizes the base of an NPN transistor, which completes the circuit between the big cap and the motor. Motor runs, Cap discharges, trigger turns off, Cap recharges... repeat. see http://www.google.com/imgres?hl=en&sa=X&tbo=d&biw=...

Photodiodes cross connected (left eye goes to right wheel) mean that the trigger signal takes path of least resistance (the diode with more light hitting it) to determine which motor gets the capacitors worth of energy.

There, we should be all caught up by now for you engineering types to help me.

The nature of the Solar engine dictates that the motor (and the coil within) has to start and stop repeatedly in little bursts. Recent reading up on Back EMF spike phenomenon leads me to believe that I can "scavenge" the back EMF of even these tiny low voltage (3v) motors, as a way to eek even more energy out of the design.

So in addition to the Solar Engine; that gets its power from Light, this will be an ancillary "Scavenged Engine" that gets ITs power from back EMF/motor kickback from the pulsed motors!

Maybe a reverse (shottky) diode pair tapping off of the motor leads, leading to another cap and solar engine? As I understand the EMF, the main engine will pulse (and I believe would run the motor with less back inductance::better) once per second ad nauseum, while the scavenged engine would fire maybe every 100 main engine firing or so. Even if it did it this slowly, its STILL "free energy" that was always there to begin with, now being put to use. With a smaller Cap, the Scavenged Engine would weigh only grams (literally 2 transistor bodies and a cap)

Failing the Scavenged engine, maybe a "Kickback power giveback" circuit of some sort, that dumps that spike energy (that is now reversed polarity momentarily) back into the large Cap for while it lasts... recovering some ot the CAP charge, to speed up engine cycles...?

So what do you think? will it even work? is it practical? Is it "GENIUS!!!" ? is it old hat? Has it not been done before because it will simply fail? Or is back EMF spikes still to this day a little understood phenominon that is only treated as "merely noise"?

A more specific motor kickback question: with a typical Solar engine, when the trigger kills the ground to the motor, and its suddenly off, the motor would "coast" to a stop for a bit... would the draw of this scavenged engine act like a BRAKE to that motor, resulting in even LESS performance (actual movement)?

A Beam Solaroller is basically a sollerpowered dragracer, trying to get 1 full meter in the shortest amount of time off of a 500W bulb over the track.

The Square inches of the solar panel is restricted to 800 cubic MM, so there is no way to directly power a motor from the solar cell.

So, a solar engine is used, The cell trickle charges up a big capacitor (typically .33F), and a voltage trigger enables an NPN transistor that then drains the capacitor to the motor.

The race is getting the supercap up to charge the quickest, and design the wheels and weight of the frame to make it go the farthest the fastest. (world record was I believe 1 minute, 3 seconds)

There, now that we're all caught up, I was doing some reading on Back EMF coil collapse, with regards to capturing the back spike (often 100's of volts!) to get the super cap charged up even faster, using the smallest and lightest iron core relay I could find, and some NC relay contacts to divert the spike to the Cap, in rapidly cycling pulses of power.

Has this been tried before? Does anyone think it could work? (does anyone out there know what I'm talking about?)

(just something rattling around in the back of my mind lately- seeing if anyone has any input on this)

By field lines I mean like the lines you see when you put iron shavings over a magnet on a piece of paper- thats the real world scale representation of a field of the electromagnetic force, and the individual traced out lines are not lines of force per se, but rather "zones of more likely probability" where the shavings gather. [This question aims at what happens when multiple "zones of more likely" overlap.]

The Field of the magnet is a "cloud" of the field of force of magnetism, and this field has the force of magnetism in every square nanometer of 3d space that in encompases, not just in the more-probable field lines.

All forces of nature carry these forces through the "force carriers" of the standard model: Photon, gluon, boson, etc, that emit outward from the particles applying the force in question, out in all directions for the duration of their "life". Gluons have a very short range of life, photons a very long one. These Force carriers stream out in all directions, forming the Field.

So heres the question: could the "virtual particles" of quatum foam be caused by/ represented by these force carriers as they move out, overlap with others, combine in other ways out in what is generally considered "empty space"; to _cause_ these virtual particle uncertain potentialities into actuality for their brief existence?

This leads me to the next leap: does this mean that quantum foam only exists in a "vacuum" populated by such force carriers? Would a truly TRULY empty cube of space- devoid of any force carrier intrusion, still evidence virtual particles? [dont think there is any way to test this, stuck in a gravity well, within a magnetosphere and such as we are]

And the final leap of "what if": if quantum foam ONLY exists within overlapping fields of forcecarriers caused by matter, could these virtual particles, not endemic to all space afterall, be the Dark Matter/Dark Energy everyone is looking for?

I am self teaching myself electronics and beginner robotics, and really enjoy the whole concept of BEAM Robotics (Mark Tilden), as solar powered non-controller behavior is what I was aiming for all along.

The thing is, BEAM websites all seem to have stopped new content around 2002. :(

Solarbotics.com is a great resource for materials and kits, and have some really good solar cells and motors/ geared motors available, but I am noticing a serious lack of new content out there on the web, or content that is not a recent recreation of a 10+ year old design.

Is there anything new or fresh in this hobby?

I was looking around the OSHA regulations for Maritime industries, regarding found lead in existing paint where abatement/hotwork was to be performed.

What I think is happening is my Management had paint samples taken, it was found to contain lead... THEN KEPT IT A SECRET and told the employees to get to work, so as to avoid any disruption or delays to production schedules with all those "inconvenient" Lead requirements and precautions.

What makes me think this is that we were told "no lead, its fine", proceeded to work, and some other company stopped us in alarm a few weeks later when they saw us working in there, telling us "we had this tested for lead, and its HOT!".

So.. it seems my employer was _knowingly_ exposing us to lead.

What can I do about this? What recourse is available to me? Is it required that employees to do the work be informed of the test results? Can I demand to see the results for myself?

Just how much trouble will my employer be in if this is found to be the case?

I have been looking over the Labor laws online, looking for a certain issue, but cant seem to find a section nor paragraph covering this:

1) We are told to report to a usual job site ("the Shop") 30 minutes before official start of shift, leave our personal vehicles there, and get into a company van. If we don't get there in time, we are considered "Absent" and are sent home without pay.

2) That van takes us to a work site that is approx 25 minutes travel away.

3) IF traffic was not too bad we then punch in our time cards at this remote site at typical start of shift time.

--- if late then we dont get the full 8 hours pay that day- only getting paid from actual punch in to punch out.

4) At end of shift we punch out at the remote site at the typical end of shift time, and get back into the Van for return to "the shop".

---- sometimes traffic is so bad it takes a full hour to get back.

So, we come to work a half hour early, and sometimes don't get to our vehicles an hour late, without it being paid for that extra time.

I think this is unfair (and what if we get injured while riding in the work van off the clock?), and wrong/in violation of labor laws, but cant cite a reference to prove it.

Could someone provide a link to that paragraph/code, if it exists? Or if the above is standard business practices, and I am just expecting too much, then let me know if that is the case

JUST had this dream; crystal clear and creepy, and am posting this while its still fresh:

I was standing within a circle of monk like hooded people, in a dark place- and all I could see in the shadows is their eyes, like in a candlelight. they were all chanting this... chant, over and over until I jerked awake:

"Ahi Hay Lilitu!

Drink of Lilith, and DESPAIR!

All of light and love was burned away

All is ashes!

All are ashes!

Ahi Hay Lilitu!"

over and over.

it was creepy, seemed supernatural somehow, but what does any of that MEAN? (other than never go to sleep on a full stomach again)

was that from some movie, or something?

its a super simple repair: by serpentine belt slipped off of a pully, and I have no tools to ease the belt tensioner to put it back on.

i'm am about 5 miles from the nearest repair place, but cannot limp there as I would overheat and have no power steering assist.

I googled a roadside repair place, where they come to you like a locksmith does and does the work on site, but don't know their rates.

another option us to pay a towing service to tow me to a garage, then pay the garage to do this 2 minute repair.

so, the question is: which one would in the end cost less, typically. i'm wondering if the rates of an on sight repair guy is more than a tow and repair. (its just seems silly to get a tow for a freaking belt)

Sometimes I wonder if some Blogs, forum posts, twitters, etc may have some infiltrators from outer space origins, that we are simply unaware of due to the anonymity and open networking provided by the nature of the internet.

How would we/could we know if a satellite router wasn't hacked, and is feeding data out to and in from the Night sky?

Sometimes I read a entry/question, and think "OK, that's got to be an alien... what human doesn't truly know how many toes we all have?!?"

So what do you think?.. would they find the internet interesting? inane? So primitive as to be distasteful? An open door to Earth-Human living archaeology? Or is the router traffic so thouroughly monitored that a bored teenager alien would get caught adding his content to the Web?

Lets say we build a test chamber, simulating conditions on the surface of Venus: heat, pressure, atmospheric conditions, etc.. Then we looked for an "extremophile" microorganism, that would in fact find the Venus chamber a garden of eden, as it eats sulfur and does not mind the heat or pressure. A black smoker bug, or Yellowstone thermal pool microorganisms come to mind...

We then would have an opportunity to share life on another world.

The Question is, if we do find a microorganism that COULD live there... WOULD we plant that life on Venus?, or Mars, Titan, Europa, etc.. to grant life to thrive there?

What ethical or popular opinion issues would enable or stop this from occurring?

I am of the opinion that we should absolutely do it, if only to let some form of life go on in case the Earth meets an untimely end (not all eggs in one basket sort of thing)