SoakageTester

Hard and software for studying dielectric absorption aka "soakage" in electrolytic capacitors and/or batteries

Intro

This is a capacitor/battery pulsed charge-discharge cycle tester, as part of a project to investigate the theory that the well known "capacitor soakage" or "battery action" effect observed with electrolytic capacitors can be enhanced using pulsed charging, as demonstrated by John Bedini et al for years. For more information on the theory, see my article about The Cole-Hackenberger (Gray) Power Supply.

Hardware

The hardware consists of:

1. An adjustable power supply, 0-300V;
2. Pulse charge circuitry, steered by a BeagleBone, using a MOSFET;
3. Current measurement circuitry, using a shunt, some opamps to amplify the input signal, implement a low pass filter, etc.
4. Voltage measurement circuitry.

Both the current en voltage measurements are done by the BeagleBone using it's analog inputs and it's ADC.

Based on small-scope by Marvin Sinister.