Gray Tube Replication

[Jetijs]

freeukpower,
I also have thought about a Tesla turbine as a spark gap. You can get very high RPM's and also you can build it so that the input high pressure air helps to estinguish the arc. This, combined with the reverse diode thing, could give some good results

[Electrotek]

freeukpower: Thanks for the background on your rotary spark gap experiences. When I think of the Chernetski effect, I like the idea of your arc dragging to that extent. However, this isn't high on my list of experiments this month. My current setup doesn't have this component, relying instead on just the mains frequency to pulse the spark in my Tube. I've also tested a circuit which uses a small capacitor to pulse the discharge:

Jerry's Site - Bigger Cap.avi

I've just finished rebuilding my Puff Tube, which compresses the large volume spark discharge, and I'll have some photos in a day or two.

I'm planning to use the CSET in a charging circuit, as well as for the periodic discharge. Since the charging rate will depend on the Tube's pulse rate, I will probably have to use some form of interrupter for this.

[Electrotek]

Easy Tesla Turbine

Here's a site which shows how to build a Tesla Turbine using CD discs:

Build an Amazing Tesla CD Turbine

If the air were input at the center, it would aid in the arc blow-out.

[Electrotek]

My Patent

I've thought about modifying the circuit shown in my Patent (4260933) for use as a CSET. With this, I can get any pulse frequency I want, without an interrupter.

This is my only patent. Since the Internet came out and I discovered the Free Energy community, I've been releasing all of my stuff into the Public Domain.

[lighty]

I'm afraid Tesla turbine is also severely limited. I've built two of those and let me tell you that you cannot even imagine what problems you're going to encounter when you get into higher RPMs. I was using high quality reinforced stainless steel plates made to about 0.005mm tolerance and even with proper balancing it was virtually impossible to reach RPMs over 20000. Of course I'm talking about full size Tesla turbine not a small size models found on internet. Reaching 100'000 is impossible using current technology of materials. Not to mention the fact that introducing anything to those plates (like electrodes or something simillar) will disturb delicate balancing.

Also, Tesla's primary reason for developing bladeless turbine wasn't construction of sparkgaps.

[Jetijs]

Lighty, I read that the smaller the Tesla turbine disc diameter is, the higher RPM it can get, there are limits of course. But for a spark gap, you don't need a full size turbine. There was a youtube clip where one guy had his small model turbine running at 40k or so RPM's. Also some CNC air turbine spindles can reach 100k and even 120k RPM without any load:
YouTube - Sodick's 120,000 rpm HSM spindle
I have built a simple Tesla turbine and it can reach about 10k RPM's with blades 130mm in diameter. At higher speeds the vibration becomes a problem. Nothing is ballanced, but I guess that if I did all the balancing done, I could easily get past 20k RPM.
Anyway, I appreciate your comments and if you say that it is not worth doing, I believe you

[Electrotek]

Tesla himself found that the plates would stretch at high rpm's, which is or was a defeating factor. Perhaps he wasn't aware of Moray's metalurgical skills? (Pat. #2460707)

His primary motive was to have an engine which was small and light enough to provide power for his airships, either by running a dynamo, for an electrical effect, or directly, for Inertial Lift.

There's a thread about Tesla's Motor on this Forum. Mechanical Thrust is my primary area of research. I have a group devoted to this field. It's been online for nearly a year. Needless to say, I'm taking it Very Slow. I just don't know if I'll get shut down if I post anything too explicit. I've run into quite a bit of unofficial opposition on the Internet in the past several years. Now I notice that one member lists an Arlington address, which is where the Pentagon is.

inertial_lifters : Inertial_Lifters

[lighty]

@Jetijs

I'm not saying that it's impossible for some turbines to get over 100'000 RPM but they're extremely small turbines not being capable of sustaining any mechanical weights like the electrodes of the sparkgap. Also, even with the forced airflow quenching the amount of ionization in such a small volume would be insurmountable problem. Even with hard vacuum one would face the problem of insulation, premature sparking etc.


@Electrotek

You're quite correct. The technological challenge poses a simple choice- either one choose to achieve higher RPM and have to use smaller plates or one choose to use bigger plates with more electrodes but then goes to smaller RPM.

I used a small very precisely made rotational sparkgap with 10 electrodes. I was able to achieve up to 10'000 RPM before vibrations become significant. Even with that sparkgap I was able to achieve mere 600-700 us period between pulses. Of course the pulse itself was not in the lower us range since the arc stretching was prolonging the duration of spark.

Also, increasing vibrations means increasingly non-precise triggering since the sparkgap will vary.


One solution to those kind of problems would be to use rotary mercury interrupter but those tend to be very expensive, thery are not easily homemade even with appropriate skills and tools and they rarely go above several thousand RPM. At the time I had some need for rotary interrupters so I consulted the engineers at the university who made some of those interrupters and I quickly abandoned the idea of using one because it could not get me to high frequencies needed and they were also operating to about several kV not more. They are great for large Tesla coils though because they can handle quite a lot of current which would ordinarily burn ordinary solid electrodes- even the tungsten alloys like thoriated ones and such.

[lighty]

BTW- I was just thinking why in the world would one need precise timing just for testing the CSET concept? I mean why not using a trigger sparkgap which would discharge itself when voltage in the capacitor get sufficiently high. One could use liquid dielectric, forced air blowing, vacuum or high pressure inert gas to prevent forming of corona and early streamers and the inherent properties of those methods would be to produce very short impulses. In fact I did produce exact replica of original quenched magnetic sparkgap of the time (at the time I was commishioned quite often by museums to produce working replicas of various HV and simillar devices) and they performed quite nicely. They were not magical as some people might think based on Vassilatos books (which are NOT a bible mind you, there is a lot of unsubstantiated speculation in them and it can easily be proven) but combination of several of those methods would ensure sudden impulse forming (sharp rising edge) and would ensure that impulse remain quite short while at the same time ensuring that a propper sharp falling edge appear without much ringing.

If there is interest I might look through my 3D Solidworks models of magneticaly quenched sparkgaps to find appropriate ones- I'm pretty sure Jetijs will know how to handle them. Exact measurements can be extracted from models since I made them exactly as the originals. I would do it myself but I'm currently over my head in some commercial stuff so no time for it.

[Electrotek]

lighty: Interesting point about the vibrations and timing variance. Also very interesting about the current handling capabillities of the mercury interrupters.

But I think we can get sharp pulses using Aaron's reversed biased Step Recovery Diode technique. Or a multi disc arc gap, such as Tony's proto board holes. This should eliminate the streamers and the arc stretching. All we need between the rods is a momentary spark. The main discharge is between the HV rod and the grid, triggered by the motor's 'really slow' commutator. With the relatively low pulse rate of the CSET circuit, a rotary gap should work, without a special atmosphere. I've already learned that the commutator-controlled main discharge needs to be magnetically quenched, to overcome the motor coils' time constant. Hence, the coils around the Tube. And an additional quenching agent, such as chlorine, may need to be added to the Tube's internal atmosphere.

I've also discovered that a Tube like the CSET can be used as a Capacity Changer, especially when there are two grids which are connected. The inner grid forms a capacitor with the potential placed on the plasma. (Without an arc over.) When the arc goes out, the device converts to a single pole capacitor and the charge transfers to the outer grid, with a tremendous increase in voltage, due to the then much lower (isolated) capacitance. This may account for the huge energy spikes some researchers have reported.

Your capacitor triggering spark gap idea is basically what I used in the video whose link I posted above. But for basic testing, a one-shot contact switch is all that's needed, as freeukpower showed. However, for my goal of also using the CSET as part of a rapid charging circuit, an interrupter will be needed - even a sloppy one.

[mlurye]

Here is how Tesla was converting AC to DC 413353

[nat1971a]

I started work today on mlurye's circuit. i couldnt get the pnp 2n3906 to work so i tried the 2n2222a instead and got that to finally work with the 10 turns around the base of the ignition coil. I had to also disconnect the lead from the positive of the battery and the bridge rectifier. I got the spark gap in the cset to fire and had to call it a day.

[mlurye]

nat it was fun project for me, so if I can assist you in putting it together let me know

[mlurye]

Lately I was going through Tesla patents and I found that around 15 of them are about discharge controllers.

[Jetijs]

Lighty, I would be interested in your solidworks drawings
Do you still have my email?

Also the idea about letting the cap charge to the breakdown voltage and then let it discharge is great. This is what Tesla was talking about in one of his lectures about light phenomena. All you need is a good way to quench the spark and a steady HV DC source. This way the you can adjust the discharge frequency by adjusting the capacity of the capacitor. But a good and steady HV DC source could be tricky to get. I guess that is why Lighty mentioned 1000 of 9V batteries in series in one of his posts
Thank you,
Jetijs