Hi Bizzy,

if I remember correctly some Physics classes from a while ago, then "blank" aluminum does not exist in nature because an aluminum surface instantly oxidizes, when exposed to oxygen (in nature primarily from air or water).
This oxidized top layer is non-conductive and consequently aluminum plates are automatically insulated.
The controlled technical application of this process is called
Anodizing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Hi Marxist
thanks for the help.
Bizzy

By the photograph of the aluminium plate, Patrick says that it is
suspended with nylon threads to keep it insulated.

I have had limited success with the basic Tesla idea before breakfast
but not much success later in the day. I might try this variant.
Thanks for mentioning it, Bizzy.
Paul-R

Hi Paul
You are welcome...I am not giving up on my Bedini/Watson machine, but one of my early experiments after my windmill was Tesla's radiantr energy collector. Like you I had only limited success. Fortunatly I now have a better place for testing so I am going to resume these studies as well.
However in recreating the Jes Ascanius radiant collector I am having difficulty finding the 200nf 200volt capacitors...any help in locating them would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Bizzy

I have 2 plates at the moment sat on top of an arcade machine, they are doing some collection for radio projects. But, I intend to put them in the attic, too much lightning here to think of putting them out in the backyard !
Of galvanized steel and approx 2ftx3ft each, I was wondering the best ways of connection, so am happy to see your post Bizzy, which is more than the standard energy collector info we may see.
Though, relevance is to be had in Jake's great thread, about his crystal radio project.
Am thinking of coax...is that an idea with no 8 gauge laying about ?
Also, being short of baseball bat type pipes here for burying in the ground, I have an idea of using a steel plate from the bottom of a microwave oven, but have the thought that it's too small ? Otherwise, i've had good results from a 2ft steel 2" diameter pipe hammered into a spot near the house, where rain collects.

Oh, here's a circuit you may like, radio reception is great and, with the proper amount of turns and crystal radio tricks, could run from the initially collected energy, to ramp up output: CIRCUIT: 11/28/10 (bottom of page).
If linked to the Ascanius circuit, we may find some useable results.....I changed the above circuit to use a Sziklai pair (similar to Darlington) and can drive a 3" 3W speaker to listenable levels now. Transistors are S9014 NPN and A733 PNP, both found everywhere on especially telephony or radio related junk circuitboards.

Your 200nF's can be found on the power supply sections of CRT monitors
I first noted them when I thought they were relays.

You should get them from Cricklewoods:
Cricklewood Electronics - CCTV. CCTV Equipment. CCTV Systems. Digital CCTV Cameras

It may be that you would need to double up in parallel to get the
right value or use a cap with a higher voltage rating.

Paul-R

Hi Guys,

If you don't mind let me add some free advice and you can take for whatever you think it is worth. For several years I had a TV repair shop and installed Tv antennas in a semi rural area. This meant the antennas were usually fairly large and as high as reasonable. I always installed them with lightning protection. Slider if you put the plates in the attic and then ground the system I can assure you the lightning will pay no attention to the roof being in the way. I had one customer that just insisted I had to put her antenna on a tripod mount on the roof. I wanted to put it on a pole in the back of the house. One month later she called me to come put up the pole because lightning had punched 3 large holes in her roof and blew out her AC unit and blew the phone junction box over 50 feet away. The lightning arrestor stopped the lightning from damaging the TV but there was no lead-in wire left from the antenna to the arrestor.

If you want to experiment with this radiant collector I would suggest you put it on a pole at least 10 to 20 feet from your house. Put in a good ground rod (like an 8 ft copper rod) and drive it almost all the way in. For a lightning arrestor you can use an old spark plug. Connect the body of the plug to a heavy ground wire going to the ground rod. Then you can connect your collector wire to the top of the spark plug. You will want to close the gap some on the plug so it will fire at a lower voltage but not too close as you don't want it to interfere with what you are trying to collect. Since I have not tried this radiant collector I don't know if the pole could be metal or not. I am thinking it would still work even if the pole is metal as long as the collection plates are insulated from the pole. But I don't know that for sure. If you used a metal pole that would give the lightning a better path to follow to ground instead of through your circuit. I have had my Ham Radio tower hit several times because it is well grounded. None of the hits has ever hurt any of my other equipment. If you use the metal pole be sure and tie it to the ground rod too with a heavy cable like #2 or better.

I hope this gives you some ideas for safety. I would hate to hear one of you had your house burn down because you collected a lot more energy than you wanted.

Carroll

PS: Bizzy, thanks for the words of support on that other thread.

Thanks Carroll
Yes, lightning wouldn't see a wooden roof, great point.
Also the spark plug method. Comical if the plug didn't work in a car and yet worked fine in this. Guess you'd only get one chance and so the plug would have to be known to 100% work !

I had a safer idea, just to try the module circuit. We have a satellite dish on one outside wall, left there by the previous owners. It still has a few meters of coax running into the house. Hmmm, place the circuit at halfway between the dish and ground and see if anything happens.

A question on radiant aerials. These two plates of mine are actually joined at the moment, the galv steel was a long rolled up piece of a few meters when I found it. So i've folded what's left in the middle.
I'm thinking a 90 degree arrangement of the two, like coils in some crystal receivers maybe, but for diversity of reception. Direction would appear to be a factor, up to the sun, down to earth, left or right for radio say.
Would 1 piece offer more collection (so not to cut it?).How are folks thinking of placement ? The Tesla patent shows a vertical directional plate.

Also, how about the 2 pieces face each other, separated by a small distance and with clingfilm wrap to insulate them. Would that be a capacitor ?

Hi Carroll
Yes I have worried alot about lightening strikes through the garage room as well. My wife would shoot me in it hit the garage and her Mustang

In your experiences opinion would a lightening rod positioned higher than the garage help the matter?
Thanks
Bizzy
P.S. you are most welcome and I meant every word

Lightning goes for the nearest and highest earthed point.

If you are in the countryside on a flat plain, there might
be a problem. Why not put a lightning conductor at the
top of a tree, securely earthed with a thick strap.

I cannot imagine that anyone in a town or village has
much ot worry about. There is bound to be a nearby
better route for the voltage to go for.

lightning rod

Hi Bizzy,

Yes I definitely believe a lightning rod would be a benefit to protect your buildings. I wonder if it would have any effect on what you are trying to collect though. I don't have any experience in trying to collect radiant energy with collector plates or an antenna so I don't know if a lightning rod might detract from the energy you are trying to collect. I do know the lady I told you about earlier never called again about anymore problems after I put up the pole at the back of her house. I believe the pole acted as a lightning rod. The theory behind the lightning rods as I understand it is the lightning rod keeps bleeding off the charges of the air so they don't get high enough to allow a massive discharge like a bolt of lightning. That idea is the reason they have sharp points because this helps to bleed off the charges. I do know there is an old farm house on the very top of a hill across the field from my house about a tenth of a mile and I don't believe that house has ever been hit since they put the lightning rods on it many many years ago. If it has been hit the lightning rods must have protected it. It is easily the highest structure around so I do believe they really work.

I was a volunteer firefighter for 26 years and saw several houses that had been set on fire by lightning strikes so I know the risk is very real. By the way the old myth that a fire started by lightning can't be put out is just a myth because I have helped put out a lot of them.

Carroll

My first 'Module' is up and running
Scored 4x 0.196V drop germaniums and they were how I could make it. Sorting through junk, I found a 1970's tape player and, sure enough, they used germaniums in the pre-amp section.
Aerial is the plate on top of the arcade machine, so only about 6ft high. Connection is a ridiculously woeful 22 gauge strand of wire.
but, My outside Ground is better now. Have added a steel piece to the tube and then hammered it as far into the earth as possible. Only about 2ft total, but, with being tubular, means I can add to the top if more tube metal can be found.
The connection from that is much better, i've used coax.

Readings are only a start, but there are readings at least lol.
And a strange phenomena
I only get about 50mV and 10uA constant.
However, if I set the meter to read amperage on the mA scale, then leave the meter like that for approx 1 minute, I can switch back to voltage and see around 3V. The 3V then slowly depletes over about a minute.
So, does the thing need a slight draw to run ? to pull the energy through the system ?

Anyway, here's a pic of the Module and am now off to uprate the aerial and connections




*update*
Shorting the 22 gauge link to the galv steel increased voltage to 120mV
The satellite dish produced a constant 170mV
A 1 meter per side V shaped TV aerial, sat on my work table, produced 30mV
So, something changes, based on aerial type, elevation, wire link. Mere confirmation and good to see

*Update 2*
This is really interesting.
I changed to a hanging aerial setup temporarily. The steel base of a microwave was suspended in my gameroom, using an old power cord. All else the same.
The reading went up and down around 30mV and about 2uA.
But, the reading was going up and down, so obviously there's leakage back into the standard circuit.
A FWBR was made, consisting of 4x1N4148 diodes.
instantly, my readings of voltage went up to 1.640V !
However, get this, put any load at all on it and the voltage drops off again
So, I put one of Lidmotor's 'Penny' LED oscillator circuits on, which fires at almost exactly 0.400V and about 10uA.
The voltage rose and slowed as it neared 0.400V. At 0.397V or so, the voltage would go up, then back down and all around, never getting to 0.400V.
Putting a 0.650V drop diode on the positive to the 'Penny', saw the voltage go up steadily, til it slowed at around 0.645V and then it never quite got to 0.650V !

Hi Slider
A VERY NICE SET UP

How many of the modules do you have?
in reading over Patrick's he has several modules put together in series...anymoany are you working with???
Because I am doing these radiant experiments at the house, the BOSS wants me to follow Carroll's advise(although I would anyway) and use a lightning rod. so that is on hold til my step son stops by to install it.
That being said I am going forward and building the modules once I get the parts. A few years back I worked with earth batteries and got similar results as with the radiant collectors I had at the time. So I am also wondering if I can use these modules with earth batteries as well

Bizzy

Got a couple more germaniums, but they are on radio circuits, otherwise, i'm out !
Was a great find on the tape player with 4 of them. Got the rest of the bits in junk components, So, will add to this one when finances change.
If there is even 0.1V and 10uA per Module, then the potential is seen, literally. The Module farm shown in a link above really appeals as something to make.

I've now amassed some more plates and they'll be put to work, trying the capacitor idea. A few side panels from old computer towers and the cover case from the tape player (lol). The idea, is to put them back to back and examine distances between....if there is a capacitive effect then it could be a winner for space saving too. I'm thinking along the lines of an air tuner on the old crystal sets.
The panels are painted at the moment and I wonder if that counts as insulation. Different metals may work best with different distance between. Clingfilm wrap is to be applied, to see if that makes a change.

I used the hanging aerial plate and the bettered earth ground on a crystal radio and got KRMG out of Tulsa yesterday lol, 30 miles distant and clear. It'll also bring in religious shows from Tennessee at night...so it's similar to the 100ft of 22 gauge wire I had strung outside between 2 trees. Safer too by being in the house.
First aim, is to bring in enough to power a 1Volt radio circuit, out to a normal speaker. Simple goal as a start. Having just 1 Module will allow the tuning of that to the best output and make future ones that I add more efficient by doing so