Gray Tube Replication

[Spokane1]

Gray Technology Grounding Issues

Dear Mark McKay

Can you find how Gray device or previous EMA motors were grounded ?

Best regards
Boguslaw

Dear Boguslaw.

This is indeed a very good question that was addressed in the latest disclosures in the GD technical papers.

Mr. Hackenberger specifically states that the energy system for the "Motor" (when used in an automobile application) is isolated from the frame. Which implies that there is no ground. He goes on to say that the car's electrical accessories will have to be powered from and different source.

This concept is really not new. John Bedini and Peter Lindemann has stated for years that this novel energy will quickly escape to ground when given a chance even through a one wire connection any where in the circuit. Thus you have to disconnect your scope ground and any other instrument connections when making performance tests. The only readout devices that can be used during trials are battery powered or non powered ones.

Because of this requirement the only energy source that would work for this technology is some kind of battery. This is probably why there was no attempt at making and energy converter that would operate from line power. (despite the reference in the 1986 patent)

Mark McKay, PE

[boguslaw]

Dear Mark McKay

Can you find how Gray device or previous EMA motors were grounded ?

Best regards
Boguslaw

[bmentink]

Dear bmentink,

So, by all means use a modern Thyratron to drive your CEST.

Mark McKay, PE

Thanks for the permission.... .. and the history lesson

I am actually going to try to solve this from a different point of view, so to do a "clean room" approach I sort of have to ignore what you guys have done and am going with my gut on this ..... I have spent a lot of time studying Tesla and I think I have a handle on what is important and what is not. Hope that does not appear too arrogant ... it is just how I have solved complex problems in the past ... a method of thinking "outside the box", if I take on too much of your "box" then I won't be able to think outside of it if you catch my drift ..

I have done some simple experiments that lead me to believe I am on the right track ..

Of all the people that have contributed to this thread (apart from your self Mark ) I think WONJU has contributed some key stuff .... but he seems to have been shot down in flames and has not been seen since .. which is a shame, he has a lot to contribute.

..but I am not surprised, as the childish fighting between a couple of contributors somewhere between pages 50 .. 60 nearly put me off helping as well ... I wish I hadn't read those pages .. overall this thread is very informative.

I will of course contribute all my findings to the thread in an "open" way ..

PS: I apologize in advance for my frank appraisals ...


Cheers,
B.

[Spokane1]

The Gray Technology and Thyratrons - History

Hi Mark,

Thanks for your helpful comments.

I realize my flyback can go to 15kv .. 30kv, but I am not letting it, I have my spark gap limited to 1mm which "reliably" gives me a 3kv spark (confirmed by measurement on the caps)

I know you have been doing all your testing with single pulse, but that is not the approach I will take, rather I will be switching a thryratron with very short pulses to get a continuous series of very short high current pulses .. the spark should then go quiet and look continuous, I want to experiment with this ..

Cheers,
B

Dear bmentink,

There is some important history concerning Thyratrons and the Gray saga. Mr. Hackenberger died in Jan 1980. Gray soon set up shop in Canyon Country, CA and hired some off the street technicians to get the equipment he stole from Kansas City to operate, with out knowing how to tell them how to do this. A few months later Nelson Schlaft "Rocky" was hired and all the other three technicians fired. Rocky didn't have a clue as to the OU properties of this equipment or the history of the technology. Thus he went about making these motors work the best he knew how.

When he received the equipment the Ignitrons were triggered with Thyratrons driven with vacuum tubes. Rocky decided to use a Zener diode voltage clamp and drive the Ignitrons from the contacts on the commutator. He then tossed out all of the Thyratrons and all their supporting circuit boards. Thus the motors that survive today have been butchered in more ways than one. (meaning that the electromagnets were rewired as well)

I still haven't figured out if these five (5) motors were made in the late 60's or were fabricated in Kansas City in 1979. I really doubt that Mr. Hackenberger would have gone back to vacuum tubes since it was against his religion. (or so I think). I also can't see how that much equipment was fabricated in 18 months. Mark Gray who was there at the time didn't seem to be aware of any major manufacturing or assembly effort going on. He was only aware of one engine being worked on. (assumed to be the "Blue Engine")

So, very early in the development of this equipment (late 60's) Marvin Cole was probably using Ignitorns and Thyratrons. For some reason these advanced technologies were not employed in the EMA4 that was tested by Crosby Research in 1973. It seems that all the switching was done with rotating contacts and thus had problems associated with it.

I speculate that when Marvin Cole left the project Gray hid most of the prototypes in a storage compartment somewhere so that the two investors couldn't get a court order to get them back. This was probably in 1971 - 72.
Gray eventually took these units out of storage in 1980 to have them retrofitted with the advancements that Mr. Hackenberger had developed while in Kansas City.

When John Bedini and his mentor Ron Cole visited the Gray shop in 1973 Gray had no idea as to what a Thyratron was.

So, this mixed up bit of history explains how the poorly documented triode (Probably a Thyratron) ended up on the 1986 patent. This was old technology that Gray didn't understand yet he needed something to patent to stimulate international investment interest in his "Concept Technology".

So, by all means use a modern Thyratron to drive your CEST.

Mark McKay, PE

[bmentink]

Dear bmentink,


In my tests a 5 kV source will only jump a 0.1" gap reliably on a good day (high humidity). I can't really observe that much in such a small gap other than a purple flash). If you are using a fly back transformer then you have the ability to provide voltages up to about 30 kV (without a voltage multiplier). Thus, you can span gaps up to 0.75" easily. However, these higher voltages will put you out of the "Window of Operation". I'm sure you will get some interesting streamers but you risk working outside of the specifications of this technology (what ever those were)


Mark McKay, PE

Hi Mark,

Thanks for your helpful comments.

I realize my flyback can go to 15kv .. 30kv, but I am not letting it, I have my spark gap limited to 1mm which "reliably" gives me a 3kv spark (confirmed by measurement on the caps)

I know you have been doing all your testing with single pulse, but that is not the approach I will take, rather I will be switching a thryratron with very short pulses to get a continuous series of very short high current pulses .. the spark should then go quiet and look continuous, I want to experiment with this ..

Cheers,
B

[Spokane1]

The Famous FFF

Can you please clarify your thinking about datas FFF ?



- There how many conductors inside ? Is 18 conductors #14 AWG, each with their insulation, as you have drawn in the past on "possible diagrammatic winding of FFF"

- Or is it a coaxial ? (type RG-11 as you once wrote on this forum) with as conductors the corewire and its armouring

- Or do you think now that there is only 1 big conductor ? (what # AWG ?)





- Do you think the cable is 18 coils of 1 turn ? (for "coil" here I mean an uncut length)

- Or is it only 1 coil of 18 turns ?



What is your actual thinking dear Mark, in april 2014, on these datas FFF ...
(And as there are 18 capacitors -patent fig. 2 detail 39- we must logically find, on your picture of GD, 18 connections or 18 "something" linking the caps to FFF.)


Sincerely,
Arker

_____________
PS : About the new document GD sent you, whose you're talking in your latest posts, this would be a pleasure to read it integrally, I will write you @ simplexgrinnell.

Dear Arker,

That document I wrote in 2002 (or some time back then) is very dated.

I still haven't figured out what the FFF does or why it was placed at that location. Nor do I know why it was only used on the EMA4 engine and none of the others.

However, we now know that if the converter transformer was the seat of the non-classical conversion process then the FFF was operating with "Cold Electricity" and not classical electricity. Therefore attempting to figure out the physics of this device will have to wait until we can generate enough Cold Electricity to evaluate it.

When Mr. Hackenberger built his transistor power supplies he appears to have eliminated the FFF component.

We do have a better idea about its construction. From my analysis of the GD photos there were 18 conductors with one or two turns each (depends upon which year). They were certainly single conductors and not multiple conductors like I had considered 12 years ago.

Also the windings on the end of the motor case turned out to be non existent and are just a wire harness for connections to the electromagnets. They are not a single turn bias field or anything like that.

Single conductor coax is still a good candidate for what the FFF cable was constructed of, but I don't know for sure. They might have started with RG-11 then switched to RG-58 but this is just speculation.

I shall be glad to send you photos and what information I have on this component - which is mostly speculations.

Mark McKay, PE

[Spokane1]

The CSET - Technical Considerations

Hi Everyone,

My first time in this forum and getting my hands dirty building up my system.

So far I have my tube nearly constructed and am working on the HV supply.

I have used a TV Flyback fed by a 20W CFL driver which seems to work fine.
I have made a 166nF 6Kv capacitor bank out of series connection of 6 x 1uF 1Kv caps with the associated 2M2 ohm voltage sharing resistors and I have two paralleled microwave diode (15Kv 1 Amp continuous, 100A peak) across the cap.

I would like your opinion on this setup. I want to go low capacitance and limit the average current severely with a fast switched Thyratron (.. those are coming) and a graphite block .. the aim being to get a continuous discharge.

I am currently getting "very" loud purple tinged sparks on a 1mm spark-gap at about a 4Hz rate. The plasma from the gap extends about 10mm .. its unusual as it looks like a round ball, rather than the usual white arc that streames directly between the electrodes, which I got when I used a layden jar cap.

I am wondering if the current from my flyback is too little to go at a faster rate, i.e. the cap is taking too long to charge, so should I use a more powerful CFL supply like a 60W, instead of the 20W?...

When I start limiting the discharge time, I am guessing it should spark nearly continuously .. what do you guys think?

EDIT: Have a look at this link Ionized-air glow - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia It states that nitrogen is responsible for the blue color and hydrogen from water vapour the purple. More interesting though is the cause of a green color .. look at the discription of the Rydberg Atoms ....

Dear bmentink,

Do you have the "Bedini Field Notes" ? (That is what I call them). These are the best available technical description of how the CSET's were constructed and some of the parameters involved. Note that the power supply peak was 5 kV.

In my tests a 5 kV source will only jump a 0.1" gap reliably on a good day (high humidity). I can't really observe that much in such a small gap other than a purple flash). If you are using a fly back transformer then you have the ability to provide voltages up to about 30 kV (without a voltage multiplier). Thus, you can span gaps up to 0.75" easily. However, these higher voltages will put you out of the "Window of Operation". I'm sure you will get some interesting streamers but you risk working outside of the specifications of this technology (what ever those were)

The specifications of the power supplies used with the EMA6 have never been specified. However, the recovered "Blue Engine" Power supply has metering on it. The volt meter is an analog 5 kV meter, while the current meter is 0-5 Amperes. If this device could peg the meters then we are looking at a 25 kW output - which I very much doubt was the case. A more accurate assessment would be the power input which was 28 VDC at 60 Amps or about 1.6 kW. The stated COP for this kind of non-classical power supply was claimed to be 4.0. So, the "Cold Electrical" output could have been as high as 6.4 kW. After the conversion process who knows what they were measuring or if it could be measured. It seems they used analog meters and observed mostly voltage parameters. If cold electricity produces huge repulsion forces in opposing electromagnets then the Ampere meter would be giving high false readings.

Pulse rate considerations:

The Gray Engines are pulse devices where electromagnets are fired at +/- 6 degrees off the center line. So the output of the tube was not continuous but a series of pulses that increased with the speed of the engine. These were 9 pole machines. It appears that each CEST was to carry 1/3 of the load to allow for capacitor charging time. So each CEST would fire 6 times per revolution. The engine had to run faster that 500 rpm and was claimed to max out at 3000 rpm. So figure on a working speed of 1700 rpm. That means the CEST had to fire at a rate of 170 ppm. Now the storage capacitor (s) is noted to have a value of 5 uF and is shunted with a bypass diode that eliminates oscillations. Who knows what the inductance of their electromagnets were, but my simple reproductions have a value of about 30 mH. If the storage capacitor is completely discharged then it is easy to calculate the classical wattage required to keep the capacitor full. A full charge holds 62.5 Joules at 5 kV. 170 pulses = 10,625 Joules / second or 10.6 kW of classical input power. Obviously, by this time in the circuit operation they were no longer working with classical electricity and all of our circuit relationships no longer hold.

To achieve this kind of timing performance with classical electricity you are going to need a whole lot more than 60W.

I would recommend that you start with individual pulses and see if you can get one of these events to perform. The whole benefit of this technology was that it produced huge repulsion forces - not an over abundance of classical electricity (if any). Its claim to fame was a huge torque output. I do my work with individual pulses applied to some opposing coils. Mr. Cole did the same thing. This way it is easy to compare the output of your converter topology (or CEST topology) to that of classical electricity. If your popping coil hits the ceiling while classical electricity only causes it to jump a few inches - then you will have hit the big time.

Mark McKay, PE

[Spokane1]

The Gray CEST - The Second Page

Dear bmentink,

I'm also an Electronic/Electrical PE, SET with 45 years of experience.

I say if the "Gray Tube" inspires you to perform actual bench tests then go for it. You could well possibility see things in it that the rest of us can't.

My investigations into this component were not as positive. If you like, send me a note at [email protected] and I shall be glad to send you all my research notes, schematics, scope traces, and photos on the subject. This might save you a lot of time and maybe give you an additional idea or two.

The CEST was started with Marvin Cole. Beta prototypes were already being bench tested when Mr. Hackenberger took over in 1971-72. In fact the EMA6 Engine was outfitted with these devices in the 1979 presentation. It appears that "Hack" couldn't get them to work and they were removed from the Engine a few months later.

There is more to the CEST story than I have released in the past. First off Marvin wouldn't have built these devices unless they did something special. The original "Black Boxes" didn't have CEST type components. I suspect that the devices that John Bedini reported on from 1973 had to have been at least third generation units to be included in the new engine design and to have been intended to replace whatever intermittent technology they were using in the EMA4.

Richard was a transistor man and not well qualified in HV (in the beginning). It seems that he went along with the new design but replaced the original "vibrator" power supply with his transistor version. When the EMA6 fell on its nose Richard was left to his own devices to make things work. Thus he went back to direct mechanical commutation. Later he appears to have employed Ignitrons. He was finally able to get his version to work just in time for the FCC to confiscate it.

Anyway, I believe that in order for the CEST to show its magic it has to be fed the "Cold Electricity" that is generated by the custom made Push-Pull Resonant Converter. I suspect that if you feed it classical HV electricity you will get the same results observed by at least 50 researchers around the world in the last 15 years- which is a lot of pretty arcs of various colors and shapes - but no OU. (At least not yet)

However, I think that apparatus of this nature is still a viable avenue of OU exploration when considering the work of Ken Sholders. Thus it is a subject in its own right.

What every your inspiration is in this technology it is a good investment of your time. This stuff is important and powerful. If we can successfully reverse engineer what they were doing back then - then it will be equal to the discovery of fire.

Keep up the good work. I'm more than happy to offer any advice. The technical / historical opinions are free.

Mark McKay, PE

[bmentink]

Hi bmentink,

You try to reinvent the wheel ?

No. I am going to replicate the Gray tube, where other's have failed, because I have picked up a few key points that so far has been missed by folk in this forum.

Gray tube is simply a HV trigger.

No it's not and I will prove it!

I don't need or require a lecture, I had a few questions that I would like comments on, that is all. You have not helped at all.

Nota. For all useful purposes, mayest know that your capacitors in series don't make 1 microfarad, but 166 nanofarads :

You are correct, I should of said the total capacitance was 166nF 6000v, each individual cap is 1uF. I have corrected the original post.

Thus for the characteristics of your diodes, talk of amperes is out of reality. You must realize that it is impossible to spend 15 kilowatts (15KV x 1A = 15Kw /DCV) and even less 1.5 megawatt.

I don't know what you are on, but I was just quoting the "rating" of the diodes I am using, not the power I am using, although the PEAK power in the spark could be of that order.

bmentink WARNING : these capacitors can kill you ! You're sure to have assimilated bases of electricity ? And not being in the Moon ?

I am an Electronics/Electrical Engineer of 45 years experience, some of that time in high power - high voltage work , I AM qualified to work with this stuff and I do NOT require a lecture, THANKS for the warm welcome to the forum. NOT! ..

[Arker]

Orientation for bmentink

Hi bmentink,

You try to reinvent the wheel ? Gray tube is simply a HV trigger. In itself a trigger has no interest (it is used just to launch the high voltage). The secret technology of EV Gray -or more precisely of Marvin Cole- is not in his trigger. (His US Patent #4,595,975 is bluff.)

If that is the EV Gray's technology that interests you, then read the ebook of the learned Mr McKay, (The Real History of the Ed Gray Motor), he will enthrall. (His chapter 8 is devoted to the tube.)
And also : you will find rich informations on EV Gray technology from the very first pages of this topic, which dates back to 2008.

However, if it is only the study of trigger that interests you, then know that Aaron (the generous creator of this website) had developed a remarkable trigger circuit : you will not find better. It is detailed in the pages of previous years, it just suffice to study these.


Cheer up !
Arker


______________
Nota. For all useful purposes, mayest know that your capacitors in series don't make 1 microfarad, but 166 nanofarads :

# 2792
I have made a 1uF 6Kv capacitor bank out of series connection of 6 x 1uF 1Kv caps with the associated 2M2 ohm voltage sharing resistors and I have two paralleled microwave diode (15Kv 1 Amp continuous, 100A peak) across the cap.

bmentink WARNING : these capacitors can kill you ! You're sure to have assimilated bases of electricity ? And not being in the Moon ?

Thus for the characteristics of your diodes, talk of amperes is out of reality. You must realize that it is impossible to spend 15 kilowatts (15KV x 1A = 15Kw /DCV) and even less 1.5 megawatt.

[bmentink]

I am trying to work out the best metals to use for the HV electrode and the grids. It seems to me that we should be using the heavier metals like Tungsten/Steel/Molybdenum/Chromium as these metals release electrons easily.
.. at least for the HV electrode .. Thoriated Tungsten Steel as used in welding rods might be useful, especially as it has a small radioactive component ..

and maybe brass for the grids because of it's zinc content ..

See -->Periodic table - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Have a look at the bottom-left of the periodic table, Probably explains why Tantalum is used for capacitors ...

Cheers B.

[bmentink]

Hi Everyone,

My first time in this forum and getting my hands dirty building up my system.

So far I have my tube nearly constructed and am working on the HV supply.

I have used a TV Flyback fed by a 20W CFL driver which seems to work fine.
I have made a 166nF 6Kv capacitor bank out of series connection of 6 x 1uF 1Kv caps with the associated 2M2 ohm voltage sharing resistors and I have two paralleled microwave diode (15Kv 1 Amp continuous, 100A peak) across the cap.

I would like your opinion on this setup. I want to go low capacitance and limit the average current severely with a fast switched Thyratron (.. those are coming) and a graphite block .. the aim being to get a continuous discharge.

I am currently getting "very" loud purple tinged sparks on a 1mm spark-gap at about a 4Hz rate. The plasma from the gap extends about 10mm .. its unusual as it looks like a round ball, rather than the usual white arc that streames directly between the electrodes, which I got when I used a layden jar cap.

I am wondering if the current from my flyback is too little to go at a faster rate, i.e. the cap is taking too long to charge, so should I use a more powerful CFL supply like a 60W, instead of the 20W?...

When I start limiting the discharge time, I am guessing it should spark nearly continuously .. what do you guys think?

EDIT: Have a look at this link Ionized-air glow - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia It states that nitrogen is responsible for the blue color and hydrogen from water vapour the purple. More interesting though is the cause of a green color .. look at the discription of the Rydberg Atoms ....

[Arker]

datas FFF

Dear Spokane1,

Hello dear Master,
Nice to see you still valiant.

I have a GD photo of the FFF from the bottom of the EMA4-E2 where I have concluded that the windings were single turn - 18 total. In some later photos it appears that the size of the cable was reduced in diameter and the number of turns doubled

Can you please clarify your thinking about datas FFF ?



- There how many conductors inside ? Is 18 conductors #14 AWG, each with their insulation, as you have drawn in the past on "possible diagrammatic winding of FFF"

- Or is it a coaxial ? (type RG-11 as you once wrote on this forum) with as conductors the corewire and its armouring

- Or do you think now that there is only 1 big conductor ? (what # AWG ?)





- Do you think the cable is 18 coils of 1 turn ? (for "coil" here I mean an uncut length)

- Or is it only 1 coil of 18 turns ?



What is your actual thinking dear Mark, in april 2014, on these datas FFF ...
(And as there are 18 capacitors -patent fig. 2 detail 39- we must logically find, on your picture of GD, 18 connections or 18 "something" linking the caps to FFF.)


Sincerely,
Arker

_____________
PS : About the new document GD sent you, whose you're talking in your latest posts, this would be a pleasure to read it integrally, I will write you @ simplexgrinnell.

[BroMikey]

Tesla Joke

Dear Mike,

If you happen to find that Tesla reference I would love the hear about it.

Mark McKay, PE

Hi Mark

just joking around about the coil shorting in the Tesla patents. However I heard that the coil with the sparkgap does short the coil, so that was the joke.


Good to see you are still on the case, especially for nerds like me who just got started. With all of this info past present and coming soon stuff I don't really know sometimes if I am coming or going.

I heard Peter L years ago read those Tesla patents about the coil and the shorting out of the coil using a spark gap and how it needed to be in the one direction only and as fast as 1 million cycles for openers.

Then I heard DOUG KONZEN say when he was shorting coils the batteries would charge up faster and he shorts his coil shorting circuits all around the peaks of the waves, top and bottom if possible and as many as 5 separate events at the top and 3-5 shorts at the bottom.

That is about as far as I have gotten with these idea in a 1 year period of time of my study.

Other than that a battery needs to be connected somewhere to drink up the energy I guess.

Let me know if this sounds right.

Mike

[Spokane1]

Tesla Coil Shorting

Hello again Mark Mckay

I remembered reading some of these details in the doc's you sent me and then I was also reading about coil shorting by DOUG KONZEN.

Very good progress, well at least we have something to think about and I am sure others are finding these answers as they experiment.

Didn't Tesla mention coil shorting some where?

Mike

Dear Mike,

If you happen to find that Tesla reference I would love the hear about it.

Mark McKay, PE