Gray Tube Replication

[Beshires1]

Humm... compressing energy in time, sounds like Greys capacitors firing 27 times per RPM. at 10,000 RPM, that looks like 270,000 capacitor discharges a minute. Which boils down to 4,500 capacitor discharges per second. Mighty fast discharge rate. I wonder how he charged them capacitors that fast? Humm.. I recon, that commutator looked like a ball of spinning fire what with all the spark gaps it had on it. Humm...........................

[Aaron]

cap charging

My 4000v/2uf caps charge about 50 volts per relay click. That is about 80 clicks to charge it full. High speed oscillators will have no problem charging bigger caps fast enough, obviously Gray did it. And this is with a bare bones capacitive discharge circuit...a very slow one at that...slow burnt out relay.

Also, the chargers to charge the caps for this purpose are not typical hot current chargers. They are radiant chargers that charge the caps with pure potential without hot electron current.

A radiantly charged capacitor can charge faster than a hot current charged cap.

The output is not the same as a hot current charged capacitor. There are color differences to the output in addition to other properties.

For the equivalent voltage in a regular charged cap versus a radiant one, the radiant one can jump a bigger gap.

This is the first gain in the entire system.

[lamare]

Thinking further....

I just realised that in the mentioned pdf, the guys had the spark-gap *outside* the tube. That means that the rod inside the tube must be acting as an antenna. Given that the resistor appears to control the amount of power released, it seems that the resistor and the low-voltage circuit might act to absorb the shock-waves bouncing back and forth and thus keep the tube under control.

So, if you would completely disconnect the low voltage side just before the spark jumps, you might see the tube going out of control!

If you try that: be careful and do install the safety spark gaps as shown in the pdf!

I'll continue thinking about this, but now it's time to go to bed.

I hope to start actually building a tube soon. I plan to get one of these cheap one-use camera's with flash and use the high-voltage flashing circuitry to get a high voltage to feed to the spark-gap.

[Sephiroth]

Humm... compressing energy in time, sounds like Greys capacitors firing 27 times per RPM. at 10,000 RPM, that looks like 270,000 capacitor discharges a minute. Which boils down to 4,500 capacitor discharges per second. Mighty fast discharge rate. I wonder how he charged them capacitors that fast? Humm.. I recon, that commutator looked like a ball of spinning fire what with all the spark gaps it had on it. Humm...........................

I think I remember Peter mentioning in one of his videos that he believes Grey charged the caps in parellel and dishcharged in series... Possibly because caps have a lower impedance when they are charged to a lower voltage so they can be charged faster this way, then discharged in series to get the required voltage.

[Beshires1]

My 4000v/2uf caps charge about 50 volts per relay click. That is about 80 clicks to charge it full. High speed oscillators will have no problem charging bigger caps fast enough, obviously Gray did it. And this is with a bare bones capacitive discharge circuit...a very slow one at that...slow burnt out relay.

Also, the chargers to charge the caps for this purpose are not typical hot current chargers. They are radiant chargers that charge the caps with pure potential without hot electron current.

A radiantly charged capacitor can charge faster than a hot current charged cap.

The output is not the same as a hot current charged capacitor. There are color differences to the output in addition to other properties.

For the equivalent voltage in a regular charged cap versus a radiant one, the radiant one can jump a bigger gap.

This is the first gain in the entire system.

recon 4000V 2uf is enough to repel those big coils? I was just stating how fast the 27 Huge capacitors Grey used had to be. Humm lets see 1 second =4500 discharges, I dang near forgot, it also had to recharge 4500 times a second. Dang, thats mighty fast to charge those HUGE capacitors. So if you divide that second up time wise thats,.....Hummm....... really dang fast. Sounds like compressing a lot of energy into time to me... May be, that I'm not lookin at it right. Recon where I can find one of those radiant chargers?


Farad

A capacitor's storage potential, or capacitance, is measured in units called farads. A 1-farad capacitor can store one coulomb (coo-lomb) of charge at 1 volt. A coulomb is 6.25e18 (6.25 * 10^18, or 6.25 billion billion) electrons. One amp represents a rate of electron flow of 1 coulomb of electrons per second, so a 1-farad capacitor can hold 1 amp-second of electrons at 1 volt.

A 1-farad capacitor would typically be pretty big. It might be as big as a can of tuna or a 1-liter soda bottle, depending on the voltage it can handle. For this reason, capacitors are typically measured in microfarads (millionths of a farad).

To get some perspective on how big a farad is, think about this:

* A standard alkaline AA battery holds about 2.8 amp-hours.
* That means that a AA battery can produce 2.8 amps for an hour at 1.5 volts (about 4.2 watt-hours -- a AA battery can light a 4-watt bulb for a little more than an hour).
* Let's call it 1 volt to make the math easier. To store one AA battery's energy in a capacitor, you would need 3,600 * 2.8 = 10,080 farads to hold it, because an amp-hour is 3,600 amp-seconds.

[Jetijs]

Peter also said, that on every pulse the caps are not discharged fully and you need just keep them topped off instead of charging up from 0.

[Beshires1]

Peter also said, that on every pulse the caps are not discharged fully and you need just keep them topped off instead of charging up from 0.

Thats right! because, at ten thousand RPM the capacitor can't discharge fast enough to dump its entire load into a discharge contact . But on the other hand.... Can it keep up the fast charge rate? Humm............

[Electrotek]

@lamare: I think you're on the right track with the magnets. The original patent leading up to the CSET (1861621) specifies using an atmosphere of hydrogen or alcohol to quench the arc. So this is important.

@Beshires1: Don't forget that the power in a capacitor is related to the square of the voltage. At 100 Volts, you'd only need a 1 Farad cap to store the energy of the little battery, and so on.

This is one of the factors which make a higher operating voltage important. Another factor is that the magnetic field from a coil expands faster with a higher voltage, when the amps are the same. (The number of amp-turns determines the field strength, at any voltage.)

[Beshires1]

@lamare: I think you're on the right track with the magnets. The original patent leading up to the CSET (1861621) specifies using an atmosphere of hydrogen or alcohol to quench the arc. So this is important.

@Beshires1: Don't forget that the power in a capacitor is related to the square of the voltage. At 100 Volts, you'd only need a 1 Farad cap to store the energy of the little battery, and so on.

This is one of the factors which make a higher operating voltage important. Another factor is that the magnetic field from a coil expands faster with a higher voltage, when the amps are the same. (The number of amp-turns determines the field strength, at any voltage.)

I see ya still do not get it. Lets try again.

A 1-farad capacitor would typically be pretty big. It might be as big as a can of tuna or a 1-liter soda bottle, depending on the voltage it can handle. For this reason, capacitors are typically measured in microfarads (millionths of a farad).

I think Aaron's little cap will hold 2 millionth of 1 Farad.


* A standard alkaline AA battery holds about 2.8 amp-hours.
* That means that a AA battery can produce 2.8 amps for an hour at 1.5 volts (about 4.2 watt-hours -- a AA battery can light a 4-watt bulb for a little more than an hour).
* Let's call it 1 volt to make the math easier. To store one AA battery's energy in a capacitor, you would need 3,600 * 2.8 = 10,080 farads to hold it, because an amp-hour is 3,600 amp-seconds

If 1 one farad cap is as large as a 1 litter soda bottle.Then imagine a cap that 10,080 farads. Or 10,080 times larger than a soda bottle.

Altho Aarons cap has a positive charge potiential of 4000V 2 millionth of a farad doesn't have any humph. Or you can say the cap stores 2 millionth of a amp. He should wind himself a 10 lb set of coils and discharge that cap into it to see all the stored energy released at once. I have proven that 60 V discharged from a cap will repel (jump) a 4 lb. magnet 6 inches.

[Electrotek]

Soda Bottle CSET

My new CSET is built inside a two liter pop bottle, with grids which are galvanized steel, with a central 1/4" threaded rod of the same material. I'm using a spark plug for the input electrode, since it has a built in slug of carbon. There's also a hard drive magnet stuck to the plug, insulated with a few layers of shipping tape. This is a powerful magnet, and it has an extreme effect on the spark. Each grid has a separate wire coming out, on opposite ends.

I'm going to test this Tube with different circuits. For instance, with the inner grid connected to the input electrode and the outer grid connected, through the load, to the output electrode. (Similar to Pat. #1861621) Then I'll modify it and move the spark gap inside the grids, and test it again.

[Aaron]

gray tube comments

A 4000v/2uf cap might not have much umph with a regular discharge but understand that all the difference is made in the world by speed of discharge AND the whole cap doesn't even need to discharge...You're using the voltage potential in a moment in time...when it slaps into the diode on the LV side, it causes virtually instantaneous discharge that has completely different effects from just shorting it into a coil for example.

A regular capactive discharge ignition has just a slighly bigger spark than a regular ignition discharge by 12v. But, when you add the diode, the burst is about 100 times bigger or more than CDI...no extra power went into the system...it is just causing the CDI's capacitor to discharge fast.

The typical math no longer covers what is really happening at this point.

I can repel coils with capacitors too but this isn't the same thing Gray was doing...the Gray tube works by sending two HV potentials into each other before moving to a low potential + tied to a common ground. I used to think it was one HV potential. That is identical to what is happening in the water sparkplug thread as I originally said from the beginning of the water sparkplug circuit projects...I'll post the schematics and video soon that makes it all so obvious.

Also, it is possible to get what you want from the capacitors in a quick enough burst that the capacitor doesn't even drain at all...that is the point of using the potential...strong electrostatic potential differences can cause work without expending work.

For example, a Tay Hee Han cell, super high electrostatic potential capacitor with water between...just rips the water apart and there isn't any real current flowing and nothing has to leave the capacitor to do it.

That HV tension can cause work without expending anything. At high enough speeds, and time will tell, there is probably almost nothing leaving the BIG capacitors with each pulse.

Either way, the Imhotep circuit is a radiant charger that can charge caps radiantly. So are the Bedini circuts and many others. Gray used an ignition coil run by an oscillator...that is what charged the caps.

[Aaron]

nice tube!

My new CSET is built inside a two liter pop bottle, with grids which are galvanized steel, with a central 1/4" threaded rod of the same material. I'm using a spark plug for the input electrode, since it has a built in slug of carbon. There's also a hard drive magnet stuck to the plug, insulated with a few layers of shipping tape. This is a powerful magnet, and it has an extreme effect on the spark. Each grid has a separate wire coming out, on opposite ends.

I'm going to test this Tube with different circuits. For instance, with the inner grid connected to the input electrode and the outer grid connected, through the load, to the output electrode. (Similar to Pat. #1861621) Then I'll modify it and move the spark gap inside the grids, and test it again.

Very nice looking tube!

[Aaron]

How the Gray Tube Works

Here is my current understanding of how the Gray tube works.
YouTube - Here's how the Gray Tube works

My tube's gap from rods to grids is almost 1 cm. It should be close enough so that voltage in C2 can jump it when S1 is closed instead of having to piggyback a HV spark leaving HV rod to Grids. I might add a 3rd inner grid to close that space up.

I can't get it to work with a 4000v/2uf cap on the HV rod at all with my slow charger. It really needs to be high speed.

[Beshires1]

Here is a real event. You don't see flashing lights from the tube until the event happens.Then you see the tube flash, and the coil jump. I'm doing basically what the Grey schematic shows.
Ed Grey Tube First Radiant Event

In case you didn't see everything here is a picture of the "event"

http://sites.google.com/site/chasingedgreysideas/Home/Radient%20Event.jpg

[Beshires1]

I really can't explain what is happening. It takes a while to trigger the first one then after the first it triggers easier and more intense. And like I said the one leg of the capacitor isn't connected but has to be close to trigger the effect.