Gray Tube Replication

[nat1971a]

i have pretty much ditched the LV diode and am using a thyratron with a negatively biased grid........

[crunner40]

The LAZY tube..

Hi Ghst, Aaron,

Thank you very much for the replies.

I looked at your diagram Ghst. It is very clear, but quite a different setup to Grays patent. I will give it a go with my tube, and see what it does.

I am really interested in the auto coil switched by the chopper. I saw that someone (Aaron I think) posted a design for this a long time ago. I would like to try it, but my concern is that the coil will develop too high a voltage on the circuit, and blow my cap(s) (very expensive if that happens). It would be great to run that system if it is reliable, as the MOT is only suitable for short term testing. The voltage is too low, and the device is too inefficient. If there is a reliable design for the auto coil circuit that people are using I would appreciate being pointed in the right direction.

But for now.. if we forget about the grid for a moment; my tube will not arc between HV, and LV rods, unless I bypass the diode 28.

I am assuming Aaron, that you suggest that I take the tube out of the circuit, and insert a spark plug between the HV and the cathode of the diode - and see if that sparks when I ground the anode of the diode? Ok. I will pick up a sparkplug, and try that tomorrow.

I have attached a schematic of how I connected the tube for testing for your information. From all the posts that you guys have made, the circuit should work??

FYI. The tube has 6mm brass rod for HV, LV. The gap between rod and first copper grid is 6mm, and the gap between first and second grids is the same. The rods are threaded to adjust the location of the gap, and the gap spacing.

I look forward to hearing back from you.

[crunner40]

Hi nat1971a,

thanks for the reply. I havent tried switching the LV of the tube through a rotating commutator yet, although I have made one.

At this stage I have tried a number of different things - a make/break toggle switch between the diode and the battery, and I have also tried manually touching the diode wire to the +ve battery terminal.

I got the tube to spark by bypassing the diode, and touching the wire from the LV rod directly to the +ve battery terminal.

Having seen the U-tube videos of the success that you are all having, I was not expecting to have a problem with this, and was more worried about getting the winding configuration/capacitance balance right. But now after having tried the two different diode configurations - I am scratching my head.

And yes.. I have tested, and retested the diodes. All were brand new, and all were tested before installation, and have been tested since - and all are good.

As you can see - the magnets are "Gray configuration". They are each 150mm long, and mass matched (same weight and number of turns) at 2.1kg.

The top coil will be repulsed about 1/4" from the bottom magnet when they are pulsed. There is a very audible "thump" as the magnets fire. I am sure that if I can get the tube to work, the repulsion distance will be increased.

I look forward to your further comments/suggestions.

[Ghst]

Crunner40,
I can't tell exactly how you are setup, But it looks like you have two wires from the coils running to the grid. Anyway, if you setup sorta like this diagram then It should work. Imageshack - woodshadejpg.png - Uploaded by Ghst Just note that the red wire from the bottom of my setup is actually from the grid. The electrode in the side is the low voltage. I have even jumper wired the high voltage across the tube to the capacitor (straight from high voltage to the capacitor) it will still discharge as long as the the high voltage potential is introduced into the tube and has a ground path.

[Aaron]

@crunner40

Hi Crunner,

Can you get it to work with a simple 2 point system using a sparkplug?

[nat1971a]

welcome to the thread

thats strange about your 28

are you using a commutator b/w 28 and battery?

[crunner40]

Photo of Tube, power supply and magnets

I was having trouble with the attachments.

Here is the photo..

[crunner40]

Help needed to make tube fire

Hi everybody,

I have been following this forum for a long time now, but have not posted comments as I was still in the fabrication stages on my gray tube and motor and didnt feel that I had much to contribute.

I now have the motor mostly completed, and have manually "test fired" a set of magnets on the bench. Each magnet weighs 2.1 kilo's so that is pretty impressive. The motor is configured with 3 magnets on the rotor, and 9 on the stator.

My problem is that I CANNOT get the tube to fire through the diode #28 (with or without the grid connected). I have attached a picture of the setup to show you.

The MOT is supplying 2800V, rectified by the bridge (microwave diodes), and supplied to the 4KV 4uf capacitor. The capacitor is connected to the HV rod of the tube, and the magnets are connected to the grid. A microwave diode is also connected to the grid as as diode #46.

I originally had a microwave diode connected to the LV of the tube, but could not get an arc across the gap when I switched the diode. Although the diode tested OK, I replaced it with the 6A 1000V diode strings in the photo.. but still no arc when the diodes were switched through the battery!

If I bypass the diode, and switch the LV rod to ground via the battery the gap in the tube arcs..!! However, this will not allow the tube to work with the time compression as described by Aaron.

I do not have silver tips on the 1/4" brass rods in the tube yet, or the carbon resistor, but everything else is as per the patent.

If anybody can help me out with some advice, or tell me what is wron, I would be very grateful; I have spent days on this now, and I am totally frustrated. I am sure that it must be something simple - but clearly in my case the diode #28 is blocking the HV path to earth before the Arc can begin.

[nat1971a]

i am still following this thread. i have been rereading some comments made by gauss posts 93-98 which i find quite interesting (page 4 of this thread)

[Ghst]

Death Of a Thread?

I can't believe that I've witnessed the death of a great thread. When I joined this thread, along time ago it was in its infancy. Everyone who came to EF had to come to this thread to find out what had been discovered about the Ed Gray Motors. Everyone seemed to enjoy sharing their thoughts and relishing in the discoveries, made here. This thread was really getting somewhere, in the EV Gray saga. It was really exciting to try to decode what Ed Gray had done some 30-40 years ago. But It seemed that the closer to the truth, the farther this thread divided. It became a look at what I know thread. it seems that people are content to know, only part of the truth. As to date nobody knows what he was doing and can only speculate, on what they think he did. Aaron has made great contributions to this thread, and to the public's knowledge. But it isn't finished! We are only part-way there. Does no one other than myself wish to see this to the end? I say this because I have been here sense the beginning of this thread, and hopefully I'll be here to see someone succeed in bringing the EV Gray motor to a close, because we have full knowledge of what Gray was doing, or have completely replicated the results of EV Gray. I had to find this thread 3 pages back. Come-on, lets not not say its finished until it is.

[nat1971a]

Hi All,

I have had a couple of requests on how to build this circuit so here's the video. The video also highlights how i see the circuit working

Cheers
Nat

YouTube - Update 35 - Edwin Gray circuit continued

[pranav2010]

circuit

aaron sir i am following your two point system i am facing some problem

i just damage my one dimmer set

my two ignition coils are getting heated

please help me how can i solve the error

i am not able charge power supply cap

i made all the setup

please tell me my circuit diagram is correct or incorrect


please help me sir

[nat1971a]

i dont recall anything about it........

[boguslaw]

Edwin grays circuit with so called safety overshoot that fires all the time with occasional pops

YouTube - Update 34 - Edwin Gray's circuit with so called safety overshoot firing

"So called safety overshoot device" ...hmm
Do you remember some paper shown here about electric generator which Gray planned to sell ?
It was stated that from start device needed quite a lot of time to run properly something around 30 seconds. Later device run on its own. Do you know why ? Think.
Maybe you see a spark of energy from time to time ?
Imagine you can recreate it many times per second! I think it would possibly be dangerous ? or not ?

[nat1971a]

Edwin grays circuit with so called safety overshoot that fires all the time with occasional pops

YouTube - Update 34 - Edwin Gray's circuit with so called safety overshoot firing