Hendershot Replications

[dragon]

I'm thinking along the same lines but, being a digital guy, I'm really struggling with the analog AC stuff.

That's why I'm asking about the "vertical oscillator type" transformers. I would like to do a build but I'm pretty sure it isn't going to work with regular 5:1 power transformers. That's why I'm trying to identify the differences.

A little redrawing of the Tesla patent Figure 6 using one magnet with one pole in the center and the end poles being opposite polarity yields pretty much the Hendershot buzzer.

I have a difficult time visualizing electrical/current flow as well - we all have similar but different theory on how it works - when we see something that works our theory is proven or altered yet still remains theory... I don't believe anyone truly understands...

In an attempt to create a more controllable "buzzer" I built a motorized monopole coil set, similar to Hendershots arrangement. Shown in the attachment. This produces 1200 volts of pulsed pumping action. Basically all it's doing is disturbing the north pole and allowing it to relax naturally.

[thx1138]

I believe the transformers act as a magnetically controlled bi-directional diode. When current flows through one side the other side can only pass current in one direction which allows the caps to charge. Once the current slows from that direction the other side becomes active creating a directional flow opposite to the first thus charging the opposite caps.

Very similar to the magnetic amplifiers, we are "gating" the directional flow like a transistor but with the ability to reverse directions. Tesla's patent for converting AC to DC explains the phenomenon reasonably well ( 413,353 ).

Magnetic amplifiers operated very similar to the vacuum tubes of the day and can perform the same function.

I'm thinking along the same lines but, being a digital guy, I'm really struggling with the analog AC stuff.

That's why I'm asking about the "vertical oscillator type" transformers. I would like to do a build but I'm pretty sure it isn't going to work with regular 5:1 power transformers. That's why I'm trying to identify the differences.

A little redrawing of the Tesla patent Figure 6 using one magnet with one pole in the center and the end poles being opposite polarity yields pretty much the Hendershot buzzer.

[dragon]

I believe the transformers act as a magnetically controlled bi-directional diode. When current flows through one side the other side can only pass current in one direction which allows the caps to charge. Once the current slows from that direction the other side becomes active creating a directional flow opposite to the first thus charging the opposite caps.

Very similar to the magnetic amplifiers, we are "gating" the directional flow like a transistor but with the ability to reverse directions. Tesla's patent for converting AC to DC explains the phenomenon reasonably well ( 413,353 ).

Magnetic amplifiers operated very similar to the vacuum tubes of the day and can perform the same function.

[thx1138]

Hendershot Transformers

I'm looking at this again and saw one correction I need to make: The Ed Skilling schematic showed the three pole magnet but the poles had no polarity markings.

Question for someone who knows 50's television (maybe radar display) circuits: What's special about a vertical oscillator type transformer?

The last page of Mark M. Hendershot's From the Archives of Lester J. Hendershot shows a materials list the transformers are described this way:

5:1 Ratio 24 Volt to 120 Volt Transformers
(Vertical Oscillator Type)
Red, Black, Blue, Green Coded Wires

I was thinking that since Lester used a magnet from a radar magnetron the transformers might also be from a radar display. Or they could be from a regular TV circuit of the 50's.

I've found several types of "vertical transformers" (vertical blocking oscillator transformer, vertical deflection oscillator transformer, and vertical output transformer) but I don't know, nor did I find what, if anything, makes them a special kind of transformer. It just seems to me since they were specified that way that there is something special about them.

I think Graham said in an earlier post that they were built on an E & I frame with a gap between the E & I laminations when assembled. I can see where that would affect saturation but I'm wondering if there are other characteristics that differ from a power transformer. Phase - are the primary and secondary in phase or 180 degrees out? Are the laminations made of a special material that might affect their permittivity? Is there anything else that makes them special?

[thx1138]

Radar magnet poles

The below images show only one side of the magnetron magnet. It is North in the center and South on the ends. The other piece is South in the center and North on the ends.

You will notice the magnet shown in the images below is different from the Aho build. It is from a Russian radar magnetron which was the only thing I found that had the same physical configuration as the ones shown in the early Hendershot photos.

Also keep in mind that Lester Hendershot worked with the air force in his early work so would presumably have radar parts available.
















If the Hendershot device utilizes the Wesley Gary neutral zone, that zone is not where we were thinking it is.

The magnets are quite powerful. The combined unit before disassembly would affect a compass about 3 1/2 feet away. Using one piece only, as shown in the L. Hendershot and Aho builds, the compass begins to move about 27 inches from the magnet which would project into the board holding the capcoils including the buzzer coils which are right in front of it.

There appears to be a neutral zone about 6 inches from the magnet. At about 4 inches one pole of the compass is strongly attracted to the magnet. At 6 1/4 inches the magnet needle is at 90 degrees. At 9 1/4 inches the opposite pole of the compass points toward the magnet.

Of course the iron armature in front of the magnet in the device will change this. I think we can look at the center pole as a magnetic pivot point as well as the physical pivot point in the armature.

Now consider the "buzzer coils" in a push-pull configuration. The buzzer coil on one side would be north and the other south. In relation to the radar magnet end poles, the north coil is attracted to the south magnet pole on one end and the south coil is repulsed by the south magnet pole on the other end. So they are working in harmony. Reverse the current through the coils and this arrangement reverses. Do it fast enough and the armature vibrates so that neither end actually makes contact with a magnet pole.

I haven't figured out how this helps us. Maybe this is some kind of combined flux capture and feedback mechanism.

Could someone more familiar with the electrical circuit determine if there is a way that it reverses the current through the buzzer coils? I have looked at it but just don't see it. That's probably because I'm not good with the analog stuff.

Take a look at Figures 6 and 7 here
In that case they are driving the coils electrically to get the armature to flip one way or another from the pivot point. So if we could have the rest of the circuit doing this but setting up the armature vibration rather than just flipping one way or the other that would probably go a long way to getting a working device.

[thx1138]

only thing I really failed on is the solenoid

Somewhere in the documentation it said they were old telephone ringer coils. There are a few web sites that deal with antique telephones but I didn't ever find any specs, i.e. wire size and # turns.
PHONECO magneto telephone phone crank breastplate

or it may have been from a pay phone.
Antique Telephone History Website

I haven't had success in any simulator to figure out if the tanks oscil
ate in or out of phase... but given that there's so many inducitive components I'd think it'd be a sine wave and not pulses.

I agree but I think magnetic pulses would set up a wave because they wouldn't instantaneously translate to voltage.

I had some CAM router cut rings made for more accuracy, and wound to what semed to be the most common numbers... but then what's shown in the hendershot images is nothing like the size I ended up with

I watched you videos. You should have used PVC insulated wire for all the coils that are wound on the pins and magnet wire only on the coil that small outer coil at the bottom. In J. G. Gallimore's notes there is a comment about the wire spacing being important. I did a lot of research on the wire used back in those days because I remember pulling some old wire from a submersible pump that was insulated with some kind if rubber compound and it as 1/4" in diameter for 12ga wire. What I found was that PVC insulation was adopted in the early 1950's so it wasn't that old rubber insulation. The PVC insulated wire of today has an outer diameter of 0.066" and that fits very closely with the Arthur Aho photos and early Hendershot photos. Search on "Arthur Aho Hendershot" and you'll find lots of photos.

My first coils I actually went with some corrective assumptions of my own to calculate the radius of the dowel vs the diamter of the coil to get the crossing at various degrees... at 59 & 1/8" the angle is the same as 53 & 3/16"....

Conventionally, it's just a coil... in reality one can easily see there are lots of sub-poles around the perimeter which should have their own characteristics...

Here are some notes from The Hendershot Motor Mystery, compiled by Tom Brown, Book page 52, PDF page54 - bottom of page
A. The size of the poles are critical
B. The distance between the wires are critical
C. The size of poles determine size of coil
D. The diameter of coil determines size of poles
E. Side windings are 1/4 wavelength (or 1/2) (2 3/4" or 1 [8?]/16)
F. Size of wiring 1/4 wavelength (1 3/16) or 1/8 w (19/32") over 1/2"

Given that relationship between the pole sizes and the coils sizes, it's a toss up whether changing the cap/coil size would matter or not. When I think about it, "pole size" doesn't make any sense unless he meant field strength but we don't have any info on the magnet, as I mentioned earlier.

Also; there was a lot of debate, one description said the foil from the capacitor was wound on a coffee can... coffee cans used to be iron, and would have been a ferromagnetic core... we have tin/steel and more often plastic, so saying 'coffee' can doesn't make sense anymore... kinda like, the solenoid he describes was probably common in his day, and entirely obsolete now, so what exactly did he mean?

I did some research on the coffee cans also but didn't come up with anything definitive. I did notice in some of the documentation that stainless steel was used but they didn't say what kind of stainless steel. Some kinds are magnetic and some are not. My guess would be to use a magnetic type. You can find coffee cans by searching "vintage coffee cans".

The transformers were said to be "vertical oscillator type" which would have been used in CRT TV's or maybe radar displays. The transformers were not the typical power transformers you'll find today. They were built on an E and I frame with an insulated gap between the E and I laminations. So those may have to be hand built. The important feature there, I think, is saturation. There's a schematic in "From the Archives of Lester J. Hendershot" document labeled Figure 4 that shows the color of the wires coming out of the transformers. You could probably figure out the phasing from that. If I remember correctly, it's a push-pull setup.

You won't find any 80-40uF combination capacitors today either. So they will have to be separate caps. In a combined capacitor there would be three connections with one lead being common to the two sections. It won't affect the schematic but keep it in mind when looking at photos.

I did find some old Pyramid capacitors but not the 80-40 combination. It was said that the foil was what was used in the cap/coil devices. I took one apart to find the foil thickness. It's about the same thickness as normal household aluminum foil. I don't know if it is treated in any manner during capacitor manufacturing, though.

[d3x0r]

If you want schematics and such there are plenty floating around the internet - in fact too many - that have slight variations. Some of them re-label the coil designations and things get confusing very quickly. There are also parts lists and hand written notes from Hendershot's days.

I made a collection a while ago;
only thing I really failed on is the solenoid... which the russian version is just a single layer on stout iron bar.... I made mine like 3000 turns on magnetic steel... waste of wire really... too low of guague... although i was able to pick up 0.5V pulses from the moving bar in front of a small alnico magnet...

I haven't had success in any simulator to figure out if the tanks oscilate in or out of phase... but given that there's so many inducitive components I'd think it'd be a sine wave and not pulses.

I had some CAM router cut rings made for more accuracy, and wound to what semed to be the most common numbers... but then what's shown in the hendershot images is nothing like the size I ended up with, and the russians again was many fewer turns.

If there was anyone that had anything compelling that might suggest a direction to go I'd reassemble the project...

My first coils I actually went with some corrective assumptions of my own to calculate the radius of the dowel vs the diamter of the coil to get the crossing at various degrees... at 59 & 1/8" the angle is the same as 53 & 3/16"....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2hceqE87UU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4HHz_ZfaqY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jH_tgtzO9cE

Conventionally, it's just a coil... in reality one can easily see there are lots of sub-poles around the perimeter which should have their own characteristics...

Also; there was a lot of debate, one description said the foil from the capacitor was wound on a coffee can... coffee cans used to be iron, and would have been a ferromagnetic core... we have tin/steel and more often plastic, so saying 'coffee' can doesn't make sense anymore... kinda like, the solenoid he describes was probably common in his day, and entirely obsolete now, so what exactly did he mean?

[thx1138]

I figure we've all watched
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3LRmSovEX8 (2:26) construction of a hendershot and eventual running...

I watched part of it and skipped to the end where it was lighting the light bulbs on a table that was up against a wall and dark underneath so you couldn't really see anything. It would be a bit more convincing if it were on a dolly being pushed around the room. I've seen so many faked videos I kind of know what to look for now.

I sorta see where you're going with the primer field video... but not really...

I'm not sure where I'm going with it either. The part about the field building up in the "confinement dome" and then emitting a pulse, as shown in the HH 111 galaxy, is what got my attention. Essentially, a self pulsing magnetic field. The radar magnet used in the Aho build is like a cross section out of one of the bowl shaped magnets in the video and the radar magnet has a hole in the center like the bowl shaped magnets.

I know that's stretching it but the whole time I was watching the videos (all 3 parts) I was wondering if he would disclose how the bowl shaped magnets were magnetized. He never did. That got me to thinking about the radar magnet and how it was magnetized. A bit of digging reveals that the magnets in a pulsed radar magnetron are set up to create a magnetic field along the axis of that hole in the magnet where the magnetron tube is mounted. That is similar to the bowl shaped magnets in the Primer Fields video. That would not be your normal horseshoe magnet that everyone has used to try to do a replication.

The other part that reminded me of the Hendershot device was what is called the "flip point" in the Primer Field videos - analogous to the Wesley Gary "neutral zone".

If you want schematics and such there are plenty floating around the internet - in fact too many - that have slight variations. Some of them re-label the coil designations and things get confusing very quickly. There are also parts lists and hand written notes from Hendershot's days.

Search for these
The Hendershot Motor Mystery, compiled by Tom Brown
The Hendershot Mystery, published by Nutech 2000
Aho and Hendershot
J. G. Gillmore and Hendershot
Ed Skilling and Hendershot

PM me an email address and I can send you a parts list I put together in an Excel spreadsheet some time ago that has sources, part numbers, etc. In fact I've got a bunch of stuff I can send you in ZIP file if you want it.

When I started collecting materials to do a build I ran into the magnet problem. There aren't any specs in anything I found that say what the magnet material was (Alnico, Samarium Cobalt, neo), what strength the Gauss readings were, or anything else other than it was "possibly a radar magnet". So I quit pursuing the build.

The Primer Field ideas have me looking at it again and I've found out a bit more about radar magnets. Take a look at this link and scroll down to the 3rd photo - the MI-189W Magnetron. Click it to get the larger image and take a look at the magnets. Bingo! That's an obsolete Russian aircraft radar magnetron but very close to the Aho build magnet. Be sure to read the text that accompanies the photo.
Cavity magnetron

[David G Dawson]

Chopped DC

Hello boguslaw,
Would expect it to be 'chopped DC'.

Smokey

[boguslaw]

What kind of output would it be : AC or DC pulses ?

[David G Dawson]

3 Pole Magnet

thx1138,
Excellent work and I follow you perfectly after having looked at several of the 'Primer Fields' videos and particularly with respect to the HH 111 pulse stream.
Basically a magnet with equal outer Poles the same and the inner the opposite polarity and somewhat shortened in length.
This would suggest that the resonator bar across the face of the twin electromagnets would be in a state where balance could be easily upset as the central Pole is not in contact but some distance away - a specific distance might I also add.
Wonder now if the iron bar is at the 'flip' distance as shown in the magnet dome experiments and this being from the central Pole.
Have not considered this as a 'resonator' feature and might be of help to build a magnet having the features of the 3 Pole and see what we can obtain.
Have all the bits here and will set up a Magnet or Ferrite arrangement that might model what you see here and see if we can't get an auto response that will give us some magnet and bar 'chatter'.
I will also add at this point which is applicable to not only Hendershot but also the Steven Mark TPU, the following:

The reason why something is magnetic and is able to be attracted or repelled is due to its natural resonant Aetheric frequency (NMR) and this is the sole difference between those metals that are magnetic and those that are not.
The falling magnet experiment in certain metal Tubes like Copper and Aluminium shows that they also have a magnetic attraction but not as profound as that of Iron.

OR

The NMR frequency of iron also happens to be the resonant frequency of the aether, and therein lies the reason we use the NMR frequency of iron, whether iron is used as a delay coil or not.

It's about time we all woke up to the why of magnetism.

Will come back when I have some results and will be slow here as just recovering from a bout of serious Flu and an associated major rain engineering and another story to tell.

Smokey

[d3x0r]

I figure we've all watched
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3LRmSovEX8 (2:26) construction of a hendershot and eventual running...

without use of foil capacitor...
would be nice to know the values of the caps, and a schematic
------------
can make a lot of musings of theories... like the operational field is looped from basket coil 1 through 2 and is a large diameter torus sort of effect... or it's 2 independant streams through each coil...

Strikes me a little as a solid state searl effect generator... that there's a extra field that passes through the core and provides a fluxuation; but there's no conventional theory that would support any of that.

I sorta see where you're going with the primer field video... but not really...

[thx1138]

Not misarranged, but missing all together is the hole and structure around that hole in the center of the magnet. See attachment.

The reason I mentioned 25:25 in the video is that he says, "The (pulsed) structure of HH 111 does not fit what we would find in an externally electrically driven plasma jet. So I must conclude that the (pulsed) jet of HH 111 is not externally electrically driven." That means the the pulsed jet of HH 111 is driven by the "relief valve chatter" mechanism of the magnetic confinement dome he describes around 22:10.

The connection regarding the Hendershot device is that the magnet is the only energy source in the device. Granted, the radar magnetron magnets shown below are not bowls but they are somewhat close. If the magentic field of the magnet in the Hendershot device can me made to use that "relief valve chatter" mechanism of the magnetic confinement dome, that would be the source of the alternating electrical field in Hendershot's device. The rest of the electrical circuit is an amplifier and storage device.

The important question about the "Primer Fields" videos is, how are the bowl shaped magnets magnetized? He never says other than to say they are "specially prepared". The fact that they are painted red and blue does not, however, mean they are monopoles although that works well for his demonstration purposes.

I remember seeing in one of the Hendershot documents that it was said the magnet was a radar magnet. The magentron shown in the attachment are from a Russian aircraft radar and are slightly different than the Aho magnet around the center. But do note how closely they resemble the Aho magnet and, I suspect, the Lester Hendershot build.

I have no clue how radar magnetron magnets are magnetized. So the bottom, left image in the attachment is just a guess. They could just as well be polarized with one pole on the outside perimeter and the other on the inside perimeter.

Another interesting thing in the Wikipedia photo in the attachment is that it says the magnetron magnet is AlNiCo. I don't know if that was ever settled or not - the magnet material.

So if I am right about this, the reason all the replicaion attempts fail is that everyone is jumping to the conclusion that a normally polarized horseshoe magnet should work. That might not be the case.

[dragon]

Not so much "missing" in as much as placement of components...

[David G Dawson]

Primer Fields

thx1138,
Thankyou for the video on the Primer Fields, most excellent material.
Have had a look at your pictures but unable to see what is missing.
The top left pic is new to me and unable to see what he has in his hands that he appears to be adjusting.
The only thing I do see is very sloppy wiring being just all over the place but no distinct or exact organisation in the basic layout.
My replication is still here waiting on a solution but nothing coming at this point in time.
Working on the Steven Mark TPU at this time but my version relating to the RCA colour TV implosion and have TV Neck Ferrites which are very similar to the dome magnets in the Primer Fields sitting on the bench.
Working on pulse drivers at this time using Vacuum Tubes and Delay Lines.
Would be interested in knowing what it is that you think is missing.

Smokey