Donald Smith Devices too good to be true

[janost]

So beautiful

[aaron5120]

Hi Janost,
Nice CFL light, displaying a very warm colour.
Is this just a normal circuit just for checking the endurance of the D- size, or you are using the dual ground FET circuit? Sorry for the dumb question.

aaron5120

[Blargus]

Thank you for the explanation, Janost. Very enlightening - for me, anyway. This may seem a little off-topic, but perhaps it ties in... The way I understand it, Tesla's magnifying transmitter used the earth as a resonant cavity. It would seem to me this is what this simple circuit is doing. If so, perhaps this would explain what (and how) TK is doing as well in some of his demos, given that he often credits Tesla's work as providing the principles for his devices.
Bob

Hi, I've been reading Don Smith's stuff, unless I'm mistaken I thought this might be in line with what he was saying about high frequency power magnification, though in this case with lower voltages. Wanted to share if anyone's interested this scope shot from my replication of Konstantin Meyl's Tesla pancake coil wireless system from Steve Jackson's plans. Though I am inexperienced in these things, the secondary of the receiver coil (both pancake coils identically wound maybe plus or minus 1 or 2 turns as mistake) has a higher amplitude than the transmitter, even higher than the function generator running it can go at it's max setting of 3.5V.

Don Smith said that you could just put a bunch of receivers and each would have same power. I've tried with two receiver coils and they both show the same waveform as each other and I think have the same power simultaneously but the "resonance" point changes with two receivers to be I believe 3 Mhz or so. I also believe the waveform amplitude is higher in the receivers than it is in the transmitter with multiple receivers. Sorry I haven't done full testing on this i.e. total power in vs. out.

Top waveform is transmitter secondary, bottom is receiver secondary--function generator is set at 3.5V signal to transmitter secondary yet 6+ volts is read at receiver secondary:


Thanks,
Mike

[janost]

Hi Janost,
Nice CFL light, displaying a very warm colour.
Is this just a normal circuit just for checking the endurance of the D- size, or you are using the dual ground FET circuit? Sorry for the dumb question.

aaron5120

Its an ordinary JT with a 1:50 secondary for lighting the CFL.

I was planning to use it on my earthbattery but a friend of mine wanted a cheap and lowweight campinglight so I'm testing how long it will run on a D-size.

[janost]

Hi, I've been reading Don Smith's stuff, unless I'm Though I am inexperienced in these things, the secondary of the receiver coil (both pancake coils identically wound maybe plus or minus 1 or 2 turns as mistake) has a higher amplitude than the transmitter, even higher than the function generator running it can go at it's max setting of 3.5V.

Is there someone who can explain why the secondary has a higher voltage than the primary even though the have a 1:1 turnratio?

I want to understand this

[janost]

Its an ordinary JT with a 1:50 secondary for lighting the CFL.

I was planning to use it on my earthbattery but a friend of mine wanted a cheap and low weight campinglight so I'm testing how long it will run on a D-size.

Calculating the starting voltage and the voltage left in the battery it looks like it will run for 40h nonstop until the battery voltage reach 1v and the JT stops.

I should have bought a cold white CFL instead of this warm white, they look brighter.

I was thinking of putting the CFL and secondary in series with the battery, feeding the HV pulses back to the battery.
perhaps that will extend the runningtime?

I could put the EB in the loop as well?

[level]

Hi, I've been reading Don Smith's stuff, unless I'm mistaken I thought this might be in line with what he was saying about high frequency power magnification, though in this case with lower voltages. Wanted to share if anyone's interested this scope shot from my replication of Konstantin Meyl's Tesla pancake coil wireless system from Steve Jackson's plans. Though I am inexperienced in these things, the secondary of the receiver coil (both pancake coils identically wound maybe plus or minus 1 or 2 turns as mistake) has a higher amplitude than the transmitter, even higher than the function generator running it can go at it's max setting of 3.5V.

Don Smith said that you could just put a bunch of receivers and each would have same power. I've tried with two receiver coils and they both show the same waveform as each other and I think have the same power simultaneously but the "resonance" point changes with two receivers to be I believe 3 Mhz or so. I also believe the waveform amplitude is higher in the receivers than it is in the transmitter with multiple receivers. Sorry I haven't done full testing on this i.e. total power in vs. out.

Top waveform is transmitter secondary, bottom is receiver secondary--function generator is set at 3.5V signal to transmitter secondary yet 6+ volts is read at receiver secondary:


Thanks,
Mike

Hi Mike. You would need to provide exact details of how you have things connected up. Is this the exact circuit you are using for your transmitter and receiver? Where exactly are you making your voltage measurements on the attached schematic? It sounds like you don't have loads connected to the receiver secondaries yet, and you are making open circuit voltage measurements on the receiver secondaries?



Off the top of my head without knowing your exact circuit setup when running this test, if the transmitter pancake coil is not resonating at the exact same frequency as the receiver, then it is certainly possible for the receivers to show a higher voltage at their secondaries than the transmitter's primary. This could occur if you have the transmitter operating somewhat off the resonant frequency of its pancake coil, but this frequency you are set to is at or close to the resonant frequency of the receiver pancake coil.

The voltage across a coil, whether a pancake coil or solenoid type, can climb much higher than the source voltage exciting it if the coil is operating close to or at its resonant frequency. So the first thing to check would be that both the transmitter and receiver pancake coils are resonating at the exact same frequency when they are fully connected into their circuits. Even though the transmitter and receiver pancake coils may have the exact same turns count and dimensions and the same inductance value, once you connect them into a circuit the resonant frequency can change. Proximity of nearby metallic objects as well as connecting in a signal generator at the primary of the transmitter but not at the receiver and instead having a rectifier and filter capacitor and load on the secondary of the receiver, and any other differences in the circuitry between the transmitter and the receiver circuitry could all contribute to the transmitter and receivers resonating at different frequencies. Basically any differences in circuitry on both the primary or secondary windings of the transmitter and receivers will tend to cause the resonant frequencies of the transmitter and receivers to differ.

Also, another thing to be aware of is that voltage does not give you an indication of power by itself. You can only compare power using voltage as an indicator if the voltage is measured over the exact same impedance. The best way to do power measurements comparisons with this sort of configuration (resonant transmitter and receiver coils) is to measure the power input into the transmitter from the signal generator compared to the power being delivered to the load on the receiver. It would be better to use a resistive load (non inductive resistor) on the receiver for making power measurements at the receivers.

However, making power measurements at RF frequencies in the MHz range is not so straight forward as RF tends to get into the scope probes and leads, and can give skewed readings. Accurately measuring the input power from the signal generator to the transmitter can be a bit tricky at higher frequencies even when using a scope. If you are converting the output from the receivers to DC as shown in the schematic, then making receiver power measurements is greatly simplified. The diodes used to rectify the output of the receivers need to be high speed diodes. Not sure which rectifier diodes Steve Jackson is recommending to use?

By the way, I have done experiments with Don Smith's single transmitter with multiple receivers setup, and in my case I found that the power received in one or more receiver coils tuned to the transmitter coil frequency is always less in total than the power being input into the transmitter coil. In other words my experimental results contradicted Don Smith's claim that each receiver coil receives a duplicate copy of the transmitter power. Don Smith may have done something different in his setup that I missed, but I based my experiments on a picture of Don Smith's demo board setup. If you find different results I will be interested to hear details.

[Blargus]

Hi level and janost,

Thanks for the feedback! The photo you posted level is how I have things connected except for no capacitor. I have probe 1 connected where the function generator goes onto the transmitter secondary. The second probe went where in your schematic the receiver secondary goes to the diode bridge. Yes, I think the measurements are open circuit with no load on receiver.

The only real frequency test I did for both coils was to look at the value f on the bottom of the scope shot and to zoom out and see if the scope was displaying roughly the same period for both waveforms. There should be a way to get a value f for the second channel, but it seems identical to me, I think you can see this a bit in the scope photo.

I have measured the power going into the signal generator. It is 5V at 200mA, though less voltage shows up at the output end, with a maximum of 3.5V as I said. I have tried 1k ohm resistor across receiver secondary for a bit and measured across it. I believe my reading was higher than 4V across the resistor.

Steve Jackson recommends measuring load current and voltage and comparing it with total power supplied (5V at 200mA), but using an AC phase angle calculation using math functions of scope. I got confused the first time I tried this and have to do it again. That's an interesting idea about the FWBR, I'll have to try that.

I will try to get some real power measurements and let you know if it's different than your findings! Though it seems as though if I'm reading you right level that maybe the voltage increase is a feature of Tesla coils, by sort of a transformer action between the primary and secondary? I don't know if I have a good way of measuring this. Even if it's "conventional" transformer action it's still exciting!

Interesting to hear about your Don Smith replication, it's sort of frustrating to hear him make it sound easy, it makes me doubt it! But he was right about the neon sign transformer having more watts out than in printed right on the label! If I'm in a coffeehouse or something I check the NST and do the math. What must people think? But so far all have been more watts out than in according to label.


Mike

[level]

Hi level and janost,

Thanks for the feedback! The photo you posted level is how I have things connected except for no capacitor. I have probe 1 connected where the function generator goes onto the transmitter secondary. The second probe went where in your schematic the receiver secondary goes to the diode bridge. Yes, I think the measurements are open circuit with no load on receiver.

The only real frequency test I did for both coils was to look at the value f on the bottom of the scope shot and to zoom out and see if the scope was displaying roughly the same period for both waveforms. There should be a way to get a value f for the second channel, but it seems identical to me, I think you can see this a bit in the scope photo.

I have measured the power going into the signal generator. It is 5V at 200mA, though less voltage shows up at the output end, with a maximum of 3.5V as I said. I have tried 1k ohm resistor across receiver secondary for a bit and measured across it. I believe my reading was higher than 4V across the resistor.

Steve Jackson recommends measuring load current and voltage and comparing it with total power supplied (5V at 200mA), but using an AC phase angle calculation using math functions of scope. I got confused the first time I tried this and have to do it again. That's an interesting idea about the FWBR, I'll have to try that.

I will try to get some real power measurements and let you know if it's different than your findings! Though it seems as though if I'm reading you right level that maybe the voltage increase is a feature of Tesla coils, by sort of a transformer action between the primary and secondary? I don't know if I have a good way of measuring this. Even if it's "conventional" transformer action it's still exciting!

Interesting to hear about your Don Smith replication, it's sort of frustrating to hear him make it sound easy, it makes me doubt it! But he was right about the neon sign transformer having more watts out than in printed right on the label! If I'm in a coffeehouse or something I check the NST and do the math. What must people think? But so far all have been more watts out than in according to label.


Mike

Hi Mike. If you use a carbon resistor for the load of about 50 to 100 ohms or so, it should not have much inductance to it, so it shouldn't introduce much of a phase angle between the voltage and current, so you can just measure the RMS voltage across the load resistor with your scope and then use the formula:
Power = Vrms^2 /R
So, if you measured 4 Volts RMS across the load resistor and the load resistor was 100 ohms, you would have 160 mW being dissipated by the load resistor.

You can measure the input power to the transmitter primary with a scope, but yes, it can be a bit tricky as you do have to take the phase angle between the voltage and current into account and, as I mentioned, at frequencies in the MHz range RF tends to get into the scope probe and leads and can throw measurements off somewhat when measuring currents in the low mA range. You can get at least a ballpark idea of the input power to the primary this way however.

The reason the voltage on the receiver secondary can be higher on this type of transformer (tesla coil) is because tesla coils are typically operated at or near resonance whereas ordinary AC transformers are not typically operated that way.

Neon sign transformers actually don't put out more power than they consume. Don Smith did not have a background in electronics, so he misunderstood what those specs on a neon sign transformer mean. If a neon sign transformer says "Output: 7.5KV, 30 mA", it doesn't mean that the neon sign transformer can output 225 Watts, it means that the max voltage (max open circuit voltage I believe) of the transformer is 7.5KV, and its maximum rated loaded current is 30 mA. When you put a load across a neon sign transformer its output voltage will drop down from its open circuit voltage. How much the voltage drops depends on how much you are loading down the transformer. Many modern neon sign transformers have short circuit protection built in so that if you load the neon sign transformer down too much the output current from the transformer will be limited to around its max rated current.

[SERG V.]

Hi, I've been reading Don Smith's stuff, unless I'm mistaken I thought this might be in line with what he was saying about high frequency power magnification, though in this case with lower voltages. Wanted to share if anyone's interested this scope shot from my replication of Konstantin Meyl's Tesla pancake coil wireless system from Steve Jackson's plans. Though I am inexperienced in these things, the secondary of the receiver coil (both pancake coils identically wound maybe plus or minus 1 or 2 turns as mistake) has a higher amplitude than the transmitter, even higher than the function generator running it can go at it's max setting of 3.5V.

Don Smith said that you could just put a bunch of receivers and each would have same power. I've tried with two receiver coils and they both show the same waveform as each other and I think have the same power simultaneously but the "resonance" point changes with two receivers to be I believe 3 Mhz or so. I also believe the waveform amplitude is higher in the receivers than it is in the transmitter with multiple receivers. Sorry I haven't done full testing on this i.e. total power in vs. out.

Top waveform is transmitter secondary, bottom is receiver secondary--function generator is set at 3.5V signal to transmitter secondary yet 6+ volts is read at receiver secondary:


Thanks,
Mike

Привет Mike

[Farmhand]

Hi, I've been reading Don Smith's stuff, unless I'm mistaken I thought this might be in line with what he was saying about high frequency power magnification, though in this case with lower voltages. Wanted to share if anyone's interested this scope shot from my replication of Konstantin Meyl's Tesla pancake coil wireless system from Steve Jackson's plans. Though I am inexperienced in these things, the secondary of the receiver coil (both pancake coils identically wound maybe plus or minus 1 or 2 turns as mistake) has a higher amplitude than the transmitter, even higher than the function generator running it can go at it's max setting of 3.5V.

Don Smith said that you could just put a bunch of receivers and each would have same power. I've tried with two receiver coils and they both show the same waveform as each other and I think have the same power simultaneously but the "resonance" point changes with two receivers to be I believe 3 Mhz or so. I also believe the waveform amplitude is higher in the receivers than it is in the transmitter with multiple receivers. Sorry I haven't done full testing on this i.e. total power in vs. out.

Top waveform is transmitter secondary, bottom is receiver secondary--function generator is set at 3.5V signal to transmitter secondary yet 6+ volts is read at receiver secondary:


Thanks,
Mike

Hi Blargus here is a video clip I made some time ago when i was new to this
stuff, I was able to charge a capacitor to over 700 volts from it's few turns
output coil, the transmitter and receiver were identical and wound the same
way, the setup was running from 12 volts.

700 volt cap charge.wmv - YouTube

This one shows the resonant rise when tuned in. 2 x 20 volt meters in series to read up to 40 volts.

Resonant Voltage Rise.wmv - YouTube

Here's a transmission from one shed to another with 24 volts at the receiver.
Transmitter Test 3-1.wmv - YouTube

The mumbling about the back emf is kinda backwards. But the point is the
transmitter input was 12 volts and the output could go to 700 volts when in
reality it should only get to 12 volts plus resonant rise. The setup came into
tune and the transmitter was sucking 12 Watt's input or so when doing it.
Still the voltage at the output is not power and Meyl or anyone with learning
claiming Extra energy out based on the voltage alone is deliberately deceitful
and not to be trusted. Don not being trained in electronics is no excuse what so ever.

Generally I got double the voltage from the receiver when it was unloaded or
lightly loaded and at resonance.

My experiments with multiple receivers showed that the transmitter power is
always more than is got from the receivers. Don's setup was likely drawing
more than all three of the receivers. He never showed any power
measurements as far as I can tell.

Cheers

[Blargus]

Hi Level,

Thanks for the help . I also seem to get roughly double the voltage at receiver when at the right frequency. I'd like to figure out a way to see where the Voltage rise is happening, if it's from primary to secondary or from receiver to transmitter. Still slogging through the power measurements, thanks for the professional help! I might need professional help of a different sort after working with this AC RMS stuff.

@Farmhand
Wow, 700 Volts from 12 Volts is interesting. Am I right that if you had 12 watts in at 12 V then that 700V would have to be at less than 17 mA after your diode bridge to preserve unity? If you have a high rate of charge of capacitor does that mean a high current relative to the capacitance? Seems you were using low capacitance caps?

Interesting about the NST ratings, I suppose the real test would be with loaded output versus input. Sounds like an easy test? I haven't seen a power test of Don Smith's devices either other than the suitcase lighting the light bulbs but it was basically a mystery box that you couldn't see inside doing it.

SERG--

Cпасибо! Meyl says in that doc that some Universities measured 500+ percent efficiency, unfortunately no specifics! Я не говорю по России, maybe I ask my old history professor what that Papaleksi Document is about? Or I just keep it laying about so I look smarter than I am

Mike

[T-1000]

The mumbling about the back emf is kinda backwards. But the point is the
transmitter input was 12 volts and the output could go to 700 volts when in
reality it should only get to 12 volts plus resonant rise. The setup came into
tune and the transmitter was sucking 12 Watt's input or so when doing it.
Still the voltage at the output is not power and Meyl or anyone with learning
claiming Extra energy out based on the voltage alone is deliberately deceitful
and not to be trusted. Don not being trained in electronics is no excuse what so ever.

Generally I got double the voltage from the receiver when it was unloaded or
lightly loaded and at resonance.

My experiments with multiple receivers showed that the transmitter power is
always more than is got from the receivers. Don's setup was likely drawing
more than all three of the receivers. He never showed any power
measurements as far as I can tell.

Cheers

What happens if your receiver Tesla coils will have separate groundings and they all will operate on quarter wave resonance and that resonance will hit harmonics of Earth resonance?
You might try that for full N. Tesla experiment setup.

[hotrod68r]

hi janost and all. i read something somewhere about mounting a slidable 20 mm dia. copper pipe sleeve over a ferrite rod coil,set up as a blocker osc. circuit, that was said to reduce current consumption to the point that it started charging the supply battery. something like a 2 inch long copper pipe over a 3-4 inch long ferrite rod,wound end to end,with the pipe positioned so it was partially hanging off one end of the coil. it was a post in a forum somewhere. i'll try to dig it up. has anyone heard of this or tried it. cheers.

[janost]

hi janost and all. i read something somewhere about mounting a slidable 20 mm dia. copper pipe sleeve over a ferrite rod coil,set up as a blocker osc. circuit, that was said to reduce current consumption to the point that it started charging the supply battery. something like a 2 inch long copper pipe over a 3-4 inch long ferrite rod,wound end to end,with the pipe positioned so it was partially hanging off one end of the coil. it was a post in a forum somewhere. i'll try to dig it up. has anyone heard of this or tried it. cheers.

The thing is that the pipe will act as a one turn shorted winding.
But perhaps that got something to do with it?