Tesla's Magnifying Transmitter "Replications"

[dragon]

The formula only provides information regarding the primary tank circuit.

[dR-Green]

But as I keep pointing out the words of Nikola himself to replace the arc he needed a blow. If the rise and fall time is quick that's good enough. He also says that if the system is built and tuned correctly then no matter what type of waveform is used to excite the primary a sine wave will result.

A wireless power transmission coil is not intended to be used as a disruptive discharge coil. We don't really want streamers which is the intended purpose for a disruptive discharge coil. We want a continuous sinusoidal waveform, as big as possible. Well i do anyway.

What is this "blow" though? I'm not sure that by using spiral coils one can really get the familiar light show, certainly not the same light show for the same input. At least if they are built the same way as Eric Dollard's, you'd need massive spirals to get the same amount of copper on there as a helical coil. I haven't been trying, but it's certainly easier to get streamers out of the helical coil. But the spirals don't seem to want to do that, I just get small sparks when making contact. The outer end of the secondary doesn't spark at all that I've noticed.

If I put a filament bulb there it glows, and a resistor gets really hot unless it's more than a couple of watts value, the transmission still happens almost the same, but a fluro won't light because the voltage at the bottom of my coils is too low and this stops the transmission like an open circuit.

Interesting My transmission stops if I use the filament bulb between the coils. Or it won't light the LEDs, I don't know if it stops completely. Any idea how/why the top of your coil can light a fluoro but the bottom can't?

I suppose the behaviour of my spirals are confusing me even more. I mean, I have a bigger diameter on the outside of the secondary than the inside, whereas a helical coil is equal diameter all the way up. So based on that alone I would have thought that with a helical coil you should be able to turn it upside down if you will in a similar way and get more or less the same result, easier than using the bigger diameter outside of the spiral secondary as an output. If you see what I'm getting at.

My main objective is to try determine the frequency the lightning can excite things at. My theory is to get the coil sympathetically resonating with the lightning and measure the frequency.

I might try building that radio thing sometime soon. I'm thinking to use it as a stand alone instrument to do what you're saying, maybe by using different coils as a receiver on it or something like that. I have no idea how it works yet though

It's been a while since I listened to Meyl, I'll have to listen again

[dR-Green]

From here. Page 348.
The inventions, researches and writings of Nikola Tesla, with special reference to his work in polyphase currents and high potential lighting : Martin, Thomas Commerford, 1856-1924 : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive

Haven't read that page yet, but page 339 also has some interesting things. The whole book looks awesome in fact. I've hardly read any of it but what I have read was explaining experiments one could do. Awesome

On a side note I received my hard copy and the newly published one has images that you can actually see unlike the other copy I have, so if anyone's going to buy it then this is the one

The Inventions, Researches and Writings of Nikola Tesla, With Special Reference to His Work in Polyphase Currents and High Potential Lighting: Amazon.co.uk: Nikola Tesla, Thomas Commerford Martin: Books

DON'T get this one!!

Inventions, Researches and Writings of Nikola Tesla: Amazon.co.uk: Thomas Commerford Martin: Books

As far as your calculation goes, there are small details in the construction that vary. Like the base is 30cm, but there is a notch of bendy MDF on the outside to hold the wire in, so the actual winding isn't exactly 30cm diameter. It's 30cm - 2 notches = 28.8cm.

I didn't think of that until yesterday

On caps, I was listening to Eric Dollard giving a lecture and he mentioned vacuum capacitors. So I ordered a few different values of those off ebay to play with the spirals.

Russian Vacuum Capacitor V 300pF 15kV !!! NIB !!! | eBay

But this is what I found interesting and haven't seen in relation to any other capacitor (not that I've looked, but then I didn't look for it here either)

Main technical data:

Nominal capacity – 300 pF (+/- 5%).

Nominal operating voltage – 15 kV.

Nominal HF current – 20A.

Frequency range – up to 25 MHz.

I heard the suggestion from Eric Dollard so I'm assuming I already know the answer to the first question, but would these caps somehow be better, and how come "normal" caps don't have this sort of info?

[edit] Just found this

Quality Factor (Q)
Extremely low losses occur in vacuum capacitors because of the vacuum dielectric, compact construction, and the use of low loss glass or ceramic envelopes as well as copper and precious metal solder construction. Consequently, vacuum capacitors are able to handle large RF currents at high RF frequencies that would destroy other types of capacitors. The "Q" factor, or ratio of stored energy to dissipated energy, is typically in the order of 1000 or 5000 or higher.

Jennings Technology - Technotes - Vacuum Relays, Vacuum Capacitors, Vacuum Interruptors, High Voltage Capacitors, Gas Relays

[Farmhand]

Hi dR, Yes it is a very awesome book. I couldn't think of a better book to have
a good hard copy of. There is so much info. The hardest part is getting the
mind into olden time people speaking mode, however once I start to
understand what I read better things start to make sense.

I'll gather some info to better answer some other things.

It is very interesting to note the differences between spiral coils and helical, I
think you have acted very wisely to have both types to study. I'm thinking a
spiral coil might be better as a radio frequency transmitter where-as the helical
three coil design may be better suited for lower frequency work,
firstly because the helical design, with the extra coil "B" resonator is much
easier to get the wire into the coils to lower the resonant frequency to a low
enough value to do what Tesla wanted.

t looks to me as though Tesla was obsessed with solving problems. One of
those problems would have been how to lower the frequency of a spiral coil
enough without the spiral coil ending up 150 meters diameter and with all the
turns far enough from the ground not to cause problem.

Layed flat a spiral coils HV end is the same height as the primary from the ground. With a
million volts there it would need to be some distance from the ground.

When the outer end (bottom end) of the secondary is grounded it becomes
the same voltage as the ground and so the max voltage is at the other end
then, which is the termination or "Terminal".

So you see when you think it out you can see the issues that would need to
be dealt with. A spiral, unfortunately is not really a practical design for a very
large HV transmitter, a conical coil would be better, because of the way the
part of the coil with HV is further from the ground as the voltage goes up so
does the height progressively.

Tesla warns of the danger posed when tuning a big transmitter in his patent.
He warns in no uncertain terms that if the maximum voltage is shifted down
the coil closer to the ground it could breakout through streamers and maybe
destroy the wooden supports and it would fall over or kill somebody, probably
smoke em. I can see how it would. Nice of him to include the info in the
patent. Very responsible of him.

Page 2 line 15.
ELECTRICAL ENERGY - Google Patents

Tuning Dangers


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Tesla's three coil Magnifier design makes complete sense. It makes sense in
terms of getting the HV away from the ground, for best use of wire for the
lower frequency and for construction and maintenance and for the simplicity
required to drive it, a sine wave from a generator will drive it. And it makes
sense for harmonics. Speaking of which I have more idea's.

I did show the difference in the resultant waveform on the scope between
Square, Sine and Triangle input wave-forms, it was some time ago, but the
square wave was quite a bit bigger. They all looked the same as far as the
shape or the resulting sine waves go. Just the square wave input has the
sharp rise and fall so results in a bigger sine wave. A square wave "Blow" is
better.

I think Tesla's blow is a high current HV square wave delivered by a specially
designed Alternator or generator AC or DC. I think. I'll find a reference.

Cheers

[Farmhand]

Found this ! Which is not what I'm looking for but a good argument for the spark gap.

Here. He actually says through a "Stationary Gap" or a "Gap with a Mechanical Interrupter", So it seems I was wrong (so far) about the spark gap because he says here he had this installed in his plant at Long Island in 1901. Hmm, But The Magnifier patent is 1914. I'm sure I read somewhere, where he explains the "taking up of the currents directly from the alternator or dynamo". I keep looking. I really should keep a record of where i read these things.

Nikola Tesla On His Work With Alternating Currents -- Chapter IV



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Nice Dynamo

And this link shows the different circuits he tried, note the first one is a elevated plate and a piece of wire excited and ground connected.
Below those drawings is another drawing of an "oscillator", totally cool looking device.
Nikola Tesla On His Work With Alternating Currents -- Chapter IV

Cheers

[dragon]

Found this ! Which is not what I'm looking for but a good argument for the spark gap.

Cheers

Here is an example of spark gap driven oscillators... this is my small one with a primary of 500 turns running at 625khz

Tesla coil.wmv - YouTube

This one is a little larger with only 50 turns of 8ga wire on an 8.5" form and a single turn primary runs at 1.045Mhz ...

Movie.wmv - YouTube

A quick example of single wire energy powering a small 7.5w bulb

MVI_0705.wmv - YouTube

Spark gaps are very interesting creatures.

[Farmhand]

Yeah no doubt spark gaps are good for Tesla coils and you guys might be right,
maybe Spark gap is better. Now that I've learned more about tuning the coils I'm
thinking of winding a bigger coil for experimenting with soon, I haven't exactly
decided how I want to build it yet, but it will take a lot of wire and I'll be able to
use HV input on it.

Last few day's I studied, now it's experiment time.

[Farmhand]

Hi all, I was doing some probing with the scope to determine what kind of
caps I will need for my setup if I employ a voltage doubler on it. To my
surprise I found that I am already over the 50 v rating of the caps I'm using
now.

here's the shots. This one is with the scope set to 10 v per div the vertical
gain is turned right down in these,



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Scope set to 100 volts per div.


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This is how the scope is connected, all the primary caps are connected in
parallel, they're 50v rated 2.5 nF for the fixed.



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I had to move the picture down on the scope to see the top of the wave form
on the 10 vpd shot. The only thing I can think of is the setup is building this
voltage up.

When I insert a core into the primary charging inductor the cap wave form
changes to a jagged looking sine wave looking thing. Strange.
EDIT: (This jagged looking wave has a frequency of about 150 -160 Khz which is 1/3 operating frequency). Cool.

Anyway looks like I need 250 volt caps for there. Even though I'll only be
doubling 12 volts, currently at 12 volts they see in excess of 80 volts.

I imagine the higher voltage level in the primary capacitor is because of the
charging inductor discharging into the primary cap. So maybe the calculation
for the primary capacitor discharge current should be worked out on the
scope voltage indication.

Hmmm. Maybe my capacitors, they are already leaking. Would explain the
extra power usage.



P.S. I guess the trick is to get the charging inductance correct for the
primary capacitance so as to get the primary cap voltage at the value you
want. While still keeping everything within the constraints of the equipment.

[Farmhand]

Well well, it seems if I remove the de-q-ing diode things look much better.
I now see about 30 - 40 volts there with the scope connected the same way
and place. And the current draw is much less.

Here in these shots the setup is using about 600 -700 Ma so that kinda fits
the figure's, I think.

Kinda looks like a 1-2-3 two step, there's two distinctly different sets of three steps up. "Mountain waves"

These are just the primary cap charge wave forms, somehow the hanging
scope probe still shows a nice sine wave when the primary cap looks like this


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This one shows the scope controls.


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So I should only need capacitors capable of withstanding 100 volts if I double my input voltage. As long as I don't use the de-q-ing diode. Suits me.

[boguslaw]

Clearance

I wish to clear something. Be sure that spark gap is very inneficient device, dirty and creating soft x-rays and uv. it is hard to manage it , it produces sound and light which is energy dissipation. If you do not believe me , believe Tesla ! He spent a couple of patents to find the best rotarty interrupter replacing spark gap. He stopped once vacuum tube was invented (also by him in Colorado Springs ! but he let Lee de Forest to patent it).
That is one of common troubles to replicate OU devices : need to sharply and clearly disrupt HV oscillation or to sustaing resonance.

[dragon]

I wish to clear something. Be sure that spark gap is very inneficient device, dirty and creating soft x-rays and uv. it is hard to manage it , it produces sound and light which is energy dissipation. If you do not believe me , believe Tesla ! He spent a couple of patents to find the best rotarty interrupter replacing spark gap. He stopped once vacuum tube was invented (also by him in Colorado Springs ! but he let Lee de Forest to patent it).
That is one of common troubles to replicate OU devices : need to sharply and clearly disrupt HV oscillation or to sustaing resonance.

That is quite true, they are lossy devices. Unfortunately, there isn't much out there that will handle bi-directional flows or high amperage and voltage. The next best thing being the vacuum tube but it is directional. The UV can be collected and turned into useable energy as well as the noise although at some expense. Another step from the tube would be a trigatron which operates like a transistor (similar to the VT ) and can be made to oscillate in both directions. These can handle HV and 1000's of amps. Also their not that difficult to "homebrew" if you have access to a lathe.

[Farmhand]

Well I think that with a variable spark gap in oil and the primary variable
capacitors in oil also the losses and problems posed by the spark gap would be
reduced significantly. Although I still will experiment with non spark gap methods.
And I'm still looking for the reference to Tesla's "taking up of the currents
directly form the Alternator or Dynamo to the Transmitter".

I've got 40 liter's of transformer oil though, so I can do oil. But I'm
not ready for that yet.

Cheers

[Farmhand]

Ok Guys I decided to try a transmission over a relatively short distance with
the setup as-is to get a base point kinda thing, before I start changing
things, I made a couple of discoveries while I was at it which I'll get to later.

This is done with the transmitter in one steel lined shed joined to the receiver
by a single wire between the negatives of the two secondaries, with the
receiver in another half open steel lined shed. About 10 meters away.

Here's a video clip.
Transmitter Test 3-1.wmv - YouTube

I noticed after making the video if I reduced the pulse width of the oscillator
and tuned some other things more carefully I could get a better effect with
more voltage with a bit less current.

I also noticed that if I put my hand near the receiver toroid terminal the
voltage went way up and the LED's lit up better too of course. Which could
mean a couple of things.

Now I'll see if i can get better effects than that by improving my toroid
terminals finally. I've also got some 75 mm aluminium tube maybe 0.8mm wall
thickness, I think I can use that for risers to elevate the terminals a bit or
something for allowing adjustment. Somehow. Not for the terminals themselves though.

Cheers

[Farmhand]

Umm I think I've discovered a problem, especially for those of us who like to
make everything from scratch. It's the conductive tape for covering our
sphere or toroid terminal/Terminations. I have two different types of
conductive tape and the problem is, the adhesive prevents any two surfaces
of separate pieces of tape being electrically joined. Overlapping pieces will not
make a join "electrically" as far as I can tell.

The only way I can see around this, so far at the moment, is to use a contact
ring of some kind, or to jumper every overlap (separate piece of tape) with a
piece of aluminium foil, which sounds like a tedious task indeed.

I like the contact ring idea, I'll see what I can come up with.

I think all the conductive surfaces of the terminal all need to be electrically
connected to form one conductive shape/sphere/toroid/plate.

Any thoughts on this ?



A smooth conductive toroidal terminal has got to be one of the most difficult things in the world to build. Especially in small scale.

[dR-Green]

It's the conductive tape for covering our
sphere or toroid terminal/Terminations. I have two different types of
conductive tape and the problem is, the adhesive prevents any two surfaces
of separate pieces of tape being electrically joined. Overlapping pieces will not
make a join "electrically" as far as I can tell.

Ah, that's what I feared would happen to mine, but it turned out to be ok. Have you actually tested whether they are connected? Because as far as I can tell, there's either a very narrow band on either edge, or at the cuts where you cut the tape (I used scissors) where there's no adhesive. And that's enough to make the contact so the whole thing is joined electrically.

The only solution I could think of if they weren't connected was to use folds - fold a small piece/corner of the tape over before sticking it down so they're all connected underneath.

[edit] Or you could try burning the adhesive off, like a small spot in the middle with a lighter, and have the connecting ring you thought of on the layer underneath.