HF HV Phenomena Observations

[Farmhand]

Nice pics everyone Sounds like you're having interesting experiences there Farmhand hehe. I'm working on the 60cm spiral coils as we speak. 2x 1.5mm parallel wires used for the primary for a total of 116.8 grams including the lead-in and lead-out bits, which probably come to about 2 grams. The secondary will consist of approx 53 metres of 24 SWG which I just finished measuring and weighing. I'll have to wind this to make sure everything fits on the base, unwind it, then rewind it with glue. It should be good I reckon Can't wait to find out, and then I'll make an extra coil for it as well Hopefully the 53 metres of wire will fit good. There's a chance according to circle circumference calculations that 80 metres of 26 SWG might fit on there but I think I'll go with the 24 SWG

Sounds good, You should get close to 1 Mhz with that ? Is that the goal ?
Because I think I would like to build a coil I can tune to 990 Khz, the local radio station frequency.

It seems wood is not such a good insulator, at least not the wood I have
if I connect the terminals of the opposite coils to each end of a 100mm piece
of wood sparks go through the wood better than through the air and it's by a
lot, it's very strange the sparks go for a bit on one side following the grain
then they jump the grain and go to the other side and do the same for a bit
further and repeat so it looks like the sparks are "stitching the wood up" with
"spark thread". I think there is about 70 Kv between the terminals.
I didn't try PVC yet.

I'll try some different insulating materials and try to make a short vid to show
the differences as it happens for me. Not sure what it means.

Cheers

[mire]

Haha, No no happy birthday tune's yet. I'll have to have a good think and do a bit of experimenting with different ways of using the arc, like bigger washers and different discharge points and whatnot.

I've seen coils that play music in the arc but they have the music input somehow. I don't want to use an instrument or midi player or anything to put music into it, I just want to be able to hit a few note's with the coil itself producing the note's. So I can use it to play tune's of its own sounds. Which might be more trouble than it's worth.

Here's a pic of the soundtrack from the video clip in audacity. Since I know nothing of music it is just a pretty picture to me. Seems to be quite a bit of sound energy there. Can we measure O.U. by sound energy emmited ? Because Tesla coils are very loud when they are spark gapped.


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Cheers

I have done some of these high voltage experiments in the past.
At one time i had a quartz crystal, and i discharged into it. you can get some extreamly high frequency that way. The one problem i had was when i had my tv remote to close, and the frequency i produced caused the channels to change on my tv. I was like what? After i was done i had to reprogram the remote control.
I have a bunch of these tv flyback transformers, and i don't know how to make the external circuits to run them off a 12 volt battery. if you have any schematics how i can do that it would be appreciated.

Oh, When i was a kid i had a remote control car. I though i was hearing things coming from inside it. I took it apart. I added a speaker to a couple of points i thought i was hearing something come out of the car. The speaker amplified the reception, and i could hear people on cbs talking from my car. LOL.

The schematics for making a fly back transformer work on a 12 volt battery is what i hope you guys can teach me. Thanks.


cheers

[Farmhand]

This is the power supply so far, the converter makes AC from the battery and
drives the MOT's (frames connected and grounded) with two separate (out of phase) 220v
outputs, 50/50 square wave, connected for double voltage, they can be connected
for double current as well. The converter can work at 30 or 40 Khz but output
is less at that frequency. (frequency current restriction)

I use between 180 and 400 Hz to suit the MOT's.

By using 50/50 switching oppositely through two primary paths like an inverter
the Back EMF is increased with less load and so the current suits the load,
more load ( more primary capacitance to charge) means more current.
This helps the switches a lot. I like the lack of load to be reflected in the
primary like it should be. With less than 50/50 switching of opposite primaries
or one way primaries, the magnetic field of the primary can collapse against
the drain of the mosfet before the other primary can cancel or incorporate it.



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I'll use less clip leads as I get time.



P.S. Microwave oven transformers are dangerous, they can kill from the
primary or the secondary, I think both windings can carry sufficient current to
kill and the voltage there is enough to be a problem, the lower frequency is
not a good thing for safety either.

Also, the most dangerous path for currents to transverse the body is between
the right leg and left arm or either leg and left arm really, for obvious reasons,
so I think it safer to be right handed.

I'm not recommending using them. But they work and mine cost $4.00
from the rubbish tip.

..

[Farmhand]

I have done some of these high voltage experiments in the past.
At one time i had a quartz crystal, and i discharged into it. you can get some extreamly high frequency that way. The one problem i had was when i had my tv remote to close, and the frequency i produced caused the channels to change on my tv. I was like what? After i was done i had to reprogram the remote control.
I have a bunch of these tv flyback transformers, and i don't know how to make the external circuits to run them off a 12 volt battery. if you have any schematics how i can do that it would be appreciated.

Oh, When i was a kid i had a remote control car. I though i was hearing things coming from inside it. I took it apart. I added a speaker to a couple of points i thought i was hearing something come out of the car. The speaker amplified the reception, and i could hear people on cbs talking from my car. LOL.

The schematics for making a fly back transformer work on a 12 volt battery is what i hope you guys can teach me. Thanks.


cheers

Hi Mire, I'm probably not the best person to give circuit advice, but I am
trying to find the time to design a PWM switching circuit and PCB, one that
can take lots of current and abuse. I think there are lots of good flyback
circuits, which are slightly different to what I use, we can all help you if you
ask the questions.

Here's a circuit for driving a flyback, it looks a bit elaborate to me, maybe we
could find a better one.

I think a flyback can also be driven with a joule thief type circuit quite well,
and the circuits are fairly simple and efficient. But I've never done it myself,
joule thiefs don't seem to work well for me.

It's not really necessary to fully understand the IC chips and stuff, but it can
get complicated soldering up a circuit with an IC in it.



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Data sheets for the PWM IC chips are good to read to get a feel of a few things.

I'll try to find a circuit diagram.

SG3525 pdf, SG3525 description, SG3525 datasheets, SG3525 view ::: ALLDATASHEET :::

Cheers

[Farmhand]

Hi guys, I've done some experiments and made some observations with wood and plastic.

The first video I used screws into the wood and realized that the trapped ionized
gasses were supporting conduction inside the wood. The stitching effect
didn't show up as good when I did it this time, I think a preferred path has
been created through the wood now.

HV Experiment 1-2.wmv - YouTube

So then I hit on the idea of using the 90* angle groove of the project box lid to
hold some ionized gasses in a neat path for a open air guide. This has
given me idea's for another avenue of experimentation.

HV Experiment-1.wmv - YouTube

Interesting.

[dR-Green]

2N2222 for these things

@mire, this is pretty much the circuit I've been using.

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I'd say it's good for a basic HV supply, but there are some problems with it. You'll need a neon bulb otherwise I think the transistor will definitely pop.

[dR-Green]

I've seen coils that play music in the arc but they have the music input somehow. I don't want to use an instrument or midi player or anything to put music into it, I just want to be able to hit a few note's with the coil itself producing the note's.

They are switching the coil on and off at a certain frequency to produce the... Frequency. Very good for precise and fast changing of operating frequency, but I don't think it's much use here at the moment due to it changing the supply frequency and not being in tune with the coil itself.

Maybe a TC pipe organ style thing would be a fun project along those lines

Here's a pic of the soundtrack from the video clip in audacity. Since I know nothing of music it is just a pretty picture to me. Seems to be quite a bit of sound energy there. Can we measure O.U. by sound energy emmited ? Because Tesla coils are very loud when they are spark gapped.

The sound is a part of the "escaping energy" I would say, it's technically "radiating into space". A microphone would be a simple moving coil around a fixed magnet arrangement, or in other words a small basic generator. It would be an additional way of capturing some energy I suppose, but I dunno how much practical use you could get out of it. I'm not aware of anyone lighting an LED from a microphone type or sound powered device to date. I'm guessing the efficiency could be increased with a bigger diaphragm, allowing it to respond to bigger waves maybe or capturing more of the signal in a similar way to a satellite dish. Although then it would be heavier and would require more energy to move it

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[Farmhand]

Well if it's sound we want when we make music then sound is output.
I was just kidding when I made the OU comment there.

Anyway, I'm going to have a sleep today. Then I am going to make a
Kapanadze coil. I think I just had a revelation, I think I might know how it works.
But I don't want to spew a heap of conjecture so I'll try to make it and see what
happens. The basic version. If I'm right I think it can be done in
any number of slightly different ways anyway. I actually think part of the principal is quite simple.

[dR-Green]

Sounds good, You should get close to 1 Mhz with that ? Is that the goal ?
Because I think I would like to build a coil I can tune to 990 Khz, the local radio station frequency.

It seems wood is not such a good insulator, at least not the wood I have
if I connect the terminals of the opposite coils to each end of a 100mm piece
of wood sparks go through the wood better than through the air and it's by a
lot, it's very strange the sparks go for a bit on one side following the grain
then they jump the grain and go to the other side and do the same for a bit
further and repeat so it looks like the sparks are "stitching the wood up" with
"spark thread". I think there is about 70 Kv between the terminals.
I didn't try PVC yet.

I'll try some different insulating materials and try to make a short vid to show
the differences as it happens for me. Not sure what it means.

Cheers

Not the goal as such because I started building them before that information was posted, but it certainly would be a highly convenient coincidence I think it will end up around 1MHz, which I'm estimating relative to the small coils. It should need around 1400-1600pF capacitance based on the 4x wire length.

Your arcing pics have got me concerned. I was thinking of making the new spirals more closely coupled, with equal spacing between the primary and secondary as there is between all the rest of the windings. But I don't want arcing from the primary to the secondary I wonder if the coils in the pictures with Tesla are closely coupled like that or if there's a strike ring between them, because from the pictures it looks like there's no (bigger) gap between the primary and secondary. I know the term "heavily insulated wire" is used a lot by him, whereas my insulation is only rated for 7kV. The last thing I want is to glue everything in place then find arcing between them and ruin everything. Maybe a test run is in order.

Any idea what wood you are using btw? I can get small sparks to go into holly, but I haven't noticed anything too crazy happening with the coil wound directly on an MDF base. But I think I mentioned before, on the small spirals, the arcing between the layered turns was happening at the supports, but not into the wood itself.

Either way, as a part of the next stage I'd like to look into plastics and moulding to make the supports, to make the whole task a bit easier and more flexible. The only practical solution to get fully customisable supports I can think of otherwise is to use a router on a big flat piece of wood to cut grooves in it, and then cut this into thin strips. Custom "Bendy MDF" style thing. But that would be a lot of work and wouldn't necessarily be precise. So moulding plastics sounds like a good option to me, as long as it can be done on a relatively cheap and basic level.

Interesting videos

[Farmhand]

Not the goal as such because I started building them before that information was posted, but it certainly would be a highly convenient coincidence I think it will end up around 1MHz, which I'm estimating relative to the small coils. It should need around 1400-1600pF capacitance based on the 4x wire length.

Your arcing pics have got me concerned. I was thinking of making the new spirals more closely coupled, with equal spacing between the primary and secondary as there is between all the rest of the windings. But I don't want arcing from the primary to the secondary I wonder if the coils in the pictures with Tesla are closely coupled like that or if there's a strike ring between them, because from the pictures it looks like there's no (bigger) gap between the primary and secondary. I know the term "heavily insulated wire" is used a lot by him, whereas my insulation is only rated for 7kV. The last thing I want is to glue everything in place then find arcing between them and ruin everything. Maybe a test run is in order.

Any idea what wood you are using btw? I can get small sparks to go into holly, but I haven't noticed anything too crazy happening with the coil wound directly on an MDF base. But I think I mentioned before, on the small spirals, the arcing between the layered turns was happening at the supports, but not into the wood itself.

Either way, as a part of the next stage I'd like to look into plastics and moulding to make the supports, to make the whole task a bit easier and more flexible. The only practical solution to get fully customisable supports I can think of otherwise is to use a router on a big flat piece of wood to cut grooves in it, and then cut this into thin strips. Custom "Bendy MDF" style thing. But that would be a lot of work and wouldn't necessarily be precise. So moulding plastics sounds like a good option to me, as long as it can be done on a relatively cheap and basic level.

Interesting videos

I think you'll be ok for arcing because the primary will be a long way from the
HV end of the secondary. My arcing I think is because I have too many turns
in too small of a distance.

The wood in the video is pine decking, not good timber, it has lots of cracks in it.

I'm going to use 6 mm square Tasmanian oak, I'm thinking I will cut the pieces
then line up about 10 at a time and cut the grooves in them with a hack saw
maybe using a guide. Or I could use a guide and a dremmel maybe, not sure
yet.

Tasmanian Oak - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Colorado coil had it's primary underneath the secondary which is kinda
the same as a flat spiral with primary as far from the top of the secondary as
possible can't do much else except more distance and insulation, the
insulation seems useless if the primary is too close to the HV end of the
secondary.

Cheers

PS. For the scale model (display) I want to make, if there is arcing along the
wood I could even try soaking the wood in transformer oil and use round
toothpicks like wooden nails instead of glue. If I was to build a wooden
structure made from anything but Aussie rosewood to support a coil I would
need to soak the wood in oil to keep the Termites out, if not oil I would need
chemical pesticides which are expensive and yuccy and seriously toxic if burned.

So many things I want to do and only one worn out body to do it with.

EDIT:

2nD PS, Spacing the last few turns more and the middle ones a bit more than
the bottom ones would help too. For the bendy MDF maybe just go two
spaces for the last few turns if necessary.

Don't pay too much attention to what i'm doing with coils at the moment, I'm
just seeing what happens, I changed the primary from three turns to two and
tightened the coupling to see what would happen, I like to break things to see
what they can take. It's very humid here and blistering hot at 40 degrees
celsius, so my conditions are different to yours too.

..

[dR-Green]

Nice, thanks for the info. Just in time for starting the test winding of the secondary to see how it all goes together Just got the primary glued in place. Reduced the secondary wire to 114 grams to compensate for the lead-in and lead-out of the primary. And I'm not looking forward to winding 52 metres of wire into a flat spiral

I'd probably go with the dremmel. I've had to cut a lot of wood to make the spirals and it's not so much the work of cutting it, but the number of cuts and readjusting everything for the next cut that gets tiresome. So I'd recommend anything that saves spending more time picking up and putting down the tools than the actual job itself takes.

[dR-Green]

Well, preliminary results are in. I've used up less than half of the space on the base (number of grooves filled wise), so it looks like about 80 metres of 26 SWG should easily fit on there. In fact I think the whole small spiral could fit in the empty space What I'd like to try at some point is to do away with the double layering to see how that works, the layers are a lot of work to do and is especially frustrating with bends and kinks in the wire. The secondary is all held in place with tape at the moment. The test run was quite good. Caps weren't properly matched (1360pF then 1860pF tested), but it seems to be easier to light filaments with one wire, much wider spark gap range. This first test run far exceeds the results from the first tests of the small spirals (although keeping in mind that the power supply is now a bit better tweaked than it was then), but currently the single bulb output isn't as good as the small spiral + extra coil, although both bulbs in parallel now light better than in that setup. The spark gap is also quieter than before, I no longer need to increase the current to get it to flutter. Results should be very good with properly matched caps, and possibly even better with a longer length of thinner wire Not really sure what to do, but I'm not happy with leaving most of the base empty so something will have to be changed. I'll make another thread or something when it's done rather than talking about this stuff here.



Size comparison

[Farmhand]

Awesome coil man ! Well done it's really nice, please give it a fairly good test, before deciding to change anything plenty of room for the extra coil in there.

I wanted to see the result of a known break rate so I whipped up this toy rotary gap, it runs at 3000 rpm and has eight points so 3000 x 8 = 24000 breaks a minute / 60 = 400 breaks per second. It's kind of a sucker gap too so it works remarkably well for what it is .

I thought it would be a good idea to be able to have a known break rate to compare to. I've got a PWM I can use for a DC motor control so I might try to build a faster one later.

Toy rotary sucker spark gap.wmv - YouTube

Of course it's not much use for this application but it gave me some data.

Cheers

[dR-Green]

Haha, nice idea Thanks I've just been playing around with the crystal receiver circuit posted by Eric. I can hear some guy talking or what sounds like someone talking but it's very faint, can't make out what he's saying. It gets stronger depending on the capacitance, including the plate/sphere condenser arrangement on the top of the coil, so I've been figuring that out so far, balancing them both trying to find the loudest signal. Haven't adjusted the C3 yet. Just using the house earth connection still so far, I'll need to get grounding rods to set up the star formation thing. But it works at least.

[Farmhand]

I've just been playing around with the crystal receiver circuit posted by Eric. I can hear some guy talking or what sounds like someone talking but it's very faint, can't make out what he's saying. It gets stronger depending on the capacitance, including the plate/sphere condenser arrangement on the top of the coil, so I've been figuring that out so far, balancing them both trying to find the loudest signal. Haven't adjusted the C3 yet. Just using the house earth connection still so far, I'll need to get grounding rods to set up the star formation thing. But it works at least.

Cool, what are you using for the headset ?

In Eric's drawing (the power one) it looks like the component near the terminal
capacitance does a similar thing to the setup in drawing number 11. I tried a
similar thing with an al. plate near the terminal of my LV setup and it did some
strange things. But I'll keep my thoughts and observations about what it did
to myself for fear of people thinking i'm a disinfo agent. Unless my
opinion is asked that is.



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I don't have any 1N34 diodes.

Are you using a variable cap on the primary ? And adjusting the distance
between the before mentioned component and the terminal capacitance to
tune in, sounds like you have some of two stations at once maybe.

Anyway I found some wood for base boards and I can fit 350mm diameter or
so primary on them. I want to build it so I can remove some wire from the
secondary and extra coils without too much trouble and also with the option
of spacing the turns differently which I'll try to achieve by having more
grooves than I need above the planned ones for both coils.

Making my primary a bit looser fixed the leaking from the primary and
secondary of my other coils.

The new coils, if I use one primary turn of 6mm tubing it should be 1.1 meters
around and weigh 134 grams, which means I should be able to get 18 turns of
1mm wire or 46 turns of 0.7mm wire for weight, just calculated for now not
weight yet.. If I use 46 turns spaced I'll need a 100mm or more tall frame.

If I use two primary turns I can get 36 turns of 1mm wire in the secondary, I
would put 40 on there so I could remove some. So the secondary dimensions
will be about 350mm diameter x 100 high, the extra coil will be a bit over 1/3
diameter at 130mm and also a bit over 130 high for the few extra turns.

The extra coil if I use 0.7mm and 130 x 130mm frame I could get 100 turns
spaced, so I think I'll make the extra coil frame too long by a bit.

I think I'll build the primary and secondary then test it for frequency and such
first. So far that's the plan, I'm a bit behind you on a new build, but I hope to catch up later.

I think i'll unwind my big long coils and use the wire for another dohnut converter, it seems to be working very well.

Cheers