Tesla's Free Energy Concept

[dR-Green]

Here is a short video showing how a resonant power transmission should work
as Tesla intended in my opinion. With a very low idle "losses" and idle input,
but when a load is applied to the receiver the transmitter draws the collected
energy to transmit, in this case it is in the battery which was charged by a
solar panel.

Nice demo I wonder, assuming that the main power supply is not free, if the idle switching can be done for free, as in using an elevated terminal for example to supply a small amount of power to keep the transmitter running on "standby", and when there is a load demand, the main power supply can kick into action. Not that it makes any difference if all the power is free of course, but then the stored energy in the case of a battery wouldn't be used at all except when needed to power the load.

[dR-Green]

So I don't think he is talking about power from the sun in his later years.

Well, technically he is as far as collecting the energy "directly" is concerned. Only when you look at the night sky you see a lot of other suns. If it works with the nearest sun then it should theoretically also work with the more distant ones on the same principle. The "indirect" translation if you will is all the other stuff like the weather.

Thanks for the additional references

[dR-Green]

From The New York Times (27 March, 1904) - "Cloudborne Electric Wavelets To Encircle the Globe: This Is Nikola Tesla's Latest Dream, and the Long Island Hamlet of Wardenclyffe Marvels Thereat"

No instruments have been installed as yet in the transmitter, nor has Mr. Tesla given any description of what they will be like. But in his article he announces that he will transmit from the tower an electric wave of a total maximum activity of ten million horse power. This, he says, will be possible with a plant of but 100 horse power, by the use of a magnifying transmitter of his own invention and certain artifices which he promises to make known in due course.

Nikola Tesla: Magnifying Transmitter ~ Articles & Patents

This is clearly not correct. The source is Nikola Tesla - On the Transmission of Electricity Without Wires.

In reference to the 100 horse-power, Tesla speaks of the transmission of intelligence, NOT the transmission of power:

... A cheap and simple device, which might be carried in one's pocket, may then be set up somewhere on sea or land, and it will record the world's news or such special messages as may be intended for it. Thus the entire earth will be converted into a huge brain, as it were, capable of response in every one of its parts. Since a single plant of but one hundred horse-power can operate hundreds of millions of instruments, the system will have a virtually infinite working capacity, and it must needs immensely facilitate and cheapen the transmission of intelligence.

These "hundreds of millions of instruments" are, for example, radio receivers, not massive industrial loads. In reference to power transmission:

... The best design of which I know has been adopted, and the transmitter will emit a wave complex of total maximum activity of ten million horse-power, one per cent. of which is amply sufficient to "girdle the globe." This enormous rate of energy delivery, approximately twice that of the combined falls of Niagara, is obtainable only by the use of certain artifices, which I shall make known in due course...

... Meanwhile, the transmission of energy on an industrial scale is not being neglected. The Canadian Niagara Power Company have offered me a splendid inducement, and next to achieving success for the sake of the art, it will give me the greatest satisfaction to make their concession financially profitable to them. In this first power plant, which I have been designing for a long time, I propose to distribute ten thousand horse-power under a tension of one hundred million volts, which I am now able to produce and handle with safety.

This energy will be collected all over the globe preferably in small amounts, ranging from a fraction of one to a few horse-power. One its chief uses will be the illumination of isolated homes. I takes very little power to light a dwelling with vacuum tubes operated by high-frequency currents and in each instance a terminal a little above the roof will be sufficient. Another valuable application will be the driving of clocks and other such apparatus. These clocks will be exceedingly simple, will require absolutely no attention and will indicate rigorously correct time. The idea of impressing upon the earth American time is fascinating and very likely to become popular. There are innumerable devices of all kinds which are either now employed or can be supplied, and by operating them in this manner I may be able to offer a great convenience to whole world with a plant of no more than ten thousand horse-power. The introduction of this system will give opportunities for invention and manufacture such as have never presented themselves before.

On a side note, PROFITABLE? Can the conspiracy weavers explain that one?

In relation to the elevated wire/terminal, and the sun:

In the middle of June, while preparations for other work were going on, I arranged one of my receiving transformers with the view of determining in a novel manner, experimentally, the electric potential of the globe and studying its periodic and casual fluctuations. This formed part of a plan carefully mapped out in advance. A highly sensitive, self-restorative device, controlling a recording instrument, was included in the secondary circuit, while the primary was connected to the ground and an elevated terminal of adjustable capacity. The variations of potential gave rise to electric surgings in the primary; these generated secondary currents, which in turn affected the sensitive device and recorder in proportion to their intensity. The earth was found to be, literally, alive with electrical vibrations, and soon I was deeply absorbed in the interesting investigation. No better opportunities for such observations as I intended to make could be found anywhere. Colorado is a country famous for the natural displays of electric force. In that dry and rarefied atmosphere the sun's rays beat the objects with fierce intensity. I raised steam, to a dangerous pressure, in barrels filled with concentrated salt solution, and the tin-foil coatings of some of my elevated terminals shrivelled up in the fiery blaze. An experimental high-tension transformer, carelessly exposed to the rays of the setting sun, had most of its insulating compound melted out and was rendered useless. Aided by the dryness and rarefaction of the air, the water evaporates as in a boiler, and static electricity is developed in abundance. Lightning discharges are, accordingly, very frequent and sometimes of inconceivable violence. On one occasion approximately twelve thousand discharges occurred in two hours, and all in a radius of certainly less than fifty kilometres from the laboratory. Many of them resembled gigantic trees of fire with the trunks up or down.

"The Transmission of Electrical Energy Without Wires" by Nikola Tesla

[boguslaw]

"But in his article he announces that he will transmit from the tower an electric wave of a total maximum activity of ten million horse power. This, he says, will be possible with a plant of but 100 horse power, by the use of a magnifying transmitter of his own invention and certain artifices which he promises to make known in due course. "


Do you see difference ?

[dR-Green]

No, because whoever wrote that New York Times article is not a competent reporter I also quoted the source of the information which the article refers to, and showed how the NYT article is misleading. 100 horse-power is in reference to transmission of intelligence, i.e. telephony, as a practical example of how the apparatus may be used.

Since a single plant of but one hundred horse-power can operate hundreds of millions of instruments, the system will have a virtually infinite working capacity, and it must needs immensely facilitate and cheapen the transmission of intelligence.

The maximum possible activity, and the power required to transmit signals, are two different things. Tesla's words are ignored, and some reporter suddenly becomes the expert instead.

[Gav]

heres some info i found interesting

"Since the ferrite coil in an AM radio or crystal radio is tuned to
resonate with the radio station being received, then the capacitor/coil
will generate an AC dipolar magnetic field. When superposed on the
incoming EM plane waves, this dipolar magnetic field distorts the plane
waves, and they bend inwards and deliver far more energy to the coil than
we'd expect. And, if we plot the shape of the Poynting vector field
surrounding the antenna, we find a strange kind of "funnel" effect where
the antenna gathers a fairly large area of energy flux by bending the
energy flux inwards so it is absorbed by the antenna."


patents will only give a general idea of the concept, the only thing we can use them for is to get an idea of how it will work, everything inbetween we have to work out for ourselves.

[GSM]

heres some info i found interesting

"Since the ferrite coil in an AM radio or crystal radio is tuned to
resonate with the radio station being received, then the capacitor/coil
will generate an AC dipolar magnetic field. When superposed on the
incoming EM plane waves, this dipolar magnetic field distorts the plane
waves, and they bend inwards and deliver far more energy to the coil than
we'd expect. And, if we plot the shape of the Poynting vector field
surrounding the antenna, we find a strange kind of "funnel" effect where
the antenna gathers a fairly large area of energy flux by bending the
energy flux inwards so it is absorbed by the antenna."


patents will only give a general idea of the concept, the only thing we can use them for is to get an idea of how it will work, everything inbetween we have to work out for ourselves.

Any illustrations of this, because this sounds completely wrong.

If any tuned coil (possessing ferrite core or not) is not centre tapped or fully isolated, then it will transduce EM radiation in a lobsided way (cottage loaf pattern) due to imbalanced transduction wrt the centre of the coil winding. This induced zero voltage/ field offset of is wrt the coil shape, and nothing to do with the supposed bending of plane waves etc. !

Cheers .......... Graham.

[Gav]

it was a comment made by someone on this page
The Black Hole Antenna

[Gav]

alot of what i find confuses me, but what i got from it is that by sending an ac current into an antenna coil it will naturally amplify and suck in more energy

[GSM]

it was a comment made by someone on this page
The Black Hole Antenna

Thanks for the link.
Much flawed text there !

Synchronised reception or transduction can significantly improve the wanted signal to (unwanted signal plus noise) ratio.
The incoming EM radiation and noise are not changed, only the antenna circuitry is.

Cheers ........... Graham.

[thx1138]

Ascanius circuit

Veracreations:

Sorry. I didn't make it clear that I was talking about the Ascanius circuit as found in Practical Guide to Free-Energy Devices - Chapter 7

Can you describe your replication briefly, and your results?

3' X 3' polished aluminum plate 25' in air hung from a fiberglass Army surplus antenna mast by nylon wire wrap ties and connected as shown in diagram with #6 AWG unisulated solid wire to 10' X 5'8" copper clad ground rod. Takeoff from center of plate wire to circuit was #6 AWG uninsulated copper to the circuit and to another 10' X 5/8" copper clad ground rod.

I know that isn't exactly what was shown but I could not find #6 AWG solid wire that was insulated. It was my tradeoff to use either #6 AWG insulated stranded copper or #6 AWG solid uninsulated and I chose the latter. The document says #8 SWG (4mm) but that isn't available in America because we use AWG wire standard. #6 AWG (4.1148mm) was as close as I could get.

Using uninsulated wire may have been a problem with this circuit but it wasn't the major problem.

Another problem was that the artwork in the document shows ground rods not plates. That is misleading. Jes Ascanius used a ground plate.

Over a period of a week's readings the highest I got was 6.8mV.

What information was revealed in that thread that made you say you wouldn't have wasted time with it?

This is my major proble, from Jes Ascanius himself:

Also it depends on ionospheric pressure, meaning that low wet regions are just as awfull as high dry regions are wonderfull for such radient systems...

That 'low wet regions' certainly applies to me since I an about 50 miles from the Gulf of Mexico and our prevailing winds blow humidity into our area regularly and my altitude is 57m above sea level.

The other thing that strikes me about these static electricity collectors is that they are geographically dependent just like hydroelectric generators and that is one of the things that Dr. Tesla was trying to overcome.

He may have believed that at the time, but his "Radiant Energy Collector" is a static electricity collector. The fact that it is a thin conductive plate surrounded by an insulator gives it away. That is a simple electret, which is great at collecting static electricity. The rest of the circuit as well, stepping down the voltage, etc is typical of static collectors.

Actually, the patents are from 1901 and the quote was from 1932. It is not necessary to build a working device to obtain a patent. Dr. Tesla's idea of what radiant energy is evolved over time. Either I missed it or it simply isn't true that Dr. Tesla said his insulated plate was an electret. It may be or may not be. But just insulating a metal plate does not make an electret. The electret effect is produced by charging specific kinds of dielectric to very high voltages between two charged plates. When the process is complete it is the dielectric that is the electret. It could be that the insulation is there not as an electret of even and electrical insulation but to protect the highly polished plate from corrosion. It was never explained as far as I know.
How To Make An Electret

He may have had other ideas about collecting extraterrestrial radio waves or another form of energy, but his Radiant Energy Patent does not appear to be anything beyond a simple static collector.

In 1891 Dr. Tesla said,

We are whirling through endless space, with an inconceivable speed, all around us everything is spinning, everything is moving, every where there is energy.

And in 1892 he said,

Ere many generations pass, our machinery will be driven by a power obtainable at any point of the universe.

Throughout space there is energy. Is this energy static or kinetic? If static our hopes are in vain; if kinetic – and this we know it is, for certain – then it is a mere question of time when men will succeed in attaching their machinery to the very wheelwork of nature.

Static electricity certainly wouldn't be 'obtainable at any point of the universe' and 'Is this energy static or kinetic? If static our hopes are in vain' definitely points away from static electricity.

I tried to upload the files I did to follow Dr. Tesla's evolving train of thought about 'radiant energy' but they were too big for this forum. They can be found here: Tesla's original process of discovery of 'radiant energy'

Take a look at those documents. Hopefully they will trigger something for you which is why I wrote them - not only to show Dr. Tesla's train of thought but to possibly trigger insights in others more knowledgable than myself. The timeline file is probably the easer to follow but the other one has graphics.

[velacreations]

Take a look at those documents. Hopefully they will trigger something for you which is why I wrote them - not only to show Dr. Tesla's train of thought but to possibly trigger insights in others more knowledgable than myself. The timeline file is probably the easer to follow but the other one has graphics.

will do! thanks for posting that.

It may be possible that he is thinking of collecting some other form of energy with these patents, but do we have any evidence that he built a working prototype? and if so, what were the results?

I agree with him when he says we are surrounded by energy. The trick is collecting enough to produce useful work, and figuring out the scale required.

Take sunlight for instance. We get bombarded with tons of energy from the sun. Using a solar panel, you can collect 12-15% of a small portion (visible light) of that energy at any given moment during the day. At the surface, that appears to be an amazing feat, but because of the nature of the beast, the energy is spread out over a very large area, so the best you can do is collect maybe 10-15 watts per square foot of exposed area.

The same might be true of static and/or other forms of radiant energy. It might be so spread out, that the scale to collect it in a useful amount is not practical.

It does appear that Plauson was collecting useful amounts, but I don't know the scale of his system. If I remember correctly, he was using heights of 100+m. I don't recall the size of his balloons, but I do think using his information to scale a system down to the 10-100 watt range might be feasible. If a home could collect 100 watts an hour, that is 2.4 kWh a day, which is plenty enough to run a home.

Regardless of what we call the energy collected (static, cosmic, radiant, etc), I am still not seeing people collecting useful amounts. Even if someone could collect 10 watts, that would be amazing. But, the majority of replications and systems are similar to your experience, collecting mW at best.

Practical information that has been verified by a number of credible replications is definitely limited.

[dR-Green]

Another reference as to the source of the transmitted power:

My belief is firm in a law of compensation. The true rewards are ever in proportion to the labour and sacrifices made. This is one of the reasons why I feel certain that of all my inventions, the Magnifying Transmitter will prove most important and valuable to future generations. I am prompted to this prediction, not so much by thoughts of the commercial and industrial revolution which it will surely bring about, but of the humanization consequences of the many achievements it makes possible. Considerations of mere utility weigh little in the balance against the higher benefits of civilization. We are confronted with portentous problems which can not be solved just by providing for our material existence, however abundantly. On the contrary, progress in this direction is fraught with hazards and perils not less menacing than those born from want and suffering. If we were to release the energy of atoms or discover some other way of developing cheap and unlimited power at any point on the globe, this accomplishment, instead of being a blessing, might bring disaster to mankind in giving rise to dissension and anarchy, which would ultimately result in the enthronement of the hated regime of force. The greatest good will come from technical improvements tending to unification and harmony, and my wireless transmitter is preeminently such. By its means, the human voice and likeness will be reproduced everywhere and factories driven thousands of miles from waterfalls furnishing power. Aerial machines will be propelled around the earth without a stop and the sun's energy controlled to create lakes and rivers for motive purposes and transformation of arid deserts into fertile land. Its introduction for telegraphic, telephonic and similar uses, will automatically cut out the static and all other interferences which at present, impose narrow limits to the application of the wireless.

On recklessness, and a small amount of additional practical information:

Steve Brodie had just jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge. The feat has been vulgarized since by imitators, but the first report electrified New York. I was very impressionable then and frequently spoke of the daring printer. On a hot afternoon I felt the necessity of refreshing myself and stepped into one of the popular thirty thousand institutions of this great city, where a delicious twelve per cent beverage was served, which can now be had only by making a trip to the poor and devastated countries of Europe. The attendance was large and not over-distinguished and a matter was discussed which gave me an admirable opening for the careless remark, "This is what I said when I jumped off the bridge." No sooner had I uttered these words, than I felt like the companion of Timothens, in the poem of Schiller. In an instant there was pandemonium and a dozen voices cried, "It is Brodie!" I threw a quarter on the counter and bolted for the door, but the crowd was at my heels with yells, "Stop, Steve!", which must have been misunderstood, for many persons tried to hold me up as I ran frantically for my haven of refuge. By darting around corners I fortunately managed, through the medium of a fire escape, to reach the laboratory, where I threw off my coat, camouflaged myself as a hardworking blacksmith and started the forge. But these precautions proved unnecessary, as I had eluded my pursuers. For many years afterward, at night, when imagination turns into specters the trifling troubles of the day, I often thought, as I tossed on the bed, what my fate would have been, had the mob caught me and found out that I was not Steve Brodie!

Now the engineer who lately gave an account before a technical body of a novel remedy against static based on a "heretofore unknown law of nature," seems to have been as reckless as myself when he contended that these disturbances propagate up and down, while those of a transmitter proceed along the earth. It would mean that a condenser as this globe, with its gaseous envelope, could be charged and discharged in a manner quite contrary to the fundamental teachings propounded in every elemental textbook of physics. Such a supposition would have been condemned as erroneous, even in Franklin's time, for the facts bearing on this were then well known and the identity between atmospheric electricity and that developed by machines was fully established. Obviously, natural and artificial disturbances propagate through the earth and the air in exactly the same way, and both set up electromotive forces in the horizontal, as well as vertical sense. Interference can not be overcome by any such methods as were proposed. The truth is this: In the air the potential increases at the rate of about fifty volts per foot of elevation, owing to which there may be a difference of pressure amounting to twenty, or even forty thousand volts between the upper and lower ends of the antenna. The masses of the charged atmosphere are constantly in motion and give up electricity to the conductor, not continuously, but rather disruptively, this producing a grinding noise in a sensitive telephonic receiver. The higher the terminal and the greater the space encompassed by the wires, the more pronounced is the effect, but it must be understood that it is purely local and has little to do with the real trouble.

My Inventions: The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla - Chapter 6

Nikola Tesla: Magnifying Transmitter ~ Articles & Patents

The dodgy New York Times article is on the same page.

[Gav]

velacreations... wardenclyffe tower, it was demloished before it was finnished, the investor found there would be no money to be made from it. also rumours of sabotage with secret partners and the race to be the first to transmit the first longdistance wireless signal. do a search of his pics and you will find it, also find the pics that have his pancake coil in the background (his personal system!!). there is nowhere in history that says it doesnt work, when he died his house was raided by the gov and fbi agencys, it wasnt until years later they returned it all, i can garentee they kept all the import documents hidden from the world. also do a search on his 700+ patents

[velacreations]

velacreations... wardenclyffe tower, it was demloished before it was finnished, the investor found there would be no money to be made from it. also rumours of sabotage with secret partners and the race to be the first to transmit the first longdistance wireless signal. do a search of his pics and you will find it, also find the pics that have his pancake coil in the background (his personal system!!).

there is a lot of speculation about wardenclyffe tower. what it was designed for, etc. If memory serves, it was a transmission tower, not a radiant energy collector. But, I could be wrong. I'd like to see some credible evidence that it was, in fact, a radiant energy collector, and it would be interesting to see what the results were.

there is nowhere in history that says it doesnt work

is there anywhere that says is does work? that's what I am more interested in.