High frequency capacitor discharges

[sucahyo]

@johnb003 and Electrotek, how do you prevent the spark from using the magnet as spark jump? I try it with weak speaker magnet and the spark jumpp trough the magnet.

[Inquorate]

Dielectric

@ Sucahyo - try plastic

[sucahyo]

@ Sucahyo - try plastic

Ok. But I can't make the magnet too close then. I use paper for insulation. I think thin plastic wouldn't be usefull too.

[Inquorate]

Dielectric

Or try glass;

1 Glass Eyedropper Straight Tip fits 2 oz Boston Bottle - eBay (item 390029801011 end time Mar-10-09 06:33:26 PDT)

Or melt wax, then dip your paper into it.

Fizzy drink bottle plastic has quite high dielectric value, about 30kv if I remember correctly..

[sucahyo]

@Inquorate, thanks , I will try that.

[Electrotek]

Magnet Insulation

@johnb003 and Electrotek, how do you prevent the spark from using the magnet as spark jump? I try it with weak speaker magnet and the spark jumpp trough the magnet.

I put 3 or 4 layers of shipping tape on the magnet. This Crystal Clear tape is made of polypropylene, which has a dielectric breakdown of a few kV per mill. This is the best I've found. Sheet protectors for typing paper are the same thing.

[johnb003]

My construction was too crappy to know.
I was sandwiching the spark-gap with the magnets, with chopsticks as spacers between the magnets so I couldn't really tell that it was conducting through the magnet. But this is a great point, I'm really curious sucahyo, is your discharge rate / sound changing at all when conducting through the magnet? Maybe this is my problem as well.

I just got some super strong magnets from forcefield, but they scare the heck out of me. I'll try a one-sided system like you guys are doing with just one, that seems a hell of a lot safer :P

I'm eager to test it this weekend. Great tips for insulators, packing tape sounds really convenient!

Anyone have a video detailing the difference between spark gap with magnetic field and without? I'd really like to see if there's an audible difference. And I really wish I could see capacitor discharges through a magnetic spark gap on a high speed camera, but I somehow think, even a high speed camera might not be fast enough.


Inquorate - WOW only 15 au! great!

I didn't realize the car pump had such a nice confined intake.

Actually a friend of mine bought me an electric car pump as well, for my bike, but it was so crappy something broke inside just trying to pump up my bike tire lol.

I never bothered to take it apart but I wonder if I can get a little less cheap version.

What are you using as a container for your vacuum tests? I wonder if I could somehow create a modular "bulb" of some sort that I can rig a pressure valve onto. I'm sure it's not practical to actually use glass, I really don't need it to keep a vacuum on it's own, I don't care if I run the compressor while I perform my tests.

[sucahyo]

I put 3 or 4 layers of shipping tape on the magnet. This Crystal Clear tape is made of polypropylene, which has a dielectric breakdown of a few kV per mill. This is the best I've found. Sheet protectors for typing paper are the same thing.

Thanks I will try that.

[Inquorate]

Container

I have gotten a huge coffee container - the ones with the glass lids, and when I finish enough of the coffee to put it into another two jars, I'm going to use a special drill bit made for glass, and put two holes in it; one for the pump, the other for wires :-)

[johnb003]

New experimental results

Finally some successful results :

YouTube - Magnetic Quench Spark Gap
YouTube - Magnetic Quench Spark Gap (Capacitor Discharge)

The shipping tape worked great. The first time I tried it without the tape and it went straight through the magnet like Electrotek described, but after putting the tape on, it only sparked between the electrodes.

I have a second magnet like the first, I'll try to build a rig where I can sandwich the gap between those two magnets, and see how much strong of an effect I can get.

From here there's some other things I can try, I have a much bigger cap from a microwave, which makes much louder less frequent discharges, but it'll be interesting to see how the magnetic gap affects it as well. Also I wana try putting an inductor in series with the anode and see how that will affect the gap. And also I'd like to try making the gap from a solid bar and seeing if I get any charge on a surrounding grid, like the gray tube.

One thing that was kind of interesting too was how the camera did ok with the regular capacitor discharges, but with the magnetic quench the camera started to take on a red tint.

[johnb003]

Hey John,

Nice videos ! Your setup looks very light and using a FB transformer is even easier/cheaper than a car coil

The spark frequency looks much faster with the magnet !
Now you have to introduce diode(s) to get Aaron's flux compression effect that increases the speed of discharge of the cap and block the discharge to one direction, without possible bouncing.
Thanks for sharing,
good luck,
MDG

Edit: John, what is your cap's specific, the one you put in paralell with the FBT output, and where did you found it ?

The small cap that was tested in the videos is from the CRT logic board 104 pF if I'm reading it correctly.
The large cap is from a microwave.

I'll post pictures of them...

[johnb003]

Stephen,

earlier I tried putting a diode on the anode blocking the high voltage. I was thinking intuitively it made sense too because it would register as a lower potential for the gap, but then there would be no where for the energy to go once it jumped the gap, and hopefully force a radiant event.

When I turned it on, I got a single discharge and something either the cap or the diode started hissing, I was thinking, uh oh I broke something. It was probably the cap but it still works.

Actually now that I think back I don't remember what was hissing, but I'm pretty sure I tried shorting the diode and I got a big spark. I need to double check that, because if it's true, it means just that section of the anode not connected to anything, is holding a high voltage even when the system is off.

Anyway, I'm not sure if this is the same idea aaron has. I think it might work if I can find a way to ground the anode after each discharge (after the radiant event). Otherwise the blocked side of the diode (the anode), is saturated at a high voltage, and won't take another spark.

I'm getting some interesting experimental ideas from this. I'll report back later... Man I wish I had more diodes, I only got 1 nice HV diode out of the really old microwave I took apart.

Edit:
Never mind all that above I was totally wrong about the diode holding some charge. It was just the capacitor and I know my power supply has a much higher voltage than the cap can hold so I'm kind of afraid to try this too much. If I put the spark gap to the diode the potential is built up in the capacitor really quickly.

[Jules Tresor]

@John,
thanks for the answers
Of course you need an exit circuit for your excess HV ... you'll have to go to a Gray circuit, using the energy to pop coils, or pulse a coil, or transform it to lower voltage and frequency to run appliances.
I wanted to browse some posts to answer you question about Aaron circuit using the diode to compress the discharge, but the line on energeticforum is very slow since a few days here
Anyway I didn't put my hands on these circuits yet, so I can't help you much

I like to see your progress step by step through a modern and simple version of Tesla sparking effect
Good luck,
MDG

[johnb003]

Thanks stephen.

Hey I just connected this (see image) to the anode to see what would happen.

The spark became continuous (or appeared to be), and was a very soft purple. It also had a really high pitch sound, nearly inaudible.

I thought it was an inductor but now I'm not sure. It says lrc, is it an inductor resistor capacitor all in one?

The total markings are:
lrc
MVX-1 1/2
6 MEG
20% 7636

[johnb003]

I made a new video on the power supply.

This one is exhaustively detailed. Let me know if you like it better than the original. I have a followup video that goes with this new one I'm finishing the edits on now which shows oscilloscope readings.

New video:
YouTube - High Voltage Power Supply

Old video:
YouTube - High Voltage Power Supply

Thanks,
`John