High Voltage from Thin Air?

[amigo]

@Mutten

My shipment from Jameco did not come with Fairchild.

Instead they are some brand KSMPSA06 or something and the hFE is <100 for several I tried. Even though the "current" datasheet on the item page specified Fairchild, they sent me this other brand, sigh.

The NewArk ON MPSA06 are pretty cool, you will be pleased with them. I find them more powerful than Fairchild ones.

I'll get some ON from Digi-Key when I make a next order soon.

[DrStiffler]

@Mutten

My shipment from Jameco did not come with Fairchild.

Instead they are some brand KSMPSA06 or something and the hFE is <100 for several I tried. Even though the "current" datasheet on the item page specified Fairchild, they sent me this other brand, sigh.

The NewArk ON MPSA06 are pretty cool, you will be pleased with them. I find them more powerful than Fairchild ones.

I'll get some ON from Digi-Key when I make a next order soon.

@amigo & @ Mutten

A couple of things that I have not placed on the web pge yet, that should help.

1) Except for L1 all coils should be air core. Ferrite will act as a resistance and eat your expected product, unless you want to go all for heat. Remember the SEC15-3/20's how the chokes 10&22uH got hot, whell this is why and why not to use for the max efficiency.

2) The best dielectric (excepting some gasses) is air for the space between the outer and inner cylinders. In the case of Mutten I think I see electrical tape as the centering media, for amigo the plastic pipe. Amigo I would cut 2 1/4" rings for each end of the outer cylinders and leave the insides free space.

3) All. Please stay away from inductive loads (amigo the wire would resistor you are using) will cause a problem and I see that in your SA pictures. Use composition carbon or layered ceramic. Laser trimmed resistors also present a small L.

I will have later today on the web page some addition help and specifications and they will be easy to integrate into your existing circuits.

Sorry for my slowness but the 'Spatial Light' is taking more engineering than I thought it would and my mechanical engineering skills are not as good as I would like.

BTW At your local Craft Supply store you can get copper tape. The tape bonds well to the cylinders and solders fast with even a small iron. This will be needed when you move connections about on the cylinders unless you use a heavy iron or torch.

Its called 'Copper Foil Tape' 3/16" X 36 yds and is 0.00125", by Crafts Etc. May cost a bit but will last the average researcher a few years or more.

Dr.S.

[amigo]

@DrStiffler,

I have rewound L2 to be an air coil and replaced the 10k with a carbon based resistor.

Following your suggestion, I made 1/4" plastic rings instead of a full length dielectric on the gate and put them in place.

Unfortunately this modification changed the gate's capacitance (lowered it) by ~4pf and threw the setup out of whack. After two hours of mucking around I could not get the same "strong" glow in the neon bulb, as I used to have. The neon bulb glows bright but appears not the same. Maybe because it's still daytime I'm having a problem with discerning the brightness.

Further more touching the neon bulb to the Ground cylinder does not always light it up even though the circuit appears tuned. The fluorescent will light up but for whatever reason neon bulb does not immediately, or at all.

My gate's capacitance (Collector - Ground cylinders) is about ~30pF right now with the plastic rings, while the previous gate had ~36pF.

I am going to look right now into other dielectric materials I can find around the house and see what kind of capacitance I get...

[DrStiffler]

@DrStiffler,

I have rewound L2 to be an air coil and replaced the 10k with a carbon based resistor.

Following your suggestion, I made 1/4" plastic rings instead of a full length dielectric on the gate and put them in place.

Unfortunately this modification changed the gate's capacitance (lowered it) by ~4pf and threw the setup out of whack. After two hours of mucking around I could not get the same "strong" glow in the neon bulb, as I used to have. The neon bulb glows bright but appears not the same. Maybe because it's still daytime I'm having a problem with discerning the brightness.

Further more touching the neon bulb to the Ground cylinder does not always light it up even though the circuit appears tuned. The fluorescent will light up but for whatever reason neon bulb does not immediately, or at all.

My gate's capacitance (Collector - Ground cylinders) is about ~30pF right now with the plastic rings, while the previous gate had ~36pF.

I am going to look right now into other dielectric materials I can find around the house and see what kind of capacitance I get...

WOW! What a way to spend your Sunday?

Well its tuning, tuning, tuning.

My collector cylinder to ground cylinder capacity is so small it can not be measured with my meters. My Collector Cylinder to center (common) cylinder is 15.5pF as is the Ground cylinder to center (common) cylinder.

My current is <10mA and the transistor runs at ambient. I have included a picture of it running.

Dr.S.

[amigo]

WOW! What a way to spend your Sunday?

Well its tuning, tuning, tuning.

My collector cylinder to ground cylinder capacity is so small it can not be measured with my meters. My Collector Cylinder to center (common) cylinder is 15.5pF as is the Ground cylinder to center (common) cylinder.

My current is <10mA and the transistor runs at ambient. I have included a picture of it running.

Dr.S.

Yeah, but look who's talking, I just saw you updated the Spatial Gate page.

I guess it's back to the drawing board for me. I see you used the 3/4" copper couplings...my forward thinking made me buy them yesterday when I was at Home Depot so I should be able to remake the gate quickly.

Those plastic spacers, where do they come from, perhaps they play some bigger role in the gate's capacitance?

[DrStiffler]

Yeah, but look who's talking, I just saw you updated the Spatial Gate page.

I guess it's back to the drawing board for me. I see you used the 3/4" copper couplings...my forward thinking made me buy them yesterday when I was at Home Depot so I should be able to remake the gate quickly.

Those plastic spacers, where do they come from, perhaps they play some bigger role in the gate's capacitance?

Ha! We all have our demons, just thought yours should be kinder.

I cut the plastic spacers from 1/2"PVC 73' (low cost) water pipe. The OD is ~3/4". Might have to use a rat tail file to get the tube to slip freely, I just stick them in the lathe and cut a few thousands out of the center, makes a snug fit.

Well I think the difference can be resolved

[amigo]

Ha! We all have our demons, just thought yours should be kinder.

I cut the plastic spacers from 1/2"PVC 73' (low cost) water pipe. The OD is ~3/4". Might have to use a rat tail file to get the tube to slip freely, I just stick them in the lathe and cut a few thousands out of the center, makes a snug fit.

Well I think the difference can be resolved

I have built a new gate, as per the sgate page measurements, and my capacitance is now ~14pF for both Collector-middle and Ground-middle.

Having said that, I can't get it to work for the love of me. Tried both with my contraption circuit (FZTA06) and the original Cool White (that worked 100% verified).

I get intermittent results at best and no matter of my L1C1, I can't get that specific waveform on the analyzer that I used to when I originally made the replication with my first gate.

It also turns out that the DMM is skewing my results. When I have the DMM hooked-up in series to measure current from the supply then I get some kind of result - I can occasionally light the fluorescent but not the neon?!

When I unplug the DMM and go direct then, nada, zippo, zero, zlitch. Just the standard UBO spectrum but I can't find the sweet spot to light the neon. I even used L1 from 0.3uH all the way to 7uH (I have built several of different values) and nothing.

I feel as if someone put some jamming field over my room blocking this from working. Damn it, my gate was supposed to be the jammer, not the other way around...

But, tomorrow is another day, something ought to give.

[Mutten]

I've had little to no time this weekend to do anything, day off from work is on Tuesday.


I did succeed in getting the amp draw down. can't get a neon to light at anything under 40 mA draw though.

I put a 100k pot in series with the bulb for tuning. Not sure if it actually worked but it was just a quick test to play around with the balance between ground and center cylinder.

http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/a...5-3gate015.jpg

http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/a...5-3gate014.jpg

http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/a...EC15-3gate.jpg

[amigo]

I'm still nowhere...I had great success the first day while the past two days have been spent troubleshooting a new setup which does not work the way it should.

I'll spend the rest of the evening trying to get it going again, it is really not clear to me what has happened in the mean time except that it's a different day.

[Mutten]

I'm still nowhere...I had great success the first day while the past two days have been spent troubleshooting a new setup which does not work the way it should.

I'll spend the rest of the evening trying to get it going again, it is really not clear to me what has happened in the mean time except that it's a different day.

I'd say back up a step and check to see if you can get the beaker of water and FLs working again. Tune it without Sgate then stick it in the middle and retune.



Are you still using the circuit attached to the sgate ?

I just fiddled around with mine for a few minutes and can keep a 4w FL barely lit at around 2 mA. Was playing around with 2 tubes earlier bouncing the charge around, its really weird. Doc said you can almost pick up a charge and carry it in one of his videos if I remember correctly. I think this is what I was getting.

[DrStiffler]

I'd say back up a step and check to see if you can get the beaker of water and FLs working again. Tune it without Sgate then stick it in the middle and retune.



Are you still using the circuit attached to the sgate ?

I just fiddled around with mine for a few minutes and can keep a 4w FL barely lit at around 2 mA. Was playing around with 2 tubes earlier bouncing the charge around, its really weird. Doc said you can almost pick up a charge and carry it in one of his videos if I remember correctly. I think this is what I was getting.

@Mutten @Amigo

From day (0) with exciters it has always been tuning. A bit of help, get rid of the incandescent for a bit and just tune for max brightness. To do this connect a 10K carbon from cy(n) and cy(g) then while holding an fl on the glass near an end of fl on cy(g) then tune until fl lights, now lay the end of fl on cy(g) perpendicular to cy(g). Now tune for max intensity and min current.

If you have a good transistor and L1C1 you should find two spots where the max intensity is found, one will be at a much lower current and this is the correct spot.

All L+C resonant pairs are not the same. I have stressed this from the first public release. Again all cores (tuning slugs) are not the same. I guess replication still is replication

[Mutten]

Just got my new/used Oscope. Wanted to test it to see if it was working and didn't have any circuits ready other than the SEC.


Just looped the ground back to the probe. Set at 10x attenuation. 1 microsecond /div, 10 millivolt/div.

Still working on a spectrum analyzer but the cost of a good used one makes me cry.

Although with my luck if I'm patient something will come up.

http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/a...3gate018-1.jpg

http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/a...5-3gate016.jpg

[DrStiffler]

Just got my new/used Oscope. Wanted to test it to see if it was working and didn't have any circuits ready other than the SEC.


Just looped the ground back to the probe. Set at 10x attenuation. 1 microsecond /div, 10 millivolt/div.

Still working on a spectrum analyzer but the cost of a good used one makes me cry.

Although with my luck if I'm patient something will come up.

http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/a...3gate018-1.jpg

http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/a...5-3gate016.jpg

Nice you have a scope to work with.

Yes SA'a cost an arm and 1 and 1/2 legs to get a smart one, yes neither the scope or SA makes it all very clear. SEC is a wild little animal and does not like connection to the external world, yet the more equipment you have the more info one can assemble.

[amigo]

I did notice there are two regions of tuning that produce effects, one with lower current consumption and one with higher. I have naturally always leaned towards lower consumption (I just don't like my transistors heating up )

I will rebuild the setup soon and do the fluorescent tuning - I'm taking couple of days off, just to clear my mind...

Like in any other experiment, the observer is affecting the outcome of the experiment, and so I choose to "discharge" all the preconcieved assumptions and built up expectations, and start anew.

[mlurye]

DrStiffler,
Do you think your Spatial energy somehow related to this patent US20080191580?