High Voltage from Thin Air?

[ren]

Hi Everyone.

I got all my parts assembled, but no luck so far. My first attempt with whatever I could find was at least lighting up a fluro and/or a neon, but for some reason I cant get any action now.

I changed everything I could to get it as close to spec as possible. The cap I got looks like this: http://i20.ebayimg.com/06/i/000/a9/d6/9552_1.JPG

400pF 500v silver mica, is this suitable?

I tried a number of home wound coils in place for L2, some formed on sewing machine bobbins like the documents shows, some in single layer solenoid style. With and without ferrite rod.

C2 is a 3 -20pF tuning cap, C3 is 0.009uF (measured) 3KV, LED's are 36 x 10mm super bright, 3v @ 20ma, all in series with 1n4148 plug. Tower cups are aluminum, as close to spec as I could find.

Coil former is 12.51mm and gauge of wire is SWG25, digital calipers measure it at 0.58mm including insulation. This is perhaps the biggest variable from the Docs plans. I can try and track down some AWG#24 to see if it helps. Connections are cleaned and taped with a small strip of aluminum tape to the cups. Cups joined with same tape.

Ive double checked all connections, and I hesitate to solder everything in because I cant even get a whisker of light with the breadboard.

Analogue milliamp gauge moves slightly (in the 1-30ma range) upon connection of the power source. I just connect it every now and then to check it is conducting. It gets left out for testing, so as not to effect the circuit.

If anyone has any suggestions I am all ears. I remember Lidmotor saying something about not being able to get it to work without the tuneable inductor, is this necessary on some builds?

Regards

[lamare]

Finally some experiments..

Hi all,

I finally found some time to experiment. I built the coils for the wireless transmitter, but it would hardly oscillate. Maybe because my trimmer is 15 pF instead of the specified 3.5-13 pF. However, I also tried to measure the oscillation with my scope directly, which is not a good idea, as I found out later.

After that, I built the schematic of the SEC-15 using a 1 nF cap in the resonator, and used that to feed the coil. With that, I was able to light a FL as well as a neon bulb, the latter fed from an AV plug.

At some point I observed some wave pattern in the FL, as Doc. showed in one of his video's.

All in all, nothing shocking (except maybe when touching the wires of the AV plug ), but very interesting and educational.

As for the theory part, this paper shows how to analyse the so-called Hartley oscillator, which is very similar to the exciter circuitry:
http://wwwi.elec.gla.ac.uk/teaching_...3/lecture8.pdf

What we can learn from this circuit analysis, is that in our circuit the resonance frequency is also determined by *both* L2 and L3 (the lower part, up to the tapping point, which I measured at about 9 uH in my coil, while the whole coil was about 40 uH IIRC) as well as the trimmer cap. Since L2 and the lower part of L3 are both about 9 uH, it might be a good idea to move the trimmer from L3 to L2. This should not make any difference in the oscillation behavior and has the advantage that it does not introduce any mismatch between transmitter and receiver coil, so it might be easier to tune.


Further, I noticed that I had to re-tune the circuit when I changed the load. That's the mess with HF, everything influences everything. Anyway, it would be nice to get rid of the necessity for tuning. I haven't thought this trough entirely, but I think the way to do that to use a transforming oscillator c.q. Armstrong oscillator:

Oscillator circuits
http://www.cavehill.uwi.edu/fpas/cmp...scillators.htm

These do not (necessarily) need any capacitors for tuning and the oscillation frequency is determined by one coil only, the second one (tickler) is just picking up the oscillations from the first one and feeds that back to the transistor.

I think we could make a tapped coil similar to the one in the one-wire transmitter and connect the tap to the collector of the transistor and the bottom to Vcc. We can wind the tickler coil on the same tube, just below the transmitter coil. The question is: at what point should the tap be?

BTW: an extra 'tickler' coil is also handy to connect a scope to....

[DrStiffler]

Hi Everyone.

I got all my parts assembled, but no luck so far. My first attempt with whatever I could find was at least lighting up a fluro and/or a neon, but for some reason I cant get any action now.

I changed everything I could to get it as close to spec as possible. The cap I got looks like this: http://i20.ebayimg.com/06/i/000/a9/d6/9552_1.JPG

400pF 500v silver mica, is this suitable?

I tried a number of home wound coils in place for L2, some formed on sewing machine bobbins like the documents shows, some in single layer solenoid style. With and without ferrite rod.

C2 is a 3 -20pF tuning cap, C3 is 0.009uF (measured) 3KV, LED's are 36 x 10mm super bright, 3v @ 20ma, all in series with 1n4148 plug. Tower cups are aluminum, as close to spec as I could find.

Coil former is 12.51mm and gauge of wire is SWG25, digital calipers measure it at 0.58mm including insulation. This is perhaps the biggest variable from the Docs plans. I can try and track down some AWG#24 to see if it helps. Connections are cleaned and taped with a small strip of aluminum tape to the cups. Cups joined with same tape.

Ive double checked all connections, and I hesitate to solder everything in because I cant even get a whisker of light with the breadboard.

Analogue milliamp gauge moves slightly (in the 1-30ma range) upon connection of the power source. I just connect it every now and then to check it is conducting. It gets left out for testing, so as not to effect the circuit.

If anyone has any suggestions I am all ears. I remember Lidmotor saying something about not being able to get it to work without the tuneable inductor, is this necessary on some builds?

Regards

@ren

I got all my parts assembled, but no luck so far. My first attempt with whatever I could find was at least lighting up a fluro and/or a neon, but for some reason I cant get any action now.

Does that mean you did at first and no longer do, or does it mean you have yet to see any lighting effect?

400pF 500v silver mica, is this suitable?

@All, the Mica cap is only needed if you are doing an exact replication of my paper. If you are only going for a working replication almost any cap around this value will work as its purpose is feed back to the transistor. The larger the value the more energy the xistor will draw, small it draws less. Although the cap if it is not temp stable, it will shift freq and thus tuning as it sees temperature changes that shift its value. Yet unless it is some +/-20% fellow, it should not make the difference of oscillation fall out, just may shift from optimum.

C2 is a 3 -20pF tuning cap, C3 is 0.009uF (measured) 3KV, LED's are 36 x 10mm super bright, 3v @ 20ma, all in series with 1n4148 plug. Tower cups are aluminum, as close to spec as I could find.

C3 is a decoupling capacitor and is not critical, although it should be at least 0.01 and could be complimented with a 0.1uF and maybe a 10uF.

So 36*3 = 108, so you need to develop at least 108 Volts to get past the forward voltage of the LED's (ballpark). Have you checked each LED to be sure none is reversed or shorted and all are in right polarity? Best way is to use a current limiting resistor and you 12v bat with a few clip leads and move thru the chain testing each one for output. For the resistor use about 2-3mA so it would be 12.6/3E-3 = 4200 ohms, use a 3.9K or a 4.7K, them you are sure the the light board is okay.

Ive double checked all connections, and I hesitate to solder everything in because I cant even get a whisker of light with the breadboard.

No, don't solder to start with, move in small reversible steps, otherwise you get lost in the forest.

Analogue milliamp gauge moves slightly (in the 1-30ma range) upon connection of the power source. I just connect it every now and then to check it is conducting. It gets left out for testing, so as not to effect the circuit.

When its not oscillating you will see 1-2mA which is what the xistor will draw with the 1M bias resistor.

Ar you using a good MPSA06? Should have a (minimum) Beta of 80 and above.

If anyone has any suggestions I am all ears. I remember Lidmotor saying something about not being able to get it to work without the tuneable inductor, is this necessary on some builds?

I may have said all this and we both may be confused. I understand 'Lidmotor' is using a SEC 15-3 Exciter design and it is different in how it all works and connects. The SEC 15-3 is a negative resistance oscillator and the Tower Paper describes a feed back oscillator via C2 and the negative resistance.

In the 'Lidmotor' circuit he has L1 & C1, in the Tower Circuit there is no L1 and C1 is the feed back capacitor.

[DrStiffler]

Hi all,

I finally found some time to experiment. I built the coils for the wireless transmitter, but it would hardly oscillate. Maybe because my trimmer is 15 pF instead of the specified 3.5-13 pF. However, I also tried to measure the oscillation with my scope directly, which is not a good idea, as I found out later.

After that, I built the schematic of the SEC-15 using a 1 nF cap in the resonator, and used that to feed the coil. With that, I was able to light a FL as well as a neon bulb, the latter fed from an AV plug.

At some point I observed some wave pattern in the FL, as Doc. showed in one of his video's.

All in all, nothing shocking (except maybe when touching the wires of the AV plug ), but very interesting and educational.

As for the theory part, this paper shows how to analyse the so-called Hartley oscillator, which is very similar to the exciter circuitry:
http://wwwi.elec.gla.ac.uk/teaching_...3/lecture8.pdf

What we can learn from this circuit analysis, is that in our circuit the resonance frequency is also determined by *both* L2 and L3 (the lower part, up to the tapping point, which I measured at about 9 uH in my coil, while the whole coil was about 40 uH IIRC) as well as the trimmer cap. Since L2 and the lower part of L3 are both about 9 uH, it might be a good idea to move the trimmer from L3 to L2. This should not make any difference in the oscillation behavior and has the advantage that it does not introduce any mismatch between transmitter and receiver coil, so it might be easier to tune.


Further, I noticed that I had to re-tune the circuit when I changed the load. That's the mess with HF, everything influences everything. Anyway, it would be nice to get rid of the necessity for tuning. I haven't thought this trough entirely, but I think the way to do that to use a transforming oscillator c.q. Armstrong oscillator:

Oscillator circuits
http://www.cavehill.uwi.edu/fpas/cmp...scillators.htm

These do not (necessarily) need any capacitors for tuning and the oscillation frequency is determined by one coil only, the second one (tickler) is just picking up the oscillations from the first one and feeds that back to the transistor.

I think we could make a tapped coil similar to the one in the one-wire transmitter and connect the tap to the collector of the transistor and the bottom to Vcc. We can wind the tickler coil on the same tube, just below the transmitter coil. The question is: at what point should the tap be?

BTW: an extra 'tickler' coil is also handy to connect a scope to....

@lamare

I finally found some time to experiment. I built the coils for the wireless transmitter, but it would hardly oscillate. Maybe because my trimmer is 15 pF instead of the specified 3.5-13 pF. However, I also tried to measure the oscillation with my scope directly, which is not a good idea, as I found out later.

As you are aware some of the smallest thing affect how it all comes together and works. The variable cap can be higher depending on the coils and if the coils are a bit larger it may need to be lower (not a good thing). The tower coil has an L of ~7uH from bottom to tap and 25uH from tap to top, so the total is 7+25uH (now this is my coils).

See if the variable need to be larger, parallel say a 10pF across it and try tuning, then try a 20pF. If still no go, then it may indeed be in the other direction, which is not the best way to have it.

All in all, nothing shocking (except maybe when touching the wires of the AV plug ), but very interesting and educational.

Interesting statement. With the SEC 15-3 the bandwidth was not interesting nor was the fact that R1 can be removed after starting oscillation, this is hardly conventional... All coils in a 15-3 must be turned at 90' angles and must not have significant feed back. In fact L1 can be placed in a shield can and it all still works. Humm...

Further, I noticed that I had to re-tune the circuit when I changed the load. That's the mess with HF, everything influences everything. Anyway, it would be nice to get rid of the necessity for tuning. I haven't thought this trough entirely, but I think the way to do that to use a transforming oscillator c.q. Armstrong oscillator:

Rather this is a fact of life with RF unless you have auto-tune circuity. Have you ever seen a transmitter that did not need re-tuning when the load changes?

These do not (necessarily) need any capacitors for tuning and the oscillation frequency is determined by one coil only, the second one (tickler) is just picking up the oscillations from the first one and feeds that back to the transistor.

You suggest a conventional oscillator design with locked fundamental and small number of sidebands to take the place of the UWB of the SEC??

[Tecstatic]

@lamare

Nice to see you back

"The question is: at what point should the tap be?"

I have not built Doc's wireless transmitter but I checked his coil with a calculator, the lower part of the coil is according to the calculator 9uH, seen that number before ?

And if you divide 37 with 143 with you get 0.2587... which IMHO relates to the standing wave on the coil.

@Doc

Your latest answer to me resulted i a mild "depression".

I do understand (at least I think I do) your frustration while trying to teach this knowledge.

Most of the members here do not have the scientific education of yours, and many years of experience with metrics, documentation and operation of advanced, expensive and automated test and measuring equipment. Not all even have the total dedication and ability of time which is seen through your published material.

Also ( I may be wrong ) I see you have two more or less conflicting sets of values.

Let me say for my part, that although I don't even dream of being able to be a peer to you, I try the best within my limits to grasp as much of your knowledge as I can.

Although I owe thanks to many people for the level of understanding I have got so far, you happened to provide the right info at the right time relative to my level, to give me the longest leap so far.

I am very happy that you still spend/invest some your valuable time on us.

Within my limited knowledge and 24/7 I will try to work with the following things, to hopefully eventually to approach what you describe as routine. I have my range of spiral coils, and I will manually do a scan for frequencies.

Besides the frequencies from you, Tesla used 170kHz, Norm Wootan 174.9kHz, The TPU 245kHz. Stan Meyer also employed some specific frequencies I don't have present right now.

1. We all need to note what frequencies we get good results using, not only with the SEC exciter, but the rest of the lot also, eg. Rosemary's heater (have you seen Aarons video in post #2127 ?), whatever.

2. From the crude frequency list, we must do more accurate measurements to determine CEC.

3. Analyze and conclude for a better experimentation foundation.

IMHO the experience gained from this exercise will be a real time saver and help tipping the balance a bit from experimenting to design. No implied negative comment on experimentation, just wanting to save some valuable time.

I followed some links from the Project Camelot thread, It was a bit shocking, I don't think we have much time, if it has to be helpful when we are going to need this technology.

Eric

[lamare]

Rather this is a fact of life with RF unless you have auto-tune circuity. Have you ever seen a transmitter that did not need re-tuning when the load changes?



You suggest a conventional oscillator design with locked fundamental and small number of sidebands to take the place of the UWB of the SEC??

Yes and no.

As far as I can tell, the main difference between the conventional Hartley oscillator and the SEC is the bias of the transistor. Since the feedback signal is rather large in amplitude, your transistor is basically "on" or "off", which is why you get such a wide bandwidth, IMHO.

I don't see why the transistor would behave any differently when fed with a feedback signal from a tickler coil with sufficient amplitude.

[lamare]

Interesting statement. With the SEC 15-3 the bandwidth was not interesting nor was the fact that R1 can be removed after starting oscillation, this is hardly conventional... All coils in a 15-3 must be turned at 90' angles and must not have significant feed back. In fact L1 can be placed in a shield can and it all still works. Humm...

It appears you misunderstood my "nothing shocking" statement. I did not mean to say that this is all conventional or anything like that. Far from that, I think your circuits are very interesting and do produce unconventional results. I just meant to say that what I did is nothing much compared to what you and others have shown so far.

[Tecstatic]

It appears you misunderstood my "nothing shocking" statement. I did not mean to say that this is all conventional or anything like that. Far from that, I think your circuits are very interesting and do produce unconventional results. I just meant to say that what I did is nothing much compared to what you and others have shown so far.

As I often say, communication is some of the most difficult things to do right.

If misunderstood, the referenced statement would hurt. I read the statement twice, and made the same interpretation of the meaning, as lamare says he intended. So Doc, I think we agree your findings are exceptional and very noteworthy.

Eric

[Lidmotor]

SEC 15-3 at sea

@ All
I made it over to the Catalina island ok in my sailboat and the unit that I have with me is a SEC 15-3 like Doc said. I havn't tried it out yet but will and I'll report back.
The weather is good over here but it is very crowded.
@ Ren I hope that you get your unit running. I had alot of trouble with the new circuit so I brought the SEC 15 with me. When I get home I'll redo the new one and find out where my problem is. The only electronic part that is not correct in my circuit is that darn cap. I have to order some.

Cheers everyone,

Lidmotor

[ren]

Hi Doc, thanks for the response. Answers in Red.

@ren



Does that mean you did at first and no longer do, or does it mean you have yet to see any lighting effect?

Yes, my first build on a larger coil form would light up a neon at least. But now that I have tried to follow your paper as closely as possible I dont have the same luck. Dont worry, the rest of your answers have probably solved it for me.


@All, the Mica cap is only needed if you are doing an exact replication of my paper. If you are only going for a working replication almost any cap around this value will work as its purpose is feed back to the transistor. The larger the value the more energy the xistor will draw, small it draws less. Although the cap if it is not temp stable, it will shift freq and thus tuning as it sees temperature changes that shift its value. Yet unless it is some +/-20% fellow, it should not make the difference of oscillation fall out, just may shift from optimum.



C3 is a decoupling capacitor and is not critical, although it should be at least 0.01 and could be complimented with a 0.1uF and maybe a 10uF.

Gotchya, I remember seeing these in some of the other designs. I can place some other caps over the input terminals. I assume that 0.1 uF and the 10uF dont need to be HV rated, like the 1KV? And I assume they should be non polar?


So 36*3 = 108, so you need to develop at least 108 Volts to get past the forward voltage of the LED's (ballpark). Have you checked each LED to be sure none is reversed or shorted and all are in right polarity? Best way is to use a current limiting resistor and you 12v bat with a few clip leads and move thru the chain testing each one for output. For the resistor use about 2-3mA so it would be 12.6/3E-3 = 4200 ohms, use a 3.9K or a 4.7K, them you are sure the the light board is okay.

Was very careful when soldering them all in place. I am positive they are all in series, anode to cathode. I will double check all of them with the above method. They sent me a bunch of complimentary resistors to suit 12v, nearly blew my eye out when I fired one up. So much light from such a little lens! I was actually tickled towards researching how the LED works, mine are big enough that you can see the innards quite well. I cant be sure but it looks like a mini spark gap, with a very fine wire that bridges the gap..... interesting. Anyway, thats for another thread.



No, don't solder to start with, move in small reversible steps, otherwise you get lost in the forest.


True that

When its not oscillating you will see 1-2mA which is what the xistor will draw with the 1M bias resistor.

Hmm. After some more tests last night I am pretty sure its not even oscillating. I can pull some parts of the circuit apart and it doesnt effect the gauge, but as soon as I pull the bias resistor out the gauge drops. Also noted that my batteries dont seem to lose voltage, they are small 1.3amp/hrs so I sould at least see them budge a little.

Ar you using a good MPSA06? Should have a (minimum) Beta of 80 and above.

I am using ones from my local shop, who have had a decent supply of semiconductors for me in the past. The same batch worked great on my window motor. They are marked with a symbol that looks like a sideways and backwards "S" 618, MPSA06. I will look at some methods for testing beta. I think one of my meters has a transistor tester built in that does this?



I may have said all this and we both may be confused. I understand 'Lidmotor' is using a SEC 15-3 Exciter design and it is different in how it all works and connects. The SEC 15-3 is a negative resistance oscillator and the Tower Paper describes a feed back oscillator via C2 and the negative resistance.

I think this is my problem Doc. Im looking at Lids results and kicking myself cause I cant get anything, when I am most likely using a different circuit. I will look for the sec 15-3 circuit that you think Lid is using. I think I have come across it before in my travels. Hopefully this sorts out my dilemma.

Are the dimensions of your transmitting coils (37 turns/106 turns) still applicable to the SEC 15-3? I believe this is the schematic you posted for it http://www.energeticforum.com/50725-post111.html. I will have to check with Lidmotor to see which diagram he is using.

In the 'Lidmotor' circuit he has L1 & C1, in the Tower Circuit there is no L1 and C1 is the feed back capacitor.

Thanks again Doc.

[ren]

@ All
I made it over to the Catalina island ok in my sailboat and the unit that I have with me is a SEC 15-3 like Doc said. I havn't tried it out yet but will and I'll report back.
The weather is good over here but it is very crowded.
@ Ren I hope that you get your unit running. I had alot of trouble with the new circuit so I brought the SEC 15 with me. When I get home I'll redo the new one and find out where my problem is. The only electronic part that is not correct in my circuit is that darn cap. I have to order some.

Cheers everyone,

Lidmotor

Glad you made it safe Lid. Can you link/post the exact setup you are using when you get a chance? I just assumed that you followed the Scribd papers circuit when I saw the transmitting towers.

Regards

[DrStiffler]

Glad you made it safe Lid. Can you link/post the exact setup you are using when you get a chance? I just assumed that you followed the Scribd papers circuit when I saw the transmitting towers.

Regards

@ren

The fastest and safest way to detect oscillation is the simple 2-diode AV Plug and LED Probe. Tuned right or not, if it is oscillating you should see indication on the LED when touching the circuit with the probe tip. This little probe is explained and shown in the Measurements paper. You can get the SEC-15 design from http://67.76.235.52/SECExciter.htm

Good luck....

[DrStiffler]

@ All
I made it over to the Catalina island ok in my sailboat and the unit that I have with me is a SEC 15-3 like Doc said. I havn't tried it out yet but will and I'll report back.
The weather is good over here but it is very crowded.
@ Ren I hope that you get your unit running. I had alot of trouble with the new circuit so I brought the SEC 15 with me. When I get home I'll redo the new one and find out where my problem is. The only electronic part that is not correct in my circuit is that darn cap. I have to order some.

Cheers everyone,

Lidmotor

@Lidmotor

Does your yacht have sacrificial plates? On my motor yacht all were tied to a common buss and went back to the shafts, rudders and all the brass through hulls, this would be a perfect ground to water.

My SS safety rails were not grounded, the perfect one wire....

Have fun.....

[mudwump]

Jul 28th Video

Dr. Stiffler,

Will you be disclosing to us what the small modification that you made to the device on July 28th that caused the brightness change and the apparent pulsing?

Thanks ahead of time,
Steve

[ren]

Success....

Hi all.

Dr, that circuit worked a treat, straight out of the box. I got some limited results, until I fiddled around with the second inductor (the one marked 2-20u on your diagram) and inserted a rf choke/inductor of the correct rating. They look almost identical to a resistor. I also used a 22u one off the collector.

I tried inserting a small variable capacitor in parallel with the 400pF silver mica.
But I cant vary it without effecting the circuit. I have another I will try which has a plastic tuning wheel.

For the moment I get my best results with the LEDs joining the 22u and not connected to the second tower. I had some trouble connecting it to the tower and getting it to light. I think I need to get more inductors out to try, or a little ferrite slug which I can adjust. The only way I could get it to light was connected to the 37th turn tap. Connected to the aluminum tophat gives me nothing.

In the photos the second tower is connected to the 22u, as well as the LED's.

They sure light up bright

Thanks for your help Dr Stiffler and all. Looking forward to more tinkering.

Regards