Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Tesla's mysterious Phantom Streams

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • #61
    With standard PCB boards it's much easier and more precise using photoetching process. However it would be great if you could determine the smallest tool you can use and if you can cut a bit (let's say 0.1-0.2 or more) into the dielectric material as well. Then it could be possible to use thicker copper plating.

    BTW- this discussion about methods of producing pancake coils should be separate from the rest of the topic. Aaron would you be so kind to split topic and transfer this discussion into new thread?
    http://www.nequaquamvacuum.com/en/en...n/alt-sci.html
    http://www.neqvac.com

    Comment


    • #62
      I agree with the separate thread thing
      Anyway, here is my water jet slinky:



      Water jet is not suitable for such fine coils. But it is great for few turn primary coils.

      It's better to wear off by working than to rust by doing nothing.

      Comment


      • #63
        Hi.
        I got some 300x200 blank standard PCB plates today. The smallest end mill bit that I had was 1.3mm in diameter. I machined a spiral on the plate so that each turn would be about 1.3mm wide and spacing between turns is also about the same width. This way I could squeeze about 35 turns on a 200mm diameter plate. The cut is about 0.8mm deep, so there is plenty of space for good insulator.



        The solidworks software did not make the spiral uniform but divided the spiral line into many small straight lines, that is why the spiral looks like that.
        I need to get a 0.5mm diameter end mill bit and I will be able to squeeze about 90 turns on the same diameter with 0.5mm wide turns and the same spacing.
        Thanks,
        Jetijs
        Last edited by Jetijs; 08-27-2009, 07:43 PM.
        It's better to wear off by working than to rust by doing nothing.

        Comment


        • #64
          Umm, if you're to get more turns with bigger inter-winding capacitance you will need to reduce your tool under 1.3mm.

          As for SolidWorks final results depend on the type of file output you chose as well as on the settings of your CAM software. I think there is an option for defining number of points but that you should ask Jeff he is using SW on daily basis for drawing spirals.

          A few years back I wrote AutoLISP script for AutoCad for generating Archimedean as well as equiangular (logarithmic) spirals with greater number of options for tweaking. If you use AutoCad I could look for those scripts and you can just load them and use them. IIRC i allowed for extremely large number of points to be defined. I also started porting that code to C++ but gave it up when I stopped working on project that required those spirals. I even wrote SolidWorks macro to generate conical helix which can then be outputed as CAM file but I would have to look it up if needed.
          http://www.nequaquamvacuum.com/en/en...n/alt-sci.html
          http://www.neqvac.com

          Comment


          • #65
            Thanks lighty
            I will check the spolidworks spiral settings out. As for autocad scripts, I have never worked with that software so I those scripts wont be of a use for me. I know a guy who will draw those spirals for me if I wont handle it myself
            I ordered some 0.8mm endmill bits and will try to make a 100 turn coil using a 0.5mm thick copper plate glued on some dielectric material. Will see how this will turn out Also I acquired a jig with two rollers that I can use to flatten an ordinary copper wire into a flat wire easily. This process breaks off the enamel coating of the wire, but I can make the wire as flat as I want. Will also try to wind some coils using such wire
            Thanks,
            Jetijs
            It's better to wear off by working than to rust by doing nothing.

            Comment


            • #66
              Pancake Coils for sale

              Originally posted by Jetijs View Post
              Thanks lighty
              I will check the spolidworks spiral settings out. As for autocad scripts, I have never worked with that software so I those scripts wont be of a use for me. I know a guy who will draw those spirals for me if I wont handle it myself
              I ordered some 0.8mm endmill bits and will try to make a 100 turn coil using a 0.5mm thick copper plate glued on some dielectric material. Will see how this will turn out Also I acquired a jig with two rollers that I can use to flatten an ordinary copper wire into a flat wire easily. This process breaks off the enamel coating of the wire, but I can make the wire as flat as I want. Will also try to wind some coils using such wire
              Thanks,
              Jetijs
              Nice job so far on those! I might offer some Pancake secondary Coils for sale, embedded in wax, as I used for the Phantom Experiments. It might be
              cheaper for some experimenters than to build their own (including a mistake or two always encountered). I sold a few on Ebay for $40 each, but lost a bit on these due to the extreme time involved for the various processes. I think $50 each is a bit safer on my end. But it was fun. The primary coils get expensive though. If you can enonomically make machined circuit board primaries, maybe that would be a great solution. 1" Copper ribbon and EPDM gets expensive. Something like a 300mm x 300mm board, with roughly a 250mm circular pocket cut out to center up the Pancake on. 3 wide turns with 5mm between turns would probably work really well. Connections would be fun - nuts and bolts instead of bends and twists. And alas, no electrical tape involved! That makes it worthwhile already.

              Here were some of the coils, which were admitted crude but functional:


              Blueprints, with attempts of humour here and there:
              (I "get by" at Solidworks, Autocad, and am just learning Inventor)
              (I used to know Assembly language like the back of my hand, and normal
              old C language...have all but forgotten both. Would like to relearn them,
              but am running out of time.)



              The normal Primary Coils I make are outlined here, but finding reasonable price sturdy ribbon is always a challange.
              The Turn Of The Century Electrotherapy Museum Tesla Library

              Some proof that Phantoms carry a positive charge:




              To combine or merge Tesla Coil and Static Machine concepts get interesting.
              They aren't so similar, but not far off enough to forget. Many great ideas were lost in the static machine days.

              Comment


              • #67
                I was wondering... If those stream are really positive then should exists a way to force them to make work polling electrons... Hmm..Tesla patent from 1900 ?

                Comment


                • #68
                  Positive streams

                  Originally posted by boguslaw View Post
                  I was wondering... If those stream are really positive then should exists a way to force them to make work polling electrons... Hmm..Tesla patent from 1900 ?
                  The streams are positively charged, but I have found a few curious behaviours that make them a bit more complex than the similar discharges from a Van de Graaf or static machine.

                  Will try and make a list of these peculiarities. Unfortunately, I've had one tooth removed today and am having a fairly painful recovery so far. Not a good way to start the weekend... so not sure how active I'll be the next few days.

                  Comment


                  • #69
                    Hi Jeff, hope you will get well soon

                    I am still waiting for mu 0.5mm endmills. In the mean time I tried to flatten some wires with a jig of two rollers. I think that ir should be much easier to work with flat wires, also the coils capacity is increased considerably this way. The jig works well and I can flatten the wire to a thickness of a sheet of paper. A wire of 1.3mm diameter can be flattened out to about 3mm wide and 3 times as long. Of course the insulation breaks off. I was thinking of making some spools of such a flat wire and wind it the old fashioned way but using some kind of cellulose or something like that between each turn. Both the cellulose and flat wire would be wound simultaneously on the pancake coil and then I could seal the end of the pancake coil and fill the inside with oil.
                    Any suggestions?
                    Thank you




                    Last edited by Jetijs; 08-30-2009, 12:56 PM.
                    It's better to wear off by working than to rust by doing nothing.

                    Comment


                    • #70
                      Ok, Just a thought, what about copper braid? I.e. the stuff you buy for de-soldering? It can be bought in large rolls without any flux, it's soft (multi-stranded), flexible and has a flat profile. It's not insulated though but if you using a medium in between like Jeff does, then submerge it in oil or wax/rosin..? Thoughts?

                      Anyway, superb efforts from all! Wow.
                      "Doesn't matter how many times you kick the coyote in the head, it's still gonna eat chickens". - EPD

                      Comment


                      • #71
                        Sputins,
                        I am not sure if multistrand wire would work well.

                        Anyway, I have the results of laser cut pancake coils:



                        The first picture shows a coil with about 1.3mm wide windings and about 200mm in diameter. The material is 2mm thick steel. Other picture shows the same coil but in bigger scale. This time the winding width is about 2x bigger and the material is 3mm thick. Thicker material and wider turns makes the coil much easier to handle. The only disadvantage of this is that you would have to put spacers on in each gap between turns so that the gap is even between all the turns, then you would have to glue the pancake on an insulator plate to fix the coil firmly. The gaps could then be filled with oil, but there would be no way to make a deepening in the insulator base plate in the gap path for better insulation.
                        I have some more ideas to try out
                        It's better to wear off by working than to rust by doing nothing.

                        Comment


                        • #72
                          I totally forgot about the way I made some pancakes in the past. I used adhesive aluminium or copper tape. I would have it cut to adequate width when it's still on the roll. Then I took mylar and simply glued copper tape on the full length of role of mylar. When everything was finished I simply dipped everything in oil. Main disadvantage is bigger capacitance between turns (not necessary disadvantage but it will lower resonant frequency) and the fact that mylar takes all of the electric field strain. The good thing is that one could use thicker mylar or several layers of mylar. The method is quite simple and I hope I explained understandable enough.
                          http://www.nequaquamvacuum.com/en/en...n/alt-sci.html
                          http://www.neqvac.com

                          Comment


                          • #73
                            Hi lighty
                            Thank you for your idea. I understood it perfectly
                            It's better to wear off by working than to rust by doing nothing.

                            Comment


                            • #74
                              Greetings to all here

                              I made some pancakes multilayer in wax for now, and have question for Jeff :

                              Do you use vacuum pump as suggested by Tesla or not ? For example I do not use vacuum pump, for now, haven't noticed problems so far... But bubbles in wax can clearly be seen at the top of paper roll, even if I cook my coil for 5 hours in way they dont go away.

                              Another general question for all:

                              In Tesla patents about pancake coils and wireless transmission related tesla says that wire length of secondary has to be 1/4 if wavelength using speed of light for calculation ...

                              for example 100meter secondary equals about 500khz LC resonant...

                              I havent so far made much experiments varying frequency, but if I use near 500khz for my 100meter wire length pancake coil, 3 turns per layer , I do not see practicly any "hot" sparks just blue "flamish" I think called phantom ones, , also they are very silent...

                              If I lower freq below 500 khz sparks gets longer brighter and louder, and those "phantom " cant be observed...

                              Problem is that I havent tried so far frew HIGHER than 500 khz, cause in general I think that igher the frequecny shorter the sparks...
                              But if sparks above 500 khz will be similar to those below 500khz it would mean that coil operates differently if freq is exactly 1/4 wavelength = wire length...

                              Also spark gap at 500 khz is very SILENT... like that secondary does not affect primary , like secondary oscilates freely in contrary of classic transformer...

                              Will every coil at wire length =1/4 wavelength give phantom streamers?

                              If you made similar experiments please report...





                              I da ne zaboravim poseban pozdrav lighty
                              Last edited by grizli; 09-01-2009, 08:47 PM.

                              Comment


                              • #75
                                Operating frequencies

                                Originally posted by grizli View Post
                                Greetings to all here

                                I made some pancakes multilayer in wax for now, and have question for Jeff :

                                Do you use vacuum pump as suggested by Tesla or not ? For example I do not use vacuum pump, for now, haven't noticed problems so far... But bubbles in wax can clearly be seen at the top of paper roll, even if I cook my coil for 5 hours in way they dont go away.

                                Another general question for all:

                                In Tesla patents about pancake coils and wireless transmission related tesla says that wire length of secondary has to be 1/4 if wavelength using speed of light for calculation ...

                                for example 100meter secondary equals about 500khz LC resonant...

                                I havent so far made much experiments varying frequency, but if I use near 500khz for my 100meter wire length pancake coil, 3 turns per layer , I do not see practicly any "hot" sparks just blue "flamish" I think called phantom ones, , also they are very silent...

                                If I lower freq below 500 khz sparks gets longer brighter and louder, and those "phantom " cant be observed...

                                Problem is that I havent tried so far frew HIGHER than 500 khz, cause in general I think that igher the frequecny shorter the sparks...
                                But if sparks above 500 khz will be similar to those below 500khz it would mean that coil operates differently if freq is exactly 1/4 wavelength = wire length...

                                Also spark gap at 500 khz is very SILENT... like that secondary does not affect primary , like secondary oscilates freely in contrary of classic transformer...

                                Will every coil at wire length =1/4 wavelength give phantom streamers?

                                If you made similar experiments please report...

                                I da ne zaboravim poseban pozdrav lighty
                                Posebni pozdrav lighty, i pivo,

                                This is common with Pancakes. They seem to respond to a multitude of frequencies, but with some "balance" of what is seen. There is one resonant frequency where they produce normal arcs and sparks of greatest length. To get hotter sparks and arcs requires only more power. Normally at resonance the sparks or arcs will be very continuous while operating between the terminals.

                                Normally with more capacity and lower frequencies feeding the coil you get brighter, more jagged, very painful loud sparks. Sometimes the sparks are shorter, because the coil is not in exact tune, but also sometime they appear longer than before because more power is present by a larger cap (assuming the charging circuit can handle charging it). (So you get a longer crackle pseudo-spark but not so frequently)

                                With higher frequencies you tend to see more effluves and corona effects, shorter sparks, or hotter shorter sparks. There is normally with these coils a strange balance relating to spark appearance vs. corona effects vs. spark current and duration...if that makes sense.

                                In regard to copper ribbon, and extra capacity, this can be really good (but expensive) and insulation must really be increased layer-to-layer. But some very good coils have been built this way.

                                For Phantom Streams, I have found the operating frequency is one variable in producing them but also the frequency at which the cap discharges (time of charging and discharging cap). Unfortuantely the best methods I have found contradict each other - one method involved a low current supply charging and discharging the cap very slowly (the spark gap can be counted - firing only once or twice a second, sputtering) - the other method having a large voltage charging the cap and discharging the spark gap with a much smaller voltage (like starting with 10 or 15kV and setting the gap to discharge at only 3 or 4kV). The difference though in appearance is great - the first method produces defined branches, while the second produces the radiating straight lines of pale light.

                                I am working on a way to describe the supplies in a method that isn't completely confusing to make sense of!

                                Comment

                                Working...
                                X