Hendershot Replications

[synchro]

Neutral zone.

@Morpher44
Thanks for the response. I'll try and upload a sketch. There are three tells in the description of the magnet tuning of the Hendershot device; First, the distance between the surface of the horseshoe magnet and the soft iron bar is described as an air gap. This distance might be roughly estimated as under a quater of an inch. Secondly, the bar was positioned with a wire in each hand with striped leads. Passing the neutral generates a current in the iron bar, this is detectable with a multimeter. The two wires were attached to one. Thirdly, cross wireing was used, a reverse polarity circuit for the opposite movement of the solenoid, necessary to keep the bar on station. Just cross wire one solenoid and attach it in series to a battery and the reed switch at the end of the bar, and the other straight wired to the other reed switch. Include an LED at each end. Now as you position the iron bar up to the magnet, the first LED should blink, then the second as you pass the bar through the neutral zone. Now it's ready to flutter and generate power.
Hendershot uses induction transformers, but you can get all the same power just by winding copper wraps around the center of the soft iron bar. It is a mistake to let the bar touch the iron. The fluctuation and polarity reversal in the 20 to 200 Hertz range does what a rotating bar magnet would do at high RPM. A hair´s width is a bit trickey, but in the range of glue and popsicle stick
hobbyist. Study Wesley W. Gary's analysis. It is a critical necessity for the success of your project. Beware of potentially fatel shock from this fluctator if
you suceed in generating power.

[morpher44]

Wesley W. Gary

Study Wesley W. Gary's analysis. It is a critical necessity for the success of your project. Beware of potentially fatel shock from this fluctator if you suceed in generating power.

I found this:
TRIUMPH OF ELECTRICITY.; FURNISHING LIGHT FOR NEXT TO NOTHING. WESLEY ... - Article Preview - The New York Times
from Dec 14, 1878 - NY Times.
Cool article.

And this:
Wesley Gary's Magnetic Motor

Do you have a URL with Gary's analysis?

This does look very interesting.

[synchro]

Wesley W. Gary.

@Morpher44
You scored a diresct hit! Study the neutral line diagram on his first patent. You are in for real enlightenment and a huge success story. if you master the simple understanding presented here by Wesley. I have been exploring ways to improve the motor generator, and hit on the reed relays. Try and build a simple reed relay magnet motor from plans on the web, to get a feel for the switch. Just a pulse coil wired in series with a battery and the reed switch. I will scan some sketches in and post them, but I'm sure your head will begin to fill to the brim with, ring magnet spring cushions on the solenoid plunger etc. A mini linear cscillator today, that operates with a 1.6 mm throw, costs under five dollars, and runs on 3 volts. I believe Steve Mark, the TPU inventer merely matched one of his piezo speaker elements to an armature, and vibrated it over a small but powerfull horseshoe magnet. Also, powerfull neo magnets are bad for the motor for the same reason a better material armature with less inductence would be. Weaker magnets transfer their field better, and soft iron demagnatizes easily.

[john_g]

I found this:
TRIUMPH OF ELECTRICITY.; FURNISHING LIGHT FOR NEXT TO NOTHING. WESLEY ... - Article Preview - The New York Times
from Dec 14, 1878 - NY Times.
Cool article.

And this:
Wesley Gary's Magnetic Motor

Do you have a URL with Gary's analysis?

This does look very interesting.

Morpher44

That is a fantastic find. So the motor/generator was self running!

[mlurye]

I just noticed. Hendershot did mark all coils directions on his schema.

[synchro]

W. Gary's motor generator.

The soft iron bar can be attached to a small board that protrudes enough at the ends to permit a few holes to be drilled through. Elastic can be attached to the sides and the bottem of each end. A loop of surgical tubing could be placed through the sides and bottem of a peach box, so the iron bar is spring tensioned in two directions. A wire, bare leads clipped to each end of the bar and passed next to a magnetic compass, will move the compass needle one way then the other as the bar passes through the neutral zone of the horeshoe magnet. Next comes drawing the magnet down perhaps sandwiching a handfull of playing cards removed one at a time untill the compass needle spins. Then the magnet can be clamped down. Now a door bell ringer can be positioned beneath the tensioned magnet and board, ready to vibrate. This is the simplest approach I could imagine. Output coils can generate current inductively, or wire raps can go directly over the center of the iron bar armature.

[morpher44]

some thoughts on hand wound capacitor...

Figure 5.8 in Barry Hilton's book shows a schematic
released by Mark Hendershot and possibly drawn by his father.

For the hand wound capacitor it says .0078 MFD
OR
CSi6ly (*unreadable*)
1.3 MFD (See Notes orig).

There is a discussion about this and how the capacitance may not
matter as long as they MATCH between the two coils.

It is true that when you squeeze this hand made capacitor that the
capacitance increases -- not to mention the body capacitance
that is added as well.

There is a formula for plate capacitors, and I'm struck that
Hendershot selected plates sizes that are quite large relative
to such a small 7.8nF capacitance... implying the
distance between plates is THICKER than one layer of paper
(or the dielectric constant is a bit different from paper).

If we assume 1.3 MFD instead, the distances between plates
becomes impossibly small -- even if we add a dielectric.
So I think we can rule out that 1.3 MFD was the value ...
although it is curious that he has this in his diagram ...
and its not clear what notes he's referring to.
Perhaps 1.3 MFD is some "upper value" he calculated.
Capacitors attenuate high frequency ... and allow low
frequency with hardly any reactance. If the capacitance
gets too big, however, a certain threshold would prevent
frequencies up to a certain range.

One interesting observation about 1.3Mfd is that if
we assume an inductance of about 50.5 for L1 (or L4 in
some diagrams), the resonance frequency with 1.3MFD
would be 19.6Khz ... the top of the audio range.
Any capacitor smaller than that in value would go higher ..
putting the frequency above audio -- and thus
LESS bothersome to the ears. Coincidence?

As for the 7.8nF value ... why that?
It could be that any value smaller than this is MOOT
because the coil itself will have a certain SRF - self resonance --
and if you have capacitances small and approaching
the implicit capacitance .. it really has no additional effect.

This adds up to the possibility that the value may not matter
as long as it is between these too values ... between .0078 MFD
and 1.3 MFD ... and that they match with 1%.

Also, using the circuit in figure 5.13, the ringing oscillations
that occur seem to have the affect of holding the clapper
in a position and then letting is SNAP hard when
the damped oscillations reach a certain threshold.
A longer ringing ... might increase the SNAP.
I'm not sure about this ... but comparing that
ringing to the load waveform shows some sort of
correlation.

[morpher44]

correction..

>Capacitors attenuate high frequency ... and allow low
>frequency with hardly any reactance. If the capacitance
>gets too big, however, a certain threshold would prevent
>frequencies up to a certain range.

OOPS! Brain glitch.
Capacitors attenuate low frequency ... and isolate DC,
but pass high frequency.
I apologize for being confusing...
What really matters is probably the Q value created
with that capacitor and the inductance.

[mlurye]

CSi6ly (*unreadable*)
1.3 MFD (See Notes orig).

CSi6ly (*unreadable*) - Posibly

[morpher44]

diagram

The soft iron bar can be attached to a small board that protrudes enough at the ends to permit a few holes to be drilled through. Elastic can be attached to the sides and the bottem of each end. A loop of surgical tubing could be placed through the sides and bottem of a peach box, so the iron bar is spring tensioned in two directions. A wire, bare leads clipped to each end of the bar and passed next to a magnetic compass, will move the compass needle one way then the other as the bar passes through the neutral zone of the horeshoe magnet. Next comes drawing the magnet down perhaps sandwiching a handfull of playing cards removed one at a time untill the compass needle spins. Then the magnet can be clamped down. Now a door bell ringer can be positioned beneath the tensioned magnet and board, ready to vibrate. This is the simplest approach I could imagine. Output coils can generate current inductively, or wire raps can go directly over the center of the iron bar armature.

@synchro
A picture would help.
Here is a crude one I drew real quick.
I was thinking for nails to prop up the iron bar
with some elastic bands ... and then the horseshoe magnet
on one side ... and the solenoid on the other.
Bar to be placed in neutral zone.
Something like this?

[synchro]

Spring tensioner.

I'm in Ecuador in an internet kiosk and I can't speak Spanish well enough to get my sketch scanned in right now without an interpreter. Your sketch is excellent. The magnet attracts the iron bar, that's why the rubber bands from the bottem to the iron bar do more work. I thought it might help to run the top ones off to each side to resemble the letter T not the letter H as in your sketch. Thusly tensioned, the magnet will hold the iron bar up with the tension of the four elastic bands pulling down. A handfull of playing cards placed between the magnet and the iron bar, then removed or added to, one by one, untill the bar measures a movement in the compass needle, will produce a permanet spacer consisting of the number of cards. That space will remain constant. The magnet has to be attached to the iron bar with the cards in between, then the magnet needs to be streched upward with the bar untill the cards slip out from between them. This is where the magnet needs to be clamped down. Vibrating the iron bar with your finger should produce clockwise and counterclockwise direction movments in the compass needle. Now, if you glue the self oscillating relay directly onto the the underside of the board, the vibrations alone should begin to generate enough current to light a bulb through your induction output coils. Thanks for following me so far. It appears you have a complete understanding of the area at this point. I'll be looking foward to more updates on yor progress.

[morpher44]

the neutral zone??

I'm in Ecuador in an internet kiosk and I can't speak Spanish well enough to get my sketch scanned in right now without an interpreter. Your sketch is excellent. The magnet attracts the iron bar, that's why the rubber bands from the bottem to the iron bar do more work. I thought it might help to run the top ones off to each side to resemble the letter T not the letter H as in your sketch. Thusly tensioned, the magnet will hold the iron bar up with the tension of the four elastic bands pulling down. A handfull of playing cards placed between the magnet and the iron bar, then removed or added to, one by one, untill the bar measures a movement in the compass needle, will produce a permanet spacer consisting of the number of cards. That space will remain constant. The magnet has to be attached to the iron bar with the cards in between, then the magnet needs to be streched upward with the bar untill the cards slip out from between them. This is where the magnet needs to be clamped down. Vibrating the iron bar with your finger should produce clockwise and counterclockwise direction movments in the compass needle. Now, if you glue the self oscillating relay directly onto the the underside of the board, the vibrations alone should begin to generate enough current to light a bulb through your induction output coils. Thanks for following me so far. It appears you have a complete understanding of the area at this point. I'll be looking foward to more updates on yor progress.

I messed around with this a bit last night.

First off ... I tried to find the neutral zone using the technique
of having a coil around the metal bar and running that off
to a wire to influence compass movement.
FAIL!!
I could see the compass move ... but it was influenced more
by me just moving the bar ... i.e. no current being induced
in the wire ... just wiggling magnetic fields within proximity
of compass.

I then tried Wesley Gary's technique of having a tack
stick to the bar and gradually moving it away until the
tack drops.
What I found was that the tack would drop in various
distances ... so I thought I'de keep marking them and
look for a statistical cluster.
Surprisingly, this technique doesn't offer a tight little
cluster but a rather wide variance.
The center or mean is a increadible 5.25 inches
from the horseshoe magnet -- which really surprized me.
BUT ... the cluster is upwards to 1.5 inches thick for
that neutral zone.
I found that it really depends upon how shaking my hands are too.
If I'm very gentle and steady, the tack might fall
very far from the magnet.
If I and quick, jittery, bouncy .. the tack falls sooner
as its easier to break it off the iron bar due to the vibration.

Bottom line ... that approach of finding a so called
neutral zone is highly "noisy" and only gives a ball park.

So I put the bar in that mean location and messed around
with pulsing my solenoids near it as it hangs from
rubber bands.

The mechanical dampen oscillations are impressive.
At certain pulse frequencies I can make the bar vibrate
dramatically .. to the point that the swings are so wild they
BANG off the metal of the solenoid. Mechanical resonance --
great fun!!!

However, I am not noticing much in the way of induced currents
in the Hendershot coil.

Anyway, this approach is interesting ... but nothing dramatic
has been found yet ... other than the fun of messing
around with mechanical oscillations of a bar suspended by rubber
bands.

[synchro]

Elastic vibration.

It may help to use the side of the horseshoe magnet, and also a multimeter may help determine the neutral line. The other thing is, he used soft iron magnets, very weak compared to Neo's, stacked together to provide the strength. The line moves away from the magnet as the bar thickness increases. Gary's useing 2 thin transformer laminations riveted together. The neutral line moves closer to the magnet with an increase in magnet strength. Maybe a stronger magnet and a thinner soft iron armature might be easier to work with? Good try! Sounds like an exciting experiment.

[morpher44]

Wesley W. Gary Experiments...

Here is my crude attempt to experiment with the
ideas of Wesley W. Gary as suggested by Synchro.

YouTube - "Hendershot Fuelless Generator" - Wesley W. Gary's Neutral Zone

[synchro]

Outer Bloch wall.

@Morpher44
Really cool video. Number one: The first thing I noticed right off is that the length of the iron bar is twice as long as the distance between the poles of your horseshore magnet. The length of the bar should be about the same as the distance between the poles of your horseshoe magnet. Gary says it's O.K. for it to overlap a little, but your iron bar is way too long for the distance between your magnet poles. Secondly: The Neutral zone is somtimes refered to as the Outer Bloch Wall. The Inner Bloch Wall is between the poles of the horseshoe magnet. The outer one is in the third dimension. A hidden pole is nested inside an outer one of the opposite charge. The line has been photograghed by those Germans with the web link back on this thread. I believe there are additional shells, and that you are on a third weaker shell, way too far back to have a magnetic force in a blown up region with enough perimeter to be enclose your large bar. The Outer Bloch Wall is like on the surface of a baloon, smaller and more eliptical towards the magnets surface, and more circular as one travels from the center. The size of your iron bar is the same as the one Hendershot uses with is huge 5¨ radar magnet. The iron bar enlarges the Outer Block Wall or Neutral Zone which is elastic in proportion to it's size, and the magnet strength tightens it in proportion to it's increase in strength. The bar has to be proportioned to fit inside the neutral line like a inside a pouch, if it's too large it will pull out and distort around and not through the bar. Try a bar half the length and half the thickness with no holes. Lower it down on the side of the magnet by perhaps removing playing cards one by one untill your multi-meter switchs polarity signs. The magnet wire might work at that point. Then try and position and vibrate it like you manged to do very successfully in your latest demonstration video. You´re on the right track. You are making progress. I didn't realize a solenoid pulse alone would produce the correct kind of oscillations. Congratulations!