Donald Smith Devices too good to be true

[tswift]

I know, and that is of concern to me. My winding L1 is 1 meter length. L2 3.587 meters. Therefore, I pose the question regarding capacitance and the Standing wave. As, in the smith.pdf, time is spent discussing the Standing waves, one has to question why and how to achieve one and in conjunction with an L/C component! Especially given the rudimentary nature of the arithmetic in relation to wavelength and length of wire. Therefore, either the standing wave is a Red Herring, or it is able to be manipulated, as per say a capacitor. Perhaps, the oscillations are very high frequency?

It's a good question, one that most of us have run up against while attempting to replicate some version of the Don Smith device. You can see it easily enough for yourself if you have a scope, just put the probe about an inch away from the coils while driving them with the HVM and a spark gap. You will clearly see the big oscillations at the lower LC resonant frequency, but also superimposed on it will be some much higher ringing at the 1/4 resonant frequency. It will be fairly close to what you calculate using the wire length formula but not exact, it would only be exact for a long straight wire with no end effects. For something like a 1/4 wave vertical ham antenna it's probably within about 5%.

The high frequency oscillations will damp out within perhaps the first half-cycle of the LC resonance and might be something like 10%-50% of the amplitude. So you really do have two resonances going on, one at 220 Khz in your case, and another at something well into the megahertz range. I actually took the time to tune a set of coils for both resonances at the same time, essentially the only way I found to do this is to use a spark gap to zap each coil separately to get the exact 1/4 wave resonant frequency, then trim one or the other coil down until you have either an exact 1:1 match or a low integral multiple like 2:1 or 4:1. Then with suitable caps you can get the LC resonances to match also. The bad news is that going to all this trouble still didn't make my prototype configuration produce the desired magic.

If you want to look back somewhat in this thread, this has all been discussed before (more than once, in fact....). I posted some better instructions for the exact experimental setup back in post #10835:

https://www.energeticforum.com/293939-post10835.html

I think (just an unconfirmed hypothesis, but based on significant R&D) that this is unnecessary. If you measure power transfer into the secondary and the cap bank, you can get decently good efficiency just by matching the LC resonant frequencies without worrying about the standing waves at all.

[Dwane]

Hi Dwayne,
If the wire is less than 1/4 of the wavelength is it still relevant? According to Richard Quicks patent (mentioned in the Smith pdf) the wire should not be less than 1/4 of the wavelength to carry the standing wave. If your working with low frequencies I cant see how your wire would satisfy this critera. Even at 500kHz the 1/4 wavelength is 150 mts.

I know, and that is of concern to me. My winding L1 is 1 meter length. L2 3.587 meters. Therefore, I pose the question regarding capacitance and the Standing wave. As, in the smith.pdf, time is spent discussing the Standing waves, one has to question why and how to achieve one and in conjunction with an L/C component! Especially given the rudimentary nature of the arithmetic in relation to wavelength and length of wire. Therefore, either the standing wave is a Red Herring, or it is able to be manipulated, as per say a capacitor. Perhaps, the oscillations are very high frequency?

Thanks for the reply.

Dwane

[p75213]

Hello Tswift,

On a different note, Standard waves are directly related to a length of wire and the calculation to its wavelength. With the tabletop device replication of Don's that I am working on, I am having difficulty relating the concept of the standard wave and the very short lengths of wire I am using and the low frequencies that I am working with. Therefore, would I be correct in assuming that a coil wound from a know length of wire and its attributed wavelength, its wavelength would not change if directly wound as a coil - allowing for a small capacitance within the winding?

Thanks for the extra images

Dwane

Hi Dwayne,
If the wire is less than 1/4 of the wavelength is it still relevant? According to Richard Quicks patent (mentioned in the Smith pdf) the wire should not be less than 1/4 of the wavelength to carry the standing wave. If your working with low frequencies I cant see how your wire would satisfy this critera. Even at 500kHz the 1/4 wavelength is 150 mts.

[Dwane]

Re images:

Hello Tswift,

I am mindful of Walter Russell's position of the influence of Vortices in almost all areas of matter and life. Having looked at these extra high speed captures of your image, I still think that the set up you have followed has enabled you to witness a vortex being produced. Whether I am extrapolating too much I am not sure.

There is a corollory to the BEMF spike here, and which might be a component of your phenomenon. I have always though that the BEMF spike that we seek to harness is as a result of the elasticity of the electrons within the wire returning to an equilibrium. Its just that they all seem to re-adjust simulaneously and together, thus producing an additive magnified pulse that is greater than the initial force that altered their orbits. Now that is a simple way to view the negative spike. Whether it is part of your phenomenon I could not say.

On a different note, Standard waves are directly related to a length of wire and the calculation to its wavelength. With the tabletop device replication of Don's that I am working on, I am having difficulty relating the concept of the standard wave and the very short lengths of wire I am using and the low frequencies that I am working with. Therefore, would I be correct in assuming that a coil wound from a know length of wire and its attributed wavelength, its wavelength would not change if directly wound as a coil - allowing for a small capacitance within the winding?

Thanks for the extra images

Dwane

[tswift]

I have found your observations on the white light intriguing. Very astute observations. I have taken the liberty of expanding the image to a much larger size. To my mind, I am seeing a "whorl" appearing that has more than one white spot - more like a gradual change of temperature about the emmission.

You probably shouldn't read too much into the image. It's a very poor quality picture, with low resolution and a lot of noise, taken by a very cheap camera in video mode. For comparison, here are the other frames I saved from the video which also show some of the white spark effect. Work whatever image processing magic you desire and then maybe we'll come to some new conclusions.

Or even better, build yourself a small tabletop Tesla coil and experiment with it yourself so you can see it first hand.

[tswift]

Once again, thank you for your comprehensive reply. I think I have been oscillating the L2 at around 10Kv. I have made a pick up for the scope using a 100mh coil and r/c network. This clearly shows my HV activity. However, I am reading the same reaction on both sides of the isolating HV diodes - rated at 100ns. This is disconcerting as I am unable to rationalise this. I get the impression I am nullifying the output - no rectification of signal into the caps. I do not have the L2 to what I suspect should be the tuned resonant frequency. I'll know better when my HV caps arrive. I have calculated the L1 and L2 caps as almost the same as Don's! L1= .2uf and L2 = .046uf . The frequency the new coils are optimising at is 221Khz with the output from the function generator. More on that later when my components arrive.

Yes, until you get the resonance between L1 and L2 tuned properly you won't really know. I was going to mention using a function generator to check the resonant frequency on the coils but you already figured that out. The tuning doesn't have to be as precise as you might think - the resonance on L1 is quite sharp, but L2 is loaded so its Q is very low and the tuning is broad because of it. If it's within perhaps 10% it will probably work OK.

I have found your observations on the white light intriguing. Very astute observations. I have taken the liberty of expanding the image to a much larger size. To my mind, I am seeing a "whorl" appearing that has more than one white spot - more like a gradual change of temperature about the emmission. And, I might also suggest that this whorl is being created within the confines of the field Hot to cold you have created. That is, the phenomenon might be indicative of a median field demarcation- a sort of "free" or "buffer" zone between the poles.

Well, I am trying to follow in the footsteps of Tesla as an experimentalist. As in, do the experiment first without any preconceived theories or notions, and only after letting nature show you what really happens, then you try to formulate some theories to interpret it. Tesla was an extraordinarily careful and patient observer, and then he took great care to think "clearly" instead of just "deeply" about his observations.

As far as I know, the white spark observation is original to me. I didn't read about it anywhere, and I have never seen pictures of it. Most Tesla coil hobbyists seem only to be concerned with turning Mr. Tesla's most important invention (the magnifying transmitter) into a science toy and wasting more power producing ever bigger sparks. I noticed it a couple years ago, essentially by accident because I was running that coil with my head only about a foot away from it, something you can't do with a much bigger coil throwing large sparks. Anyone can build a coil like that for almost no money, the secondary is a 3" cardboard mailing tube wound with scavenged wire from a microwave oven transformer secondary. The primary is 3.75 turns around a 5" cardboard oatmeal can. The primary capacitance is 10 nF, I had to buy those but they're cheap (9 needed for an MMC). Then another $20 for a ZVS driver and you're in business.

What the white spark region clearly shows, by logical thinking, is that there are at least two different kinds, or characters, of electricity. If the electricity were the same all along the length of the spark they would flow into each other smoothly with no change. There has to be some kind of difference. Then we have to start speculating and theorizing what that might be, and I have offered a proposed theory that's hopefully more than just speculation, but there's no guarantee that anything about my interpretation is correct, more evidence is needed. The only thing we can say unequivocally is that when we do this experiment, the middle part of the spark turns white for reasons we don't fully understand. But that's always when progress gets made in science, when new things turn up that we didn't know to expect. For something as purportedly well as understood as ELECTRICITY in the 21st century, for gosh sakes, how is it that a home experimenter with virtually no money and simple apparatus built mostly out of scrap can produce visible results that aren't predicted in any textbook?

[Dwane]

White spark and more?

Hello Tswift,

Once again, thank you for your comprehensive reply. I think I have been oscillating the L2 at around 10Kv. I have made a pick up for the scope using a 100mh coil and r/c network. This clearly shows my HV activity. However, I am reading the same reaction on both sides of the isolating HV diodes - rated at 100ns. This is disconcerting as I am unable to rationalise this. I get the impression I am nullifying the output - no rectification of signal into the caps. I do not have the L2 to what I suspect should be the tuned resonant frequency. I'll know better when my HV caps arrive. I have calculated the L1 and L2 caps as almost the same as Don's! L1= .2uf and L2 = .046uf . The frequency the new coils are optimising at is 221Khz with the output from the function generator. More on that later when my components arrive.

I have found your observations on the white light intriguing. Very astute observations. I have taken the liberty of expanding the image to a much larger size. To my mind, I am seeing a "whorl" appearing that has more than one white spot - more like a gradual change of temperature about the emmission. And, I might also suggest that this whorl is being created within the confines of the field Hot to cold you have created. That is, the phenomenon might be indicative of a median field demarcation- a sort of "free" or "buffer" zone between the poles.

I hope that is not too elaborate an explanation!

Regards

Dwane

[tswift]

Let's take a closer look at the spark itself. We can see the white region approximately in the middle, but it's not centered. This makes sense when you realize that due to ground impedance, the tip of the wire is not at zero volts. In fact it's quite far from zero, as you can see from the glow around the alligator clip holding the insulated wire in the first still photo above. Some of the voltage drop, the dipole, is happening IN THE GROUNDED WIRE. WE WON'T GET RESULTS FROM A DON SMITH CONFIGURATION LIKE THIS. We have to get down much closer to true earth potential in order to be capturing pure cold electricity at the reaction end of the dipole. How close, I don't know yet.



Ok, now let's put all this together. Here are the theory and experiment side by side, so hopefully everyone can understand what I am attempting to explain:

[tswift]

To illustrate this further, I finally managed to take a picture of the white spark. It was as difficult as I expected, with lighting, exposure, and focusing all being issues to contend with. The setup is my small benchtop Tesla coil, powered by a ZVS driver. Power is about 20W. The coil is 3" diameter and about 14" long, resonant frequency about 700 KHz. None of the particulars matter, any Tesla coil should show the exact same effect. It's just that with a low power coil like this it's easy to get closer to it for observation while running, which is how I noticed the white spark effect in the first place.

While the coil is operating, any conductive object brought near the coil will show a fan of sparks leading back towards the coil (the "reaction"). Likewise, there is a fan of sparks coming off the coil (the "action"). When the object is brought near enough, then the two sets of streamers will start to meet on the stronger discharges, and you will find that the small region of overlap right in the middle is where the sparks turn visibly white.

Here is a still picture of the coil in operation with a grounded wire near the hot end of the coil. I tried to capture the white spark effect with still photos but was unsuccessful due to the exposure time. This at least shows the setup.



Here is a still frame from the video I took, it's much darker but the short exposure time allowed me to find a few frames which show the white region clearly. This is unretouched and it really does look like this to the naked eye while observing.

[tswift]

Speaking of understanding and explaining the physics at work, here is my latest attempt at explanation. This is my hypothesis about how the radiant effect works. It is an intrinsic property of any dipole, a fundamental symmetry of nature. Now I'm going to get all Tom Bearden on you. By merely establishing the dipolarity, we are engineering the quantum vacuum. Even with no charge carriers present, I think most people would agree that the presence of the dipole changes the structure of spacetime SOMEHOW, such that when any charge carriers show up they feel its presence. But the structure of the quantum vacuum is ALREADY changed before, and independent of, any charge carriers.

Here's my theory: as charge carriers (such the conduction electrons in a wire, or the ions in a plasma) move up or down the voltage gradient of the dipole, they appear to change character. The dipole has a "hot" end, and a "cold" end, and this has to do with action and reaction, not necessarily with "plus" and "minus" polarity. You can demonstrate with a Tesla coil that the color of the streamers changes along the path, even of a single streamer. It turns white for a section in the middle for no obvious reason. Thinking about it logically, this only makes sense if the electricity on one end is of a different character than the electricity on the other end, or else they would merge seamlessly and the color would not change.

Tesla's radiant energy receiver patent #685,957 shows the method to capture just the electrons at the cold end of the potential gradient caused either by a natural source (the ionosphere), or by an artificial source (high positive voltage of any kind). This is all a Don Smith device does. For the Gray device, the dipole is established across a high voltage capacitor, and then a very short pulse of electrons is captured from the negative terminal, while the full dipole voltage is still present in order to cause it to be the desired "cold" electricity.

If this theoretical model is correct (no guarantees), then essentially BOTH kinds of electricity are present at every part of a circuit, or even in empty space around an open-circuit dipole. In order to achieve the desired overunity results like Don and Ed, what is necessary is a kind of fractional distillation of electricity, if you will. We have to get just the sliver of electricity nearest the cold end of the dipole so that it will be very nearly 100% cold electricity (using Ed Gray's terminology). It seems that even a very small fraction of hot electricity in the mix is enough to spoil the show, which is why your grounding has to be very good for a Don Smith configuration to work properly.

As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, so I submit this for your consideration:

[tswift]

Thanks for the comprehensive reply. I am mindful of John Bedini's comment about the "Capture" connection for the radiant pulse directly it leaves the coil. The working examples of Don's 160 Kw design that I have seen show a very well ordered and closely coupled devices. It is perhaps, that like myself, when doing rudimentary tests that others attempting Don's set up, their approach is somewhat a loose arrangements of components!! Failure is instantaneous!

While a pretty build is always nice and usually takes up less bench space, I don't think that's what keeping you (or anyone). If your coils are oscillating and you're getting power transfer into the L2 coil, enough to charge some caps and actually run something, then it should be good enough. If the storage caps are physically too far from the L2 coil then it may be less effective for generating cold electricity (according to Zilano, and I think I understand why this would be the case). Otherwise, very little of the build layout detail should matter.

It would also appear to myself that we are looking at combining the "Standing Wave" phenomenon with resonance in combination with the coupling of LC tuned circuits!! If true, this is the minefield that has to be traversed and understood. At the moment I am trying to formulate this theoretical mud pie into some sort of order. The only way I can see where a standing wave might exist in L1 is between the pole of the spark gap and the return point to the centre tap of the NST coil. Or vice versa if the spark gap is in the return leg to the centre tap. If I am correct, then the use of Caps to reduce the frequency is the combination two theories on L!.

Yes, the instant you put a cap in parallel with L2 you have two frequencies at work. There is the natural 1/4 wave resonance that you would see by ringing it without an attached cap, and then there is the LC resonance due to the coil and cap forming a parallel resonant circuit. If you're careful about measuring wire (and tweaking from there, because this isn't 100% precise) then you can get both resonances to happen at the same point on the end of the secondary. I know, because I have done it. It's quite tricky to achieve, and probably impossible without a scope, because the 1/4 wave resonant frequency is not only a function of the wire length (although that is approximately correct), the coil geometry (length to width ratio, and turns spacing) also matters. Generally the final frequency ends up being somewhat higher than you would expect by just computing the 1/4 wave resonance with the wire length. However, even making SURE that the primary and secondary resonate together, at both LC resonance and 1/4 wave resonance, STILL ISN'T ENOUGH. I know, because I did it. THIS IS NOT THE SOURCE OF THE MAGIC. Think about Zilano's step-down coil design where the wire length of the primary and secondary bear no design relationship. All you need is the LC resonance to be equal (or close- remember the secondary is loaded so the Q is very low). This is what gives you WATTS into the cap bank.

As far as bench experimentation, I have had the best success using the Zilano-style step-down coil where the HVM oscillates an L1 coil of something like 160 turns on a 1-1/4 inch PVC coil form, with an L2 of just a few turns around the middle of the coil. For power transfer, it seems to make little difference whether there are parallel caps with L2 or not. When using ferrite cores in the coil form the coupling ratio is enough to get decent power transfer into the secondary even without resonance. Hopefully just improving the grounding will be enough to get the desired unconventional results from this configuration.

Edit: with regard to Ed. When Marvin cole did not show up for work, this is where it all fell apart for Ed. His knowledge was superficial at best, if I read the information available correctly. and, especially that information as researched by Mark MacKay.

Yep, I agree. That seems to have been basically the story of what happened. Over and over we have this sequence of events where some inventor either by accident or trial and error discovered a combination that gave unusual results, but they never had a good explanation for it. Only Don and a very few others seem to have gotten pretty close to an understanding of the actual physics at work. This is why I've been trying so hard to view this as a physics experiment and slowly, painstakingly, develop an understanding of what is actually happening and why. With that understanding it should be easy to build a working clone of a Don Smith design, or even come up with new designs altogether. Without the understanding all we're really doing is shooting in the dark. You can read the stories on the prior pages of this thread of the very few who seemed (or at least claimed) to have some success building a Don Smith-like device, but weren't able to help anyone else get theirs working as well and finally gave up trying. Particularly unhelpful was the one guy who said basically "oh yeah, just build it exactly like Don said and it works". Clearly there's still an issue somewhere, a reason why it fails for most folks but apparently works for a few people here and there. Based on my research so far, I think the grounding is the most likely explanation for this issue.

[Dwane]

confusion to order

Hello Tswift,

Thanks for the comprehensive reply. I am mindful of John Bedini's comment about the "Capture" connection for the radiant pulse directly it leaves the coil. The working examples of Don's 160 Kw design that I have seen show a very well ordered and closely coupled devices. It is perhaps, that like myself, when doing rudimentary tests that others attempting Don's set up, their approach is somewhat a loose arrangements of components!! Failure is instantaneous!

It would also appear to myself that we are looking at combining the "Standing Wave" phenomenon with resonance in combination with the coupling of LC tuned circuits!! If true, this is the minefield that has to be traversed and understood. At the moment I am trying to formulate this theoretical mud pie into some sort of order. The only way I can see where a standing wave might exist in L1 is between the pole of the spark gap and the return point to the centre tap of the NST coil. Or vice versa if the spark gap is in the return leg to the centre tap. If I am correct, then the use of Caps to reduce the frequency is the combination two theories on L!.

Does that make sense?

Edit: with regard to Ed. When Marvin cole did not show up for work, this is where it all fell apart for Ed. His knowledge was superficial at best, if I read the information available correctly. and, especially that information as researched by Mark MacKay.
Regards

Dwane

[tswift]

I think I have made several errors in my initial "test " build of Don's Tesla based circuit. First, My layout has been all over the place. where do I start and stop measuring the relative inductances? Next, capturing the radiant pulse requires a very close connection where it can be trapped - if that is the best term. My diodes are a bus trip away from where Don has placed his Diodes. Next, I think, due to my casual layout, I have been unable to work to a resonance - quarterwave. No wonder I have failed. Maybe, my non working replication, it is not specifically an earth problem yet. Clean up the original circuit then test that hypothesis.

Yes, you're on the right track. The circuit has to operate properly in a conventional manner before you need to worry about the unconventional part. Whether you're using the "classic" Don "tabletop" configuration with a step-up coil, or the "Zilano" version with a step-down coil, several things have to happen. The HVM has to supply power to oscillate the primary, and the primary and secondary have to be tuned alike, or at least reasonably closely. Remember that this part of the device is really just a Tesla coil. I know I keep repeating myself, but building a regular Tesla coil first is great experience for experimenting with the Don Smith device. Don added a parallel cap on the secondary to bring the frequency down much lower. The true unloaded 1/4 wave resonance on a short coil is much higher, usually in the megahertz range.

All this has to work well enough to get a few watts of power through the diodes into the storage caps. Based on Don's build it probably doesn't have to be more than a couple of watts to do some good, but the more watts available the easier it will be to run something useful from the output. Also, adding some ferrite toroid cores inside the coil form increases the inductance and the coupling ratio, and improves the power transfer by around a factor of 2. The power gain (if any) won't appear until the output of the isolation transformer, and it will run cold as power is tapped from it if all is working correctly. For better results, you can use a beefier HVM and put more watts into the input to get more at the output. I think Zilano once mentioned that her input was something like 60 watts (12V at 5A). The efficiency of the step-up or step-down coils is not very high in my experience with experimentation, you might get something like 10%-40% of the power transfer into the secondary and through the diodes into the cap bank. You can measure this by the charging rate of a known cap bank, or with a suitable load resistor. I made myself an HV resistor bank that's up to 2M and 10KV rated, you'll have to calculate the necessary resistance for your setup using Ohm's law. If the output is DC then a standard voltmeter across the load resistor (with a cap of some kind to smooth out the pulsations) will allow you to compute the power (using P=V^2/R), assuming you can get a voltmeter to work properly this close to an oscillating Tesla coil. A scope works better because the probe and the instrument are grounded and shielded.

FINALLY, once all that is operating properly but no overunity magic power gain is showing up, it's time to worry about your grounding provision. This is where I'm stuck too, I am fairly confident in my understanding of the device operation and how it is supposed to work and yet no gain is happening even when I use any of various arrangements to take current from the cap bank and send it through an inverter or transformer. I think the last piece remaining is a good enough ground, but you have to have all the other pieces in place first. Keep building!

On the EV Gray. I was of the understanding that his workable knowledge of the circuit operation was limited. Even later builders did not get it.

It is a truism, I think, to state that there is a specific connection with Gray and Don. This has to be Tesla related phenomenon.

Yes, after much study I think it is clear that both Don and Ed were making use of the same radiant energy phenomenon, although with completely different apparatus. What's important is the physics, and it's clear that although Ed found some things that worked and produced unconventional effects, he really didn't understand how. Don kept experimenting and theorizing and I think got fairly close to the truth. I don't think he knew it all but he clearly understood the physics well enough to engineer working devices in any of several different configurations. Then he left us a partially-complete puzzle with some pieces filled in and other sections missing completely.

[Dwane]

correcting errors of judgement

Hello again,

I think I have made several errors in my initial "test " build of Don's Tesla based circuit. First, My layout has been all over the place. where do I start and stop measuring the relative inductances? Next, capturing the radiant pulse requires a very close connection where it can be trapped - if that is the best term. My diodes are a bus trip away from where Don has placed his Diodes. Next, I think, due to my casual layout, I have been unable to work to a resonance - quarterwave. No wonder I have failed. Maybe, my non working replication, it is not specifically an earth problem yet. Clean up the original circuit then test that hypothesis.

I have ordered some HV caps from overseas. No-one here seems to have them. So it will be a while before I can recommence/ finalise my new build.

On the EV Gray. I was of the understanding that his workable knowledge of the circuit operation was limited. Even later builders did not get it.

It is a truism, I think, to state that there is a specific connection with Gray and Don. This has to be Tesla related phenomenon.

Have to go.

There are some great posts on this thread.

Dwane

[med.3012]

(I actually was talking in my head below the ---- part and realized I was typing! after +++ )

Hello ,

you are not the only one, i have the same problem too!!!