Donald Smith Devices too good to be true

[Wistiti]

Will see what i have laying around. The meters is a good idea. And who does not like analog meters.

Import txt for the voltage multiplier. Try and change the values and see what happens. Not perfect but ok.

Circuit Simulator Applet

Thank you for that!!!

[Mwtj]

Mwtj, do you have any way to measure the actual antenna current? Disregarding possible leaks, it should be possible to measure it either on the ground side or the antenna side. I don't have a (separate) meter that will go from about 0-5 mA, I think it should be roughly in that range. Higher voltage multiplier will mean less current delivery capability, of course the actual current drawn will depend on the ionization happening around the antenna at any given voltage. I'm trying to put meters everywhere so every parameter can be monitored for both performance and troubleshooting. I had a slight HV leak on my kilovolt meter, it started reading way too high, almost full scale. I knew something had to be wrong and it was the screws on the back of the meter leaking a little current. I tried one of those little plastic caps they sell at the hardware store to cover exposed bolt threads and that seemed to work. I didn't want to goop the connections with silicone in case I want to rearrange it later. Realistically it would be better to have two 500M resistors with the meter in the middle of the bridge than one 1G resistor where the meter is at high potential. If I had a driver with a center-tapped HV transformer then I could ground that so that the whole dipole is centered on ground potential, so the + and - parts are at equal voltages only opposite polarities. As it is now, it's at floating potential so any unequal HV leaks from the two halves will cause the voltage to be unequal. I don't think this will stop it from working but it really isn't good design.

Edit: wait, scratch that last part, it's a bad idea. On futher reflection I realized that being at floating potential is what ensures both gaps fire in unison.

Will see what i have laying around. The meters is a good idea. And who does not like analog meters.

Import txt for the voltage multiplier. Try and change the values and see what happens. Not perfect but ok.

Circuit Simulator Applet

[tswift]

Great progress Tswift.

Wistiti you need to hurry up
Put the multiplier in oil or parrafin wax. Limit the current on the multiplier. I have blown the diodes on my 6 stage multiplier @ 60kV because i did not know. Two times

Did the last test without cap on the secondary and with more turns. Used a 220v bulb.

Mwtj, do you have any way to measure the actual antenna current? Disregarding possible leaks, it should be possible to measure it either on the ground side or the antenna side. I don't have a (separate) meter that will go from about 0-5 mA, I think it should be roughly in that range. Higher voltage multiplier will mean less current delivery capability, of course the actual current drawn will depend on the ionization happening around the antenna at any given voltage. I'm trying to put meters everywhere so every parameter can be monitored for both performance and troubleshooting. I had a slight HV leak on my kilovolt meter, it started reading way too high, almost full scale. I knew something had to be wrong and it was the screws on the back of the meter leaking a little current. I tried one of those little plastic caps they sell at the hardware store to cover exposed bolt threads and that seemed to work. I didn't want to goop the connections with silicone in case I want to rearrange it later. Realistically it would be better to have two 500M resistors with the meter in the middle of the bridge than one 1G resistor where the meter is at high potential. If I had a driver with a center-tapped HV transformer then I could ground that so that the whole dipole is centered on ground potential, so the + and - parts are at equal voltages only opposite polarities. As it is now, it's at floating potential so any unequal HV leaks from the two halves will cause the voltage to be unequal. I don't think this will stop it from working but it really isn't good design.

Edit: wait, scratch that last part, it's a bad idea. On futher reflection I realized that being at floating potential is what ensures both gaps fire in unison.

[Wistiti]

Great progress Tswift.

Wistiti you need to hurry up
Put the multiplier in oil or parrafin wax. Limit the current on the multiplier. I have blown the diodes on my 6 stage multiplier @ 60kV because i did not know. Two times

Did the last test without cap on the secondary and with more turns. Used a 220v bulb.

Hahaha! yes... I do my best!

I have a question: how do you limit the current on your multiplier?

[Mwtj]

Actually I haven't even measured the inductance of the secondary yet. I'm kind of with Dragon on this, I'm not sure why the cap is necessary. Due to the load on the secondary the Q will be really low and I don't think trying to resonate it will make much difference. But it's in the schematic, so I will try it both with and without when I test it. If the power gain effect shows up then it should be possible to extract a greater amount of power by increasing the secondary turns, it will mess up the normal relationship between voltage and amperage in the primary and secondary of the transformer.

Great progress Tswift.

Wistiti you need to hurry up
Put the multiplier in oil or parrafin wax. Limit the current on the multiplier. I have blown the diodes on my 6 stage multiplier @ 60kV because i did not know. Two times

Did the last test without cap on the secondary and with more turns. Used a 220v bulb.

[tswift]

ps: my secondary to have only 2 turn to achieve the good inductance (10uh/ 11uh) for resonate with my air cap at 500khz.

Actually I haven't even measured the inductance of the secondary yet. I'm kind of with Dragon on this, I'm not sure why the cap is necessary. Due to the load on the secondary the Q will be really low and I don't think trying to resonate it will make much difference. But it's in the schematic, so I will try it both with and without when I test it. If the power gain effect shows up then it should be possible to extract a greater amount of power by increasing the secondary turns, it will mess up the normal relationship between voltage and amperage in the primary and secondary of the transformer.

[Wistiti]

More progress on the test device, I wound the L3/L4 secondary. I took some test measurements with 5 turns and it seems that the voltage output from 2 turns will likely be enough so I wound it that way, 2/2 bifilar. I put an outer band around the turns to keep them in place, I didn't want to drill holes in the cardboard coil form and get the L3/L4 wires any closer to the L1/L2 wires. At higher voltages I think having the maximum possible separation is a good thing. I arranged most of the output side circuit, the diode bridge and the supercaps on the DC output side, and a light bulb on the AC output side.

Link to full-resolution picture:
http://gateway.ipfs.io/ipfs/QmPVHa2u...MVYGZiPiFXcxQS

Great advancement Tswift!
You may be the first of us who complete it
Cant wait to see the result!

ps: my secondary to have only 2 turn to achieve the good inductance (10uh/ 11uh) for resonate with my air cap at 500khz.

[tswift]

More progress on the test device, I wound the L3/L4 secondary. I took some test measurements with 5 turns and it seems that the voltage output from 2 turns will likely be enough so I wound it that way, 2/2 bifilar. I put an outer band around the turns to keep them in place, I didn't want to drill holes in the cardboard coil form and get the L3/L4 wires any closer to the L1/L2 wires. At higher voltages I think having the maximum possible separation is a good thing. I arranged most of the output side circuit, the diode bridge and the supercaps on the DC output side, and a light bulb on the AC output side.

Link to full-resolution picture:
http://gateway.ipfs.io/ipfs/QmPVHa2u...MVYGZiPiFXcxQS

[iflewmyown]

You might look at this. THE ELECTRIC FIELD ENERGY SOURCE LAND
Garry

[tswift]

Natures perfect antenna...

Have you ever noticed while driving down a road in winter how the leave-less trees look so much like an electrical discharge? A huge trunk at the bottom to move large currents and thousands of tiny points reaching into the sky to dissipate tiny currents from each of the many branches.

Wouldn't it make more sense to mimic natures best example... ?

Yes, I thought of that too. For an antenna to get the best discharge characteristics into the surrounding air you would need a branching, dendritic, fractal structure terminating in sharp points. This would produce the most ion current for the smallest size antenna. But yes, it seems nature has already figured this out....

[tswift]

Got some work done today.

Looking good, I like those stand-off insulators! I'm going to have to improve the insulation on my test rig considerably, at 26KV there are small leaks happening all over the place. I can only imagine how problematic it's going to be to get 100KV and higher....

[Mwtj]

Natures perfect antenna...

Have you ever noticed while driving down a road in winter how the leave-less trees look so much like an electrical discharge? A huge trunk at the bottom to move large currents and thousands of tiny points reaching into the sky to dissipate tiny currents from each of the many branches.

Wouldn't it make more sense to mimic natures best example... ?

Just like a lightning-strike or human biology or the veins in a leaf.

[dragon]

Natures perfect antenna...

Have you ever noticed while driving down a road in winter how the leave-less trees look so much like an electrical discharge? A huge trunk at the bottom to move large currents and thousands of tiny points reaching into the sky to dissipate tiny currents from each of the many branches.

Wouldn't it make more sense to mimic natures best example... ?

[Mwtj]

Got some work done today.

[soundiceuk]

Will answer questions ASAP.

For now:

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...page&q&f=false

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