HF HV Phenomena Observations

[Farmhand]

Awesome, while i'm waiting I'm going into the paddock to get some electric
fencing underground type wire with really thick insulation there is about 30 meters
I can play with. I think it's only 1.3 mm thick wire, but maybe I can make some good
primaries or spiral coils with it.

Nice attraction demo too by the way, nicely presented experiment.

I like real majik tricks Can't wait.

[dR-Green]

Real Magick Tesla Style - YouTube

Low-medium power used...

[edit] Btw you can just about see the HV spike problems by the neon flashing in the upper right corner of the image. As time goes on it gets worse and worse, but now I'm using less power. Something strange is going on

[Farmhand]

Real Magick Tesla Style - YouTube

Low-medium power used...

[edit] Btw you can just about see the HV spike problems by the neon flashing in the upper right corner of the image. As time goes on it gets worse and worse, but now I'm using less power. Something strange is going on

WoW that is very cool, looks like you tuned your instrument very well. I bet
that will make some people scratch their heads and look like this

What is the effect of lighting a fluro there like that ? Is that using the extra coil ?
Looks like the weights worked out pretty good for you. Is it 2 x 50 pF caps ?
Have you worked out a roundabout frequency you have it working at ?
If you get time could you post a drawing with the specs of the coils ?

I just did one for my small coils like this below. I worked out that with 20 nF
at 40 Khz with 1000v is about 25 watts or so, which seems about right, so I
am only pulsing these little coils with 1/16 the resonant frequency or (40 Khz)
and maybe up to 1/4 or (160 Khz) with a very small gap.


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

How big and strong are your quenching magnets ? I think if I hook up the
vacuum I can make the gap work better.
The ring magnets I got have too large of a hole so I need to get smaller ones
for the design I had in mind. So I just whipped up this little number, I need to
flatten the tips and smooth them, like you suggested.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

This is my 19 nF of caps rated to 8 Kv with the safety gap closed up a bit.
I'm going to make some primary coils that will only need a couple of nF and
see what happens.


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

If I can pulse the primary with 20 nF at 640 Khz it'll need over 200 watts I
think. But there should be 4 or 5 inch flames coming from the terminal for
that price. hehehe I'm guessing the coils could arc over and short out though
before that. Can't wait to find out.

The wire I got from the paddock is steel core about 1.3 mm and 5 mm overall
diameter with insulation. I wonder what steel wire will do. Might become it's
own magnetic core.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

I think it comes in aluminium and maybe copper, i'll have to check that out.

Cheers

[dR-Green]

WoW that is very cool, looks like you tuned your instrument very well. I bet
that will make some people scratch their heads and look like this

What is the effect of lighting a fluro there like that ? Is that using the extra coil ?
Looks like the weights worked out pretty good for you. Is it 2 x 50 pF caps ?
Have you worked out a roundabout frequency you have it working at ?
If you get time could you post a drawing with the specs of the coils ?

I just did one for my small coils like this below. I worked out that with 20 nF
at 40 Khz with 1000v is about 25 watts or so, which seems about right, so I
am only pulsing these little coils with 1/16 the resonant frequency or (40 Khz)
and maybe up to 1/4 or (160 Khz) with a very small gap.


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

How big and strong are your quenching magnets ? I think if I hook up the
vacuum I can make the gap work better.
The ring magnets I got have too large of a hole so I need to get smaller ones
for the design I had in mind. So I just whipped up this little number, I need to
flatten the tips and smooth them, like you suggested.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

This is my 19 nF of caps rated to 8 Kv with the safety gap closed up a bit.
I'm going to make some primary coils that will only need a couple of nF and
see what happens.


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

If I can pulse the primary with 20 nF at 640 Khz it'll need over 200 watts I
think. But there should be 4 or 5 inch flames coming from the terminal for
that price. hehehe I'm guessing the coils could arc over and short out though
before that. Can't wait to find out.

The wire I got from the paddock is steel core about 1.3 mm and 5 mm overall
diameter with insulation. I wonder what steel wire will do. Might become it's
own magnetic core.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

I think it comes in aluminium and maybe copper, i'll have to check that out.

Cheers

The fluoro isn't all that bright connecting it there, which makes it all the more puzzling how the filament is lighting like that. The fluoro is brighter at the top terminal. Also I get almost 1cm arc from the top terminal to the fluoro, but about 1mm spark where it goes into the bucket. The sparks off the other copper pipe and insulated bits of metal like the jar lid aren't much smaller either.

[edit] I got had a bit from the bucket side coil output too. Different from others I've experienced... I received (heard) the zap, then there was about a 2 second delay before it felt like my finger was being stabbed all over with loads of needles. Weird effect.

[edit #2] Come to think of it it didn't spark into my finger but into the metal clip I was holding so that's why I didn't get the initial burn/sting.

Yes this is using the extra coil. With the extra coil though there's double the amount of copper in the "secondary" part. I'll need 3mm wire to match the primary, but I haven't found more than 2mm on ebay or maplin so I might have to search a bit for that.

2x 200pF caps. The normal spiral uses 350pF (although this isn't necessarily tuned for best performance) and with the extra coil I remove a 150pF cap and replace it with 200pF. I'm not sure if 50pF makes up for the extra wire but there's definitely a better output, so I'm thinking 350pF might not be right for the normal setup. I'll have to test.

I wouldn't advise making this kind of design exactly, some of the parts were scrap materials from earlier things so I wouldn't have made them exactly like this if I had to make it all from scratch. I had to file down 8 flat surfaces on a holesaw reject, and to cut a long story short I don't like that. But here are the measurements.



And the parts



The grooves don't go up in a progressive spiral because I have 2 layered turns in each groove (with no arcing at the moment). And the measurements are taken vertically from the bottom of the bottom groove to the top of the top groove, and horizontally from the deepest part of the groove to the opposite side. The lines in the image show that but just in case it's not that clear. Those are the measurements of the actual (maximum) winding basically. With 22 SWG wire it has 25.5 turns.

In future I'll be making the supports in the same way I made the mini coils, that original Tesla type of look, or an improved version of this extra coil if I'll be using bendy MDF for the fixed spacing. I can draw something up along those lines if you want so it's easier than explaining. I'll come up with some standard design that can easily be scaled up or down.

My magnets are pretty strong, if they stick together then it's a job to get them apart again. They have a 5mm hole in the middle too. I have mine above and below the spark gap so they're attracting each other with some MDF as a spacer so they don't fall on the spark gap. And this method hasn't burst into flames yet like the MK1 so it's looking good

How did/do you adjust the safety gap? Set it slightly bigger than the spark gap?

Should be interesting to see what happens with the primaries, let me know how it goes Have you tried a 1 turn primary at all to see what happens? That spark gap looks pretty good too.

[dR-Green]

Picture of the whole thing with bits of tape securing it to test before making it permanent, and you can see the wire crossing over into the next groove. Same kind of winding as the spirals

[Farmhand]

Ok thanks dR, if your working on an improved design stay focused on that by
all means, no doubt it will be better.

It's good to know the extra coils works on a spiral too. The way I look at the
extra coil is- that it should be oriented so that the secondary acts like a serial
connected loosely coupled primary for the extra coil, in the patents Tesla says the
secondary can also be connected to the primary rather than ground and the
primary grounded. That makes the part of the primary that is in the secondary
circuit part of the secondary.

The setup can work with the bottom of the secondary connected to the primary
top (+) and the primary bottom (-) connected to ground. Kinda like the
bottom of the extra coil is connected to the top of the secondary but inside
or above/below it, to me it looks like the top of the secondary acts as a
serial connected primary to the extra coil.

Cheers

[Farmhand]

Here are some frame captures of what looks like the description of the "devils fingers".

It's a good visual of the energy using the surface of an insulator to conduct.
Sounds crazy. I've got some video to upload later showing it also.
The white fingers are quite zappy, I don't recommend touching them,
especially with the fingertips.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

You can see in these two pics below, the energy that does not go through
the glass splashes on the surface "radially" then conducts to the other side on the
outside. The splashing is interesting.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Hey dR, Also in the video I adjust my spark gap down fairly small, could you
watch the video when I put it up, and tell me if the spark gap is making a
sound anything like your's makes, at all, or close. I'm not sure it should sound
like yours anyway because my secondary frequency is only 640 to 680 Khz.
But I am just curious, of course.

I have to wait before I can upload.

Cheers

[Farmhand]

In this video I change the coil connections to one coil grounded to the primary
also I adjust the gap down to about as small as I can get it.

Spark gap and alternative secondary conection.wmv - YouTube

Cheers

[dR-Green]

In this video I change the coil connections to one coil grounded to the primary
also I adjust the gap down to about as small as I can get it.

Spark gap and alternative secondary conection.wmv - YouTube

Cheers

Cool video The spark gap sounds like mine used to sound, the first 14 seconds in particular. Where do you make it the smallest you can get, around 1:50? Do you have a schematic of the power supply side? Because I'm thinking increasing the voltage going into the flyback transformer is what mostly makes mine go into the "white noise" stage. With a lower voltage I can increase the current, but only with a combination of increased current and voltage does mine become a wider window if you will where this happens. For the record I'll make a video with sound using different input voltages and incandescent bulb on the output for an easy all round reference, after I've had some food

[Farmhand]

Ok thanks, yeah about 1.50, it can go a bit smaller than that but then 9 times
out of ten the tips heat up and close together then start to glow.

The 20 nF of primary caps is what is causing all the power use. I still haven't
got around to reducing that yet, when I do that will mean I can increase the
frequency of the supply, the governing factor for the supply frequency is the primary
caps and secondary HV supply resonant frequency, which is charging them.

I think what I need to do is work out exactly how much power I want to use
and taylor the primary circuit to suit that, which will decide what I make the
supply side frequency so that it's all resonant.

My main supply transformer is the only thing with a core in it now and it's core
can take many watts at quite high frequency.

I think your right I think I have good current and the peak voltage is too low or
the other way around, voltage is good but not enough current or frequency or
quenching to make it run faster with a wider gap. At high power with small gap it
can use over 5 amps, the input voltage multiplier I'm only using to raise the
voltage from 12 volts to about 14v, and the current increases by 3 amps
with 2 volts increase. It can almost double the 12 volts if I give
more PW to the doubler. At 20 volts the input current would be quite a few
amps more than my 5 amp meter would like to experience.

I had to bypass the charging inductors and de-q-ing diodes on the LV
transformer because of the input current. They were getting hot again.
So I found a way to burn up some stored energy, only problem is about 1/4 of
the energy I recover.

Anyway I was curious to hear the sound of your's lately. That bulb lighting
effect you got is amazing, I hope you don't lose the effect from your setup
somehow. It's very cool.

The power supply is evolving and it doesn't make much sense when done with
a schematic program, but I will draw up the most recent arrangement in
sketch no probs, I'll try to be neat.

Cheers

[Farmhand]

This is pretty much the arrangement at the moment. The recovery shouldn't
be necessary with an AC inverter circuit with near 50/50 duty.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

This is the input voltage doubler. Q2 connects the C1 negative to ground to
charge it to supply voltage and disconnects, then Q1 connects the supply to
the negative of the C1 to pump the the second cap to double the supply voltage.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

This is how I have my LV transformer/converter wound. Any HF inverter type
setup rated for the current and frequency should work.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

And these are some other voltage multipliers which can used with AC. They
can be used on the LV AC supply or the HV AC side with rated diodes and caps.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

I'll have to make another drawing with the SG3525 PWM circuitry, I can't find
the pic on the computer and the original has coffee stains on it.
The new circuit will have option for parallel mosfets. I'll be using some parts
rated for more current. With low on resistance. Almost time to start on that.

P.S. Most of the chip data sheets have these drawings in them, which is very
handy for us. These are from a SG3524 chip sheet though. It's a good PWM
chip too but the SG3525 is better.

Flyback converter circuit


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Push pull transformer circuit (inverter circuit)


Uploaded with ImageShack.us


Cheers

[dR-Green]

Just watching that video again now and I can see the spark gap better than the picture I was looking at. You have the magnets placed into slots? That tube design might be pretty good because you could easily get magnets that are bigger than the tube to sit on the top and the bottom while attracting each other, then maybe use side mountings on the tube to fix the whole thing in place I haven't really started thinking about it yet but the basis of my next spark gap will be keyboard drawer slider linear bearing things with a threaded rod and a handle to adjust the distance so it will be a lot finer and more stable. So good to have different ideas before starting all that.

I'm using a 3 stage multiplier like you've drawn but due to the 15v input voltage being lower than the 20v from the transformer + FWBR without the multiplier then I opted for full wave multiplication, I think it's worth doing if you have the extra caps and diodes. Anyway I'm going to start working on this video now, back in a bit

[Farmhand]

Just watching that video again now and I can see the spark gap better than the picture I was looking at. You have the magnets placed into slots? That tube design might be pretty good because you could easily get magnets that are bigger than the tube to sit on the top and the bottom while attracting each other, then maybe use side mountings on the tube to fix the whole thing in place I haven't really started thinking about it yet but the basis of my next spark gap will be keyboard drawer slider linear bearing things with a threaded rod and a handle to adjust the distance so it will be a lot finer and more stable. So good to have different ideas before starting all that.

I'm using a 3 stage multiplier like you've drawn but due to the 15v input voltage being lower than the 20v from the transformer + FWBR without the multiplier then I opted for full wave multiplication, I think it's worth doing if you have the extra caps and diodes. Anyway I'm going to start working on this video now, back in a bit

Yeah that's right, the diameter of the magnets and the slot length determine
the gap between them and they hold each other in place, if the tube is
mounted so that a variable speed vacuum can be connected it can be a
magnetically quenched sucker gap Which ought to be kinda cool, I
would've done it already but I think I should mount it solid first, I'll make a
better one that takes two magnets each side. These magnets do the slow fall
trick if they're dropped next to a long aluminium tube or bar. Neo magnets are
crazy strong. I set them on the bench but when I let go they took off and hit
the big motor stator about 10 inches away, everything in between went flying,
it took ages to separate them from everything and each other to put the
spacers back between them. Bit dangerous.

The wing head bolts are stainless steel and I'm not so sure that is a great
idea, maybe should be brass. I think I would prefer brass. Dunno why.
They make bells out of brass for some reason, maybe that's why.

Thanks for the vid.

Cheers

[dR-Green]

Yeah that's right, the diameter of the magnets and the slot length determine
the gap between them and they hold each other in place, if the tube is
mounted so that a variable speed vacuum can be connected it can be a
magnetically quenched sucker gap Which ought to be kinda cool, I
would've done it already but I think I should mount it solid first, I'll make a
better one that takes two magnets each side. These magnets do the slow fall
trick if they're dropped next to a long aluminium tube or bar. Neo magnets are
crazy strong. I set them on the bench but when I let go they took off and hit
the big motor stator about 10 inches away, everything in between went flying,
it took ages to separate them from everything and each other to put the
spacers back between them. Bit dangerous.

The wing head bolts are stainless steel and I'm not so sure that is a great
idea, maybe should be brass. I think I would prefer brass. Dunno why.
They make bells out of brass for some reason, maybe that's why.

Thanks for the vid.

Cheers

Yes I agree about the brass, I'm using 6mm copper rods. Apart from maybe you have more power going through it than me maybe brass or copper will conduct the heat better and not start to glow and expand I'm also thinking of getting some copper or brass strips to make rails with for the capacitors. All my croc clips that connect everything are puny little 600v things, so maybe parallel strips with some U shaped notches cut out of them to rest the caps in would improve things, and have better connections between everything etc.

I'm about to upload this video anyway, it took a lot longer than I thought. Damn webcam and sound problems It mostly seems to be ok now, but in the last section I think the higher power is causing problems with it so the sound is delayed a bit again. Windows movie maker won't allow simple functions like moving the audio track slightly Anyway I'll clean up the mess while this uploads and I should have plenty of time tomorrow to check out all the rest of the stuff you said

[dR-Green]

Voltage meter on the left, current on the right I need bigger caps on the power supply side too.

Input, Spark Gap And Output Observations And Documentation - YouTube

Right, 8:29am... Time for bed