Jes Ascanius Radiant collector

[Cavy]

My opinions in bold above.

Thanks for the feedback!

I'm going to make a configuration of two Al plates 1000x1000mm (40x40") connected together, and conductors of solid cooper pipe 1/5" thick (5mm) with heat-shrink tube as insulator. Contact bolts between Cu pipe and Al plate will be brass. For the electrical circuit I'll make two versions, one with first approach (germanium diodes) and other with fast silicone, and try which one works better.

I asked my first question because of the discrepancy in PKJ's compilation that made me wonder. At page 7-8, Jes used a 700x100mm drum with 20 turns of wire as antenna, but at page 7-10 the Al plate is introduced, and the drum isn't mentioned anywhere else. However, Tesla's original patent from 1900 (US Pat.649,621) on receiver side mentions both the plate (D') and the bi-filar coil (A'). Tesla_ReGen from the forums also mentions using the coil. Anyways, I'm going to try with the plate, then introduce the coil if the plate doesn't give sufficient power. Maybe try a coil with a moveable ferrite rod, so to be able to fine-tune the inductance.

Hear you soon

[thx1138]

More feedback

Thanks for the feedback!

I'm going to make a configuration of two Al plates 1000x1000mm (40x40") connected together, and conductors of solid cooper pipe 1/5" thick (5mm) with heat-shrink tube as insulator. Contact bolts between Cu pipe and Al plate will be brass. For the electrical circuit I'll make two versions, one with first approach (germanium diodes) and other with fast silicone, and try which one works better.
Sounds good. Let us know how the diode tests work out. I'm thinking the fast silicone won't work out so well because the germanium will switch much earlier in the cycle. But I could be worng.

I asked my first question because of the discrepancy in PKJ's compilation that made me wonder. At page 7-8, Jes used a 700x100mm drum with 20 turns of wire as antenna, but at page 7-10 the Al plate is introduced, and the drum isn't mentioned anywhere else.
Look closely and you'll notice another difference: in the first one with the drum the circuit is connected between the drum and the ground while the second one with the plate connects the plate and the ground directly and the circuit takes off of that connection and has a separate ground. I've had my best result with the plate and the circuit connected between the plate and the ground like it is shown with the drum.

However, Tesla's original patent from 1900 (US Pat.649,621) on receiver side mentions both the plate (D') and the bi-filar coil (A'). Tesla_ReGen from the forums also mentions using the coil. Anyways, I'm going to try with the plate, then introduce the coil if the plate doesn't give sufficient power. Maybe try a coil with a moveable ferrite rod, so to be able to fine-tune the inductance.
You are mixing apples and oranges here. The patent you cite is about transmission of energy, not radiant energy collection. Many people confuse and combine the two but they are not the same thing. The transmission patent is about wireless transmission of industrial scale power regardless of what the source of the power is. Notice the item marked G at the bottom of the left hand drawing. That's the source. One of the things people seem to skip over is the "...for if the potential be sufficiently high and the terminals of the coils be maintained at the proper elevation where the atmosphere is rarefied...". That "proper elevation" turns out to be 30,000 or 35,000 feet. You have to go back to patent US Patent 645,576 to find that proper elevation and what you find is this: "...with terminals not more than thirty to thirty-five thousand feet above the level of the sea, and even this comparatively-small elevation will be required chiefly for reasons of economy...". Comparatively small? He proposed maintaining the balloons at that altitude with helium. As far as I know he never attempted that and that's a good thing - the jet stream was unknown at that time and those +200 MPH winds would surely have been a problem.

In his July 4, 1899 Colortado Springs notes he discovered that he could accomplish the same thing by transmitting through the crust of the earth and that discovery is what Wardencliffe was based upon.

So the point is the patent you cite is not about collecting radiant energy but the transmission of power - however that power is generated. I wouldn't spend much time on those coils. His radiant energy patents do, however, show coils but it is in a different context.

Comments above in bold.

RE the coils and radiant energy I've been thinking about David H.'s problem and his reference to Lawrence Rayburn's TREC and it might be interesting to rework that TREC thinking regarding the coils as a storage devices. It might be that Lawrence Rayburn's problem is that he is trying to use resonance where none exists. Dr. Moray described the radiant energy like waves in the ocean - undulating. My guess is that there is no constant frequency to which resonance could be applied. If we go down that road it should be a different thread since this one is about Jes Ascanius' circuit.

One last thought: be sure to insulate your plate and ground connections after you make them. You want to keep the collected charge in the metal. Just about anything would work as long as it's an insulator. You're just trying to keep the air away from metal.

[thx1138]

Circuit Board Files Available

Please read AscaniusCircuitBoards.doc included in the ZIP file. Opening the files requires the ExpressPCB software. There is a link in the AscaniusCircuitBoards.doc file.

Download from here: AscaniusCircuitBoards.zip

[Guruji]

Yesterday I painted the plate for insulation but got worse regarding charge

Last time I was seeing atleast 0.5v but now nothing
Should find what is going wrong now.

[thx1138]

Elevated plate insulation

Yesterday I painted the plate for insulation but got worse regarding charge

Last time I was seeing atleast 0.5v but now nothing
Should find what is going wrong now.

It probably depends on the type of paint you used. Paint is probably not a good insulator for this application.

What you want is a dielectric insulation. The better the dielectric properties of the insulation, the better results you will have.

Dielectric constant is a material's ability to separate charges. Dissipation factor is the amount of charge dissipated by the energy converting to heat in that material. Low dissipation factor is better than high dielectric constant. Ideally we want the lowest dissipation factor and the highest dielectric constant. If the elevated plate is exposed to direct sunlight that also needs to be a consideration because such exposure will break down many plastic dielectrics.

I've been experimenting with some different dielectrics. I also tried a spray on kind of semi-rubber compound and it didn't make any difference at all. I tried the plastic household film that Jes Ascanius suggested and that worked better than the bare plate. I have also tried 3/16" (~5mm) high density polystyrene (not foam board) and that gave better results than the household film but I think that may be too thick. I will test with thinner polystyrene and also polypropylene at some point in the future.

Whatever you use, it needs to completely seal the metal plate - surfaces and edges. The dielectric has two functions: it separates the charges and it keeps the captured charges from equalizing with charges in the air around the plate.

For the latter reason also insulate all connections above ground.

The reason for polishing the elevated plate is to ensure maximum contact with the dielectric to get maximum charge transfer.

Completely sealing the elevated plate with dielectric insulation also prevents ionizing the air around any points or corners on the plate so should protect somewhat against lightning strikes.

What I would like to do is come up with a chamber in which I could place a metal plate (aluminum or copper) in a sandwich with the dielectric on both sides, draw a vacuum in the chamber and then heat the dielectric enough for it melt together around the metal plate. I think it is called an autoclave but I haven't seen anything affordable that would work with a 4' X 4' metal plate. Any ideas, anyone?

[Allcanadian]

When working with electrostatics I found most paint is semi-conductive, silver and black(carbon) are the worst. As an insulator I would use polyethylene sheet or a varathane/clear epoxy but saran or cling wrap may work well.
If the material is black/dark it most likely contains carbon which is conductive and white or clear materials are the better option.

AC

[Guruji]

I used car paint that I had from my old car. It had thinner in it for sure but don't know about it's dielectric.

[philly b]

Im wondering if the aluminium plate could be anodized with an aluminium oxide layer as the dielectric. It has a higher dielectric constant than most plastics.

[thx1138]

Not electrostatics

When working with electrostatics I found most paint is semi-conductive, silver and black(carbon) are the worst. As an insulator I would use polyethylene sheet or a varathane/clear epoxy but saran or cling wrap may work well.
If the material is black/dark it most likely contains carbon which is conductive and white or clear materials are the better option.

AC

I don't believe we are working with electrostatics here. This is not like Plauson's work. Dr. Tesla's "radiant energy" is about charged particles more commonly known as cosmic rays or charged sub-atomic particles. It's not neutrinos because they have miniscule or no charge at all. Ultra high energy cosmic rays and high energy cosmic rays are viable candidates in my opinion. If I understand them correctly, they are protons accelerated to near the speed of light by galactic processes like gamma-ray bursts or the polar emissions of balck holes and they are arriving at the earth from all directions within the universe and at all times, i.e. day and night. Many are trapped by the Van Allen belts but many are either not trapped or escape from the Van Allen belts and collide with atmospheric molecules at near light speed. Since they are sub-atomic particles they are miniscule but contain enormous kinetic energy and potential relative to their size.

As they traverse the atmosphere and collide with matter in the atmosphere they give up some of their energy with each collision and continue on until they reach our insulated plate where they give up some energy and still continue on. I saw an article that I can't find right now that said they can penetrate solid rock on the surface to a depth of 3 or 4 meters. This is why elevation above sea level matters. The less atmosphere the charged particle traverses, the less energy it has given up by the time it reaches the elevated plate and the more energy it will impart to the plate.

What we are collecting is the energy they are giving up when they collide with our dielectric and metal plate. The dielectric serves to keep the energy trapped. The dielectric properties of the insulation separate and align the charges so that the charges impinging on the metal plate are the opposite charge of those being supplied by the earth ground connection. This leaves the opposite charge in the dielectric (the same as the earth ground polarity) aligned with the outside of the dielectric which attracts, however minutely, more charges of the polarity being attracted to the metal plate.

So this isn't DC electricity. It's not sine wave AC either because the charged particles collide with the plate at irregular times, each imparting a tiny impulse of power. Dr. Moray described it as like waves surging in the ocean.

Connect a battery to the inputs of Jes Ascanius' circuit and you will get zero output. Connect them to a transformer with a low voltage AC output and you'll see 4 to 5 times the voltage output (unloaded) as that which was input. It's not over unity. It's just a voltage multiplier but it doesn't do anything with DC voltage. Thus, the electricity coming into the plate is not DC and so it is not electrostatic.

The system is harvesting the power imparted to the cosmic rays by whatever process accelerated them to their enormous speeds like water falling through a turbine harvests the energy imparted to the falling water by gravity. And, with the proper perspective, it can be tied back to Dr. Tesla's "Diagram B. Obtaining Energy From The Ambient Medium" in The Problem of Increasing Human Energy. The "ambient medium with much energy" is the universe, the "medium with little energy" is the earth, and "path of the energy" is through this system.

Figure 4 in Dr. Tesla's US Patent 685,957 shows "a special form of Roentgen tube" emitting charged particles (X-Rays) that impinge on the elevated plate. Point an X-Ray tube at the elevated plate and watch your output jump!

The cosmic rays from the universe are nature's charged particles. We don't have to do anything to create them. We are already being bombarded by them every minute of every day. We just need to collect their energy as they pass through and convert it to electricity which is exactly what this system does.

[thx1138]

I used car paint that I had from my old car. It had thinner in it for sure but don't know about it's dielectric.

Paints are made of two components: vehicle and pigment. The vehicle is the liquid part that carries the pigment and it evaporates leaving only the pigment on the surface. So the dielectric properties would boil down to what material the pigment is made of. The thinner will evaporate and not play a part in the finish coating.

[thx1138]

Dielectric constant vs dissipation factor

Im wondering if the aluminium plate could be anodized with an aluminium oxide layer as the dielectric. It has a higher dielectric constant than most plastics.

Could be an interesting experiment. I think it would depend on the dissipation factor of the aluminum oxide. We want the highest dielectric constant with the lowest dissipation factor. The dissipation factor measures how much of the energy is converted to heat in the dielectric. The more energy is converted to heat, the less energy is available to convert to electricity. Low dissipation factor is more important than high dielectric constant chiefly because it determines how much energy remains in the dielectric for conversion to electricity.

[philly b]

[/U][/U]

Could be an interesting experiment. I think it would depend on the dissipation factor of the aluminum oxide. We want the highest dielectric constant with the lowest dissipation factor. The dissipation factor measures how much of the energy is converted to heat in the dielectric. The more energy is converted to heat, the less energy is available to convert to electricity. Low dissipation factor is more important than high dielectric constant chiefly because it determines how much energy remains in the dielectric for conversion to electricity.

http://ma.ecsdl.org/content/MA2006-01/9/392.full.pdf

Abstract: I have found that the presence of moisture in the
Anodic aluminium oxide affects the capacitance & dissipation
factor values. The oxide thickness is derived from the knowledge of
anodizing voltage.
A/Cm= A/Ci + d/KEo
Where Cm and Ci are the measured and interfacial capacitances, A= area
of the junction, K=dielectric constant &
Eo =permittivity of free space.
So a straight line is drawn between “(A/Cm) vs. d “using the least
square curve fitting of the data. When this line is extrapolated, it
intercepts on y-axis, the capacitance value corresponding to which
gives the interfacial capacitance as 1.74 F/ cm. Here the total
capacitance Cm is a combination of bulk Cb and interfacial Ci
contributions. The value of constant K comes out to be 9.53 .The value
of capacitance of the same sample is taken after ten days. It gives lower
interfacial capacitance (1.25 F/cm) compared to the value obtained
from capacitance measurement on the first day. This shows that the
capacitance of this thin film device decrease on aging. It seems possible
that the presence of moisture in the anodic aluminium oxide affects
the capacitance value. To analyze in detail, it was decided to heat the
sample for removal of moisture and do the capacitance measurements
again. After anodizing one sample was left in air at room temperature
Where as the second and third were annealed at 100 and 200
respectively for five hours in a vacuum of 4*10(-6) torr, it is quite
clear that annealing leads to considerable reduction in the total
capacitance, providing support for the conjecture that changes could be
due to the presence of moisture. Further the sample left in air at room
temperature shows fluctuations and overall decrease in the capacitance
value with time. On the other hand ,annealed samples exhibit less
fluctuations and the extent of decrease in capacitance value with time
is also very less. It is therefore obvious that the presence of moisture in
the anodic oxide films is very affecting its dielectric properties. Similar
to the capacitance, the dissipation factor is also influence by the
decrease in the thickness of the oxide layer. The value of D decreases
as the oxide thickness increases .The dissipation factor also affected
by aging of samples. On aging, the value of dissipation factor increases.
The aging studies were then carried out with the oxide film prepared at
10 volts and annealed subsequently under high vacuum show variation
in the dissipation factor with time. It reveals that dissipation factor
increases with elapsed time and attaining a saturation value, higher
then the initial one for pure anodized oxide sample. However for the
annealed samples the trend is reverse and D values are always smaller
than the initial ones. Thus it becomes clear that only the annealed
oxide films exhibit good dielectric properties.

[thx1138]

[/U][/U]
Thus it becomes clear that only the annealed oxide films exhibit good dielectric properties.

"Good" as compared to what? It seems the paper is saying good compared to non-annealed oxide films. But how would that stack up against other dielectrics?

The other thing to consider is that we are working with a power system so we want as little change due to aging as possible, whether it is a benefit or a detriment, because it will change the power output. Beneficial would increase power output but if the circuits aren't designed for it they could get overloaded and the magic smoke could get out. That was one of the interesting things I found out about the metalized snubber capacitors being used on the AC side of this circuit: their stability can be measured in decades. Not so for the electrolytics, so that will need some work. And I have no idea about the Germanium diodes and haven't yet found anything about it in the datasheets I have.

BTW I found that an autoclave uses high pressure, not vacuum, so that's not what I'm looking for. I found some vacuum ovens that first looked promising until I saw they cost ~$3000.00 and up to do a smaller aluminum plates. Does anyone know of a service that could produce a 4' X 4' X 16ga aluminum plate vacuum molded into polystyrene?

I did find that Dr. Tesla has a patent for a machine and process doing just this: U.S. 577,671 Manufacture Of Electric Condensers, Coils, & o. It first pulls a vacuum on the chamber to remove the air, then draws in the melted insulating material around the device, and, once the device being insulated is covered, the vaccum is released and air pressure is applied to compress the insulation around the device being insulated.

[philly b]

This was the bit that caught my eye :

The value of D decreases
as the oxide thickness increases.

Annealing and vacuum chambers are way out of my building capabilities. But i could maybe rig up some kind of anodizing set up. Sometimes I drive past an electroplaters, next time im in the neighbourhood ill drop in and see what coatings they can do.

I guess its question of how long the oxide coating would last (annealed or not), I could handle recoating the plate every few years but not if it was a constant battle to maintain the power.

[thx1138]

This was the bit that caught my eye :

The value of D decreases
as the oxide thickness increases.

Annealing and vacuum chambers are way out of my building capabilities. But i could maybe rig up some kind of anodizing set up. Sometimes I drive past an electroplaters, next time im in the neighbourhood ill drop in and see what coatings they can do.
I could probably build a vacuum chamber but my problem is a heated vacuum chamber large enough for 4' X 4' sheet. That size is also what makes a job shop attractive.

I guess its question of how long the oxide coating would last (annealed or not), I could handle recoating the plate every few years but not if it was a constant battle to maintain the power.
Jes Ascanius had one mounted to the bottom of the rafters in his house. I don't think there would be much degradation in that case but it also raises the question of whether it would attract lightning.

Comments above in bold.