[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]

Re: Splitting & Tank

 * Carbons Sent to: usa-tesla-at-usa-dot-net

Quoting Malcolm Watts <MALCOLM-at-DIRECTORATE.WNP.AC.NZ>:

MW> Hi all,
MW> I was intrigued to see this comment to Richard from
MW> Robert Michaels about what is and isn't a Tesla Coil.....

 > > One such depicted the Tesla Primary connected to the
 > > bottom of the Tesla Secondary.
 >
 > > The point of this post is to protest, please, in very strong
 > > terms the implication that such a circuit is a Tesla Coil.
 > > It is not.  Dr. Tesla would be especially peeved to see it
 > > characterized as such.

MW> I think that considering the numerous configurations of 
MW> resonant transformers there aren't many that could be 
MW> classified as other than a Tesla Coil. One thing that I found
MW> in the one book I've read on Tesla so far were the exhaustive
MW> variations on a theme that characterized his inventive 
MW> investigations. For example, there weren't many AC motors 
MW> left for anyone else to invent by the time he'd finished. 

I concur with this line of discussion. If the material does not
directly appear in Tesla's patent record then Tesla was recorded
elsewhere (as in his lectures) with priority in these areas. 

MW> The same would be true of RF transformers - he was streets
MW> ahead of anyone else in this field. How many configurations
MW> does anyone know of that were invented after Tesla finished
MW> (if he ever did) his research in this area ?

This is an exceedingly interesting study. I have seen many
different coil configurations that were supposed to be original,
and at one time I even thought I had come up with one myself.
There is no such thing as an "Oudin" coil, Tesla is shown with
priority on both the circuit and the application, though the
circuit Tesla proposed for medical applications was inherently
safer. I thought I had happened upon a unique bi-polar magnifier
configuration with two matching extra coils (a very unusual and
advanced circuit), however a look at page 79 of the venerable
COLORADO SPRINGS NOTES 1899-1900, (CSN), N. Tesla, shows "my"
configuration closely enough that I would not dare to argue
priority despite my intention to reverse wind the coils (and
thereby the phasing) on either side of the ground connection.

In my opinion the "Oudin" vs Tesla coil discussion, as well as
Tesla LC oscillator/resonator configuration discussions are moot.
If Tesla did not document the wiring diagram in his patent
record, lectures, or the CSN, you can rest assured Tesla
considered the variation trivial and not worthy of mentioning.
He generally published the configuration that he felt to be most
effective. There is no question in my mind, and should be none in
the minds of the readers here, that he explored every possible
circuit configuration relating to this specific area of his work,
documented or not. Tesla was years and years ahead of the pack
and was literally attacking the problem of RF power processing
from many different angles simultaneously: mechanical circuit
controllers, HF alternators, electrical oscillators, RF
transformers, tuned antennas, receiving circuits, multiplex
(transmission & reception),  regenerative and hetrodyne. Don't
forget such insights as the AND logic gate and Tesla's intended
application for this circuit in communications as part of the
"art of individualization", Patent No. 577,670 (February 23,
1897) and introduced in a small oscillator in his demonstration
of April 6, 1897 before the New York Academy of Sciences. These
mentions just skim his work in this area.

I will quote Tesla from his 1916 interview with his legal
counsel, in print as: NIKOLA TESLA ON HIS WORK WITH ALTERNATING
CURRENTS AND THEIR APPLICATION TO WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY, TELEPHONY,
AND TRANSMISSION OF POWER, N. Tesla, edited by Leland I.
Anderson, published in 1992 by Sun Publishing, Div. of
Boyle & Anderson, Denver, CO., 80219. Library of Congress 
Catalog #92-60482, ISBN 0-9632652-0-2, pp 48:

"This work [RF power processing & "Tesla Coils"] was begun
already in 1889. This type of apparatus is identified with my
name as certain as the law of gravitation is with that of Newton.
I know that some have claimed that Professor Thomson also
invented the so-called Tesla coil, but those feeble chirps ne'er
went beyond Swampscott. Professor Thomson is an odd sort of man;
very ingenious, but he never was a wireless expert; he never
could be. Moreover, it is important to realize that this
principal [capacitive discharge LC oscillator] is universally
employed everywhere. The greatest men of science have told me
that this was my best achievement and, in connection with this
apparatus [referring to Patent No. 462,418, Nov. 3, 1891], I may
say that a lot of liberties have been taken. For instance, a man
fills this space [spark gap/break] with hydrogen; he employs all
of my instrumentalities, everything that is necessary, but calls
it a new wireless system -- the Poulsen arc. I cannot stop it.
Another man puts in here [moves the spark gap across the supply
as opposed to the gap in series with the inductance as diagramed
in the patent] a kind of gap -- he gets a Nobel prize for doing
it. My name is not mentioned. Still another man inserts here
[into the supply feed to the circuit] a mercury rectifier. This
is my friend Cooper Hewitt. But, as a matter of fact, those
devices have nothing to do with performance."

"If these men knew what I do, they would not touch my
arrangements; they would leave my apparatus as it is. Marconi
puts in here [spark gap/break] two wheels. I showed only one
wheel; he shows two. And he says, "See what happens when the
wheels are rotated; a wonderful thing happens!" What is the
wonderful thing? Why, when the teeth of the wheels pass one
another, the currents are broken and interrupted. That is the
wonderful thing that happens? The lord himself could not make
anything else happen unless he broke his own laws. So, in this
way, invention has been degraded, debased, prostituted, more in
connection with my apparatus than in anything else. Not a vestige
of invention as a creative effort is in the thousands of arrange-
ments that you see under the name of other people -- not a
vestige of invention. It is exactly like in car couplings on
which 6,000 patents have been taken out; but all of the couplings
are constructed and operated exactly the same way. The inventive
effort involved is about the same as that which a 30-year-old
mule is capable. This is a fact."

Richard Quick


... If all else fails... Throw another megavolt across it!
___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12