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Re: Magnifier system

At 06:21 AM 11/12/96 +0000, you wrote:
>From jd231825-at-engr.colostate.eduMon Nov 11 23:07:15 1996
>Date: Mon, 11 Nov 1996 13:37:32 -0700
>From: Jeff Detweiler <jd231825-at-engr.colostate.edu>
>To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
>Subject: Magnifier system
>
>Greetings,
>
>A little while ago I wrote asking about the TC magnifier configuration
>since I was admittedly quite ignorant of ever seeing this setup! :) Thanks
>for everyone's patience.
>
>I appreciated the replies, especially from Richard Hull and Kristian
>Ukkonen, that gave me some understanding of how the magnifier system works.
>Now I have the opportunity to do a short paper in one of my classes on a
>topic of my choice, so I chose TC coils and TC magnifiers in the hope of
>learning more.
>
>Could someone please point me to some good references on TC magnifiers?
>(References that explain thoroughly and don't skimp on the mathematical
>theory either).
>
>One thing I'm still confused about is, does the magnifier produce a maximum
>output at a resonant frequency where the coil's self-inductance and
>self-capacitance cancel (as with a series RLC circuit) to give minimum
>impedance? I want to clarify this since I thought the resonant frequency of
>a "standard" TC setup was determined by the 1/4 wavelength of the secondary
>coil (to produce maximum voltage at the top of the coil in a standing wave
>fashion) which is not based on the coil's capacitance and inductance. Is
>this where the Q factor comes in, in that resonant frequency is the 1/4
>wavelength for the standard setup, but that a coil built such that the L
>and the C cancel each other as much as possible is most ideal?
>
>Thanks in advance,
>Jeff Detweiler
>
>---------------------------------------------

 Jeff -

 There is a lot of speculative information available on magnifiers but no
hard facts on theory. Nikola Tesla theorized that additional amplification
over the typical classical Tesla coil appeared to be possible but was not
able to prove this possibility. 

In the past few years several coilers have built what they call magnifiers
that have produced spectacular sparks. However, I have never seen any data
published that would indicate that these magnifiers produce more output than
classical Tesla coils when controlled tests are made. I believe the Tesla
coil can be refigured to produce more output than the classical coil, a job
for future Tesla coil engineers.

The theoretical secondary voltage rise equations for the standard coil are -

     Vs = Vp sqrt(Ls/Lp) = Vp sqrt(Cp/cs) = Vp sqrt(Qs/Qp)

 No one has ever been able to measure the voltage at the secondary terminal
to verify these equations because connecting any type of instrumentation to
the terminal will lower the voltage an unknownable amount. The voltage can
only be roughly found by measuring the electric field around the secondary
terminal similar to the electric field around a radio antenna. The Tesla
coil field has to do with electric charges (forces) around the terminal. The
radio field has to do with electromagnetic (photon) radiation. 

Tesla was always careful to point out this important difference between
electric charge fields and radio fields because only the Tesla coil had the
potential to transmit large amounts of electrical power thru the ionosphere.
This idea is now being used by NASA in the Tether experiment.

The classical Tesla coil is an air core resonant transformer and does not
have to operate at the 1/4 wavelength of the secondary. In fact many coils
do not operate at the 1/4 wavelength with the coiler not being aware of it. 

Jack C.