RE: Secondary Q variation experiment is going!!

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Mike Doyle by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <mdoyle-at-CHERRYCORP-dot-com>


<http://www.dicksonweb-dot-com>www.dicksonweb-dot-com 

has a range of networkable temperature & humidity loggers for a fairly
reasonable price (considering what some of Terry's equipment cost).

Michael Doyle - Senior Lab Technician 
Cherry Electrical Products 
11200 88th Ave, P.O. Box 581913 
Pleasant Prairie, WI  53158-0913 
Phone: (414) 942-6627 
Fax: (414) 942-6334 
EMAIL: <mdoyle-at-cherrycorp.htm>mdoyle-at-cherrycorp-dot-com 
http://www.cherrycorp-dot-com/  
-----Original Message-----  From:   Tesla list [SMTP:tesla-at-pupman-dot-com]  Sent:  
Tuesday, April 09, 2002 10:21 PM  To:     tesla-at-pupman-dot-com  Subject:        Re:
Secondary Q variation experiment is going!! 

Original poster: "Jim Lux by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>"
<jimlux-at-earthlink-dot-net> 

Way cool... Now what you need is a humidity sensor in your test facility...
 The
Radio Shack weather station is a bit pricey.. However, there are some  humidity
sensors by themselves that might be amenable to DMM interface...  Or, a
fan, and
a wet bulb/dry bulb setup with a water supply..... 

What's the form for the secondary? Sonotube? PVC pipe?  Is there some way to 
measure the actual temperature of the secondary (to see if it is below 
dewpoint?).. (Perhaps resistance of the windings?) 

The resistance of the secondary will change significantly with temperature.. 
does that correlate with observed Q at all? 



----- Original Message -----  From: "Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>  To:
<tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>  Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2002 6:54 PM  Subject: Secondary Q
variation experiment is going!! 

> Original poster: "Terry Fritz" <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>  >  > Hi All,  >  > Paul
and I have been real busy getting the Q variation experiment going.  > Happily,
it is now finally working and reporting very interesting  results!!  >  It is
really VERY complex so I will go over what it all is about...  >  > We are
studying what effect 'weather' has on the "Q" of secondary coils.  > By putting
high voltage 'step function' into a secondary coil, we "ping"  > the coil such
that it resonates.  We then do the FFT of the resonation to  > find all
kinds of
parameters.  I am doing the physical experiment stuff  and  > Paul is doing the
UNIX computer and high-powered math stuff.  Paul can  > remotely work on the
software on the computers here and just "make" it all  > work :-))  It's cool
having Paul fix the software on my computers  overnight  > so it's ready to go
when I wake up ;-))  >  > So here it goes.  I have a secondary (my "big" coil
sitting in the loft  out  > in the garage basically exposed to outdoor
temperature and humidity (a  > "drafty" garage to say the least)):  >  >
<http://hot-streamer-dot-com/temp/Paul/4-08/P4080009.jpg>http://hot-streamer.co
m/temp/Paul/4-08/P4080009.jpg  >  > The coil is "pinged" every five minutes at
10Hz for 10 seconds by the  > "pinger" that puts a series of 2500 volt step
functions into the coil:  >  >
<http://hot-streamer-dot-com/temp/Paul/4-06/P4060003.jpg>http://hot-streamer.co
m/temp/Paul/4-06/P4060003.jpg  >
http://hot-streamer-dot-com/temp/Paul/4-06/P4060004.jpg  >
<http://hot-streamer-dot-com/temp/Paul/4-06/P4060005.jpg>http://hot-streamer.co
m/temp/Paul/4-06/P4060005.jpg  >  >
http://hot-streamer-dot-com/tssp/3-30/TCMApinger001.jpg  >
<http://hot-streamer-dot-com/tssp/3-30/TCMApinger002.jpg>http://hot-streamer.co
m/tssp/3-30/TCMApinger002.jpg  >
http://hot-streamer-dot-com/tssp/3-30/TCMApinger003.jpg  >  > The pinger uses a
cool
resonant drive but I am not sure it could power a  > "real" Tesla coil...  >  >
The base current from the pinged coil is detected by a Pearson 4100 1:1  >
current monitor and the signal is feed back to the TEK 3012 scope through  a  >
long 50 ohm terminated cable.  The scope averages 64 pings from the 10  >
second
burst:  >  >
<http://hot-streamer-dot-com/temp/Paul/4-08/P4080008.jpg>http://hot-streamer-dot-com
/temp/Paul/4-08/P4080008.jpg  >
http://hot-streamer-dot-com/temp/Paul/4-08/P4080006.jpg  >  > The old laptop
running
Metratek software:  >  >
<http://www.metratek-dot-com/products.html>http://www.metratek-dot-com/products.html
  > 
> Far far better the "Dilbert committee" TEK software!!!) takes the data  >
every 10 minutes over a serial link from the scope and stores it to a  > shared
account "bob" on hot-streamer-dot-com via internal Ethernet as CSV  files  > of
each
waveform's data.  It is all fairly well automatically updated in  > real time: 
>  >
<http://hot-streamer-dot-com/bob/qvar/data/expt0/>http://hot-streamer-dot-com/bob/qv
ar/data/expt0/  >  > This data is then picked up every hour by my Sun Blade100
UNIX computer  via  > local FTP for analysis by Paul's software:  >  >
<http://hot-streamer-dot-com/tssp/3-30/sun.jpg>http://hot-streamer-dot-com/tssp/3-3
0/sun.jpg  >  > It also pulls data off a very nearby 110+ year old weather
station at the  > CSU campus across the street from me and figures out all the
"details".  >  >
<http://ccc.atmos.colostate.edu/cgi-bin/wx_form.pl>http://ccc.atmos.colostat
e.edu/cgi-bin/wx_form.pl  >  >
http://hot-streamer-dot-com/temp/Paul/4-08/P4080010.jpg  >  >
<http://www.abelian.demon.co.uk/tssp/tcma/>http://www.abelian.demon.co.uk/t
ssp/tcma/  >  > The 64 bit Sun computer with 640Meg of RAM (ok, maybe that's
overkill  :-)))  > crunches that data and stuff with Paul's programs and store
the results to  > a nice web page at:  >  >
<http://hot-streamer-dot-com/bob/qvar/results/expt0/index.html>http://hot-strea
mer-dot-com/bob/qvar/results/expt0/index.html  >  > For you "results oriented"
folks, the above page is the "important" one  > ;-))  It shows that the Q
dropped wildly when it rained.  The frequency of  > the harmonics took a dive
tonight as it dried up here.  Only in Colorado  do  > you see the humidity drop
from 100% to 10% in six hours :-))  We may have  > missed the snow here since
the prairie dogs have lost their woolly  > coats....  But spring has
"interesting" weather too...  All of Paul's  > programs do the data collection
and crunching stuff.  He is obviously real  > good at this ;-))  >  >
<http://www.abelian.demon.co.uk/tssp/>http://www.abelian.demon.co.uk/tssp/
>  >
We "think" that water falling on the near roof is affecting the coil's Q  >
greatly:  >  >
<http://hot-streamer-dot-com/temp/Paul/4-08/P4080011.jpg>http://hot-streamer-dot-com
/temp/Paul/4-08/P4080011.jpg  >  > It seemed that once rain fell on the
roof the
coil's Q instantly dropped  > like 80%!!  I was going to hose down the roof
tonight to check but the  > humidity is real low so a bad time to go messing
with things...  >  > All this is pretty young and raw but Paul and I thought we
had better  > report "something".  It's not like we have been sleeping recently
;-))  > Paul is like 8 hours ahead of me so the time zones do not match well,
but  > one of us is usually 'sort of' awake :-))  >  > Lots more experimenting
to be done to track down what is affecting what...  > It's all very young and
new so not at all sure what the "great meaning" is  > but data is pouring in. 
Great fun!!!  >  > Cheers,  >  > Terry  >  >  >  >  >  >  >  >