Re: magnifier vs two coil system

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

Original poster: "Antonio Carlos M. de Queiroz by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <acmq-at-compuland-dot-com.br>

Tesla list wrote:
> 
> Original poster: "Gary Hill by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>"
<garyhill2-at-earthlink-dot-net>

> I don't think you have missed anything that everyone else didn't miss also.
> If you throw a bunch of parts together into a "car" configuration, you may
> end with something that looks  like a car. However if you don't understand
> how a car works and what it is for it is very unlikely that  you can make a
> working car even if you have all the right parts. Some here have made tesla
> coils in a magnifier configuation. I don't have any reason to believe that
> any of those coils actually magnified anything.

I am not sure if the actual "magnifying" action of a magnifier was 
understood by Tesla, but certainly the addition of a third coil to a
system having two can result in some increase in the output voltage.
The magnifier structure have been used in modern pulsed power systems
exactly due to this. The fundamental reasons are:
1 - With fast energy transfer, less oscillations before complete
transfer, less energy is lost.
2 - Two-coil system transfer energy in a minimum of 1 cycle, when the
coupling coefficient of the transformer is 0.6.
3 - It's difficult to make a sufficiently insulated Tesla transformer 
with this high coupling.
4 - The secondary coil can be split in two, and the high-voltage
terminal can be moved away, allowing a high coupling in the system
(note that the coupling coefficient of the transformer in this case
has to be higher than 0.6, because the direct connection to the third
coil lowers the effective coupling). This makes the "Tesla magnifier".
If the coupling coefficient of the overall system results low, as
in a regular Tesla coil, there is no advantage for the magnifier.
it's then just a variation of the same thing.
5 - The significant parasitic capacitances at the junction between 
the secondary and the third coil store energy that is not available 
at the terminal. This problem can be solved by adding a certain
amount of capacitance to this node, and making some adjustments in
the system. Details in:
http://www.coe.ufrj.br/~acmq/tesla/magnifier.html
 
> I remember reading a paper written by Tesla somewhere  on the net. ( lost
> the URL ) In this paper Tesla talked about a convention or something  that
> he had been at demonstrating  how it was possible to run  many different
> appliances with only one wire. ( No return wire )
> He then wrote that learning about  powering things with one wire led to
> wireless transmition and wireless led to the magnifier.
> 
> Does anyone here understand  how to power something  with one wire?  I don't
> think so. This kind of knowledge is shunned. Any one with any real education
> will tell you that it is imposable. Why is it imposable? Because it doesn't
> fit into the rules set forth by a few men a hundred and some years ago. Did
> these men that wrote the rules about how electrons react really know
> everything that can be known about electrons?

It's perfectly possible. One wire connects to the device, and the
current
return is made through displacement current, through an antenna
connected
to the device, or the body of the device itself. Works easily at high
frequencies, and can even work at low frequencies. Try this, that works
at 60 Hz using two diodes, a capacitor, and a small neon lamp:

AC phase
   o-------+------|>|-----+----+
           |              |    |
           |              C1   Neon lamp
           |              |    |
           +------|<|-----+----+

Use about 15 nF for the capacitance of C1, and don't use too short wires
in the connections. The lamp flashes periodically, "connected" by just
one wire to the mains. Be careful to not be shocked, as all the circuit
is "alive".
 
> Tesla was quietly shunned when it was learned that what he was trying to do
> at Warrencliff would eventually provide free or nearly free energy for
> almost anyone  in the world.
> 
> Some say that Warrencliff wouldn't work. I disagree. If it wasn't workable
> and provable  they would have simply let Tesla make a fool of himself. The
> fact that Tesla was suddenly a nobody  in spite of his success and fame says
> it all to me.

It's difficult to tell exactly what happened, given the amount of legend
around the episode, but I think that someone other than Tesla started to 
think about the viability of the whole idea... Tesla liked to experiment
more than anything else, and he would go to the end on that project just
to see what would happen, I think.
 
> I am not here because I want to make big sparks. I believe that Tesla was
> the master  of  electrical resonance. I have no formal training in
> electronics.  I thought this might be the place to learn about  resonant
> circuits.

They have no mystery at all. Resonance is everywhere in the theory of
linear systems and in Nature.
 
> I have seen articles on a couple of websites that talk of a Packard that
> Tesla had. It was powered by "collected" energy, one article said is would
> run up to 90 MPH.
> 
> I believe that Tesla powered the  Packard  using some kind of resonant
> circuit and probably his one wire power transfer technology.

Legend. Where does Tesla himself say something about this?

Antonio Carlos M. de Queiroz