RE:New Toy

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

Original poster: "Terry Fritz" <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>

Hi,

I looked at the output of the wand with the plane wave antenna today.  It
generally fires at the 120Hz line frequency:

	http://hot-streamer-dot-com/temp/Tek020607-1.gif

Sort of neat in that the electromagnetic contacts fire many times at the
peak of the AC cycles.

	http://hot-streamer-dot-com/temp/Tek020607-2.gif

	http://hot-streamer-dot-com/temp/Tek020607-3.gif

Looks like roughly 15 x 120 = 1800 BPS!

Has the nice Tesla coil wave form:

	http://hot-streamer-dot-com/temp/Tek020607-4.gif

Fo is about 330 kHz.

	http://hot-streamer-dot-com/temp/Tek020607-5.gif

It is interesting to note that the start of the waveform is very clean
compared to normal Tesla coils.  The gap is only breaking about 200 volts
instead of say 20,000 so the stored energy in capacitance around the gap is
not suddenly shorted causing massive RF EMI.

So far I have resisted the temptation to take it apart since it is new and
not broke yet :o))

 
tesla-at-ian-dot-org wrote:

>Don't worry about any radiation from this.  It puts out lots
>of high frequency RF, but no x-rays or radiation.

The wand does not put out X-rays but the iron cross vacuum tube sure did!

>What you have is an Odin coil, commonly known as a Violet Wand
>which were used in the early days of the 1900's as a medical
>device.  It was said to cure hair loss, cancer, blindness...
>pretty much everything.

Of course, Jeff Behary's "Turn Of The Century Electrotherapy Museum" tell's
all:

http://www.electrotherapymuseum-dot-com/

You can even buy modern reproductions of the old wands.  (Low pressure
instead of vacuum so no X-rays.)  Thank goodness for modern doctors!

>If you like neat electrical things, go find an older one.
>They make a great addition to any collection of electronic
>junk.  New ones are much better made so better for
>demonstrating it to people, old ones look cool.  :-)

I got mine to use. ;-))  The new ones are very well made replacing old
stuff with modern materials but the design is all the same.  If anyone has
an old one that does not work, I ran across these instructions to fix them.

http://www.electrotechnicproduct-dot-com/get_technical/article_1.html

Ebay has them from time to time but old ones probably have problems.
Probably nothing too bad that could not be fixed.  I think ETP will sell
you parts for them.  I notice ETP still sells induction coils with up to 6
inch spark length!

For those wondering what a Tesla coil could be used for, Here is a new one:

http://www.electrotechnicproduct-dot-com/bottle.html

They use the high voltage RF to test the vacuum in bottles like pills and
such are stored in.

US Patent No. 4,546,319 

This is interesting in that they use xenon strobe tubes to facilitate
ionization.  Not sure if that would be useful to the N2 laser triggered gap
folks.

Cheers,

	Terry