Re: High midnight at the Texas corral

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

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

Hi Bert,

At 12:01 AM 4/4/2003 -0600, you wrote:


>>Antonio has done some theoretical work which suggests that
>>a special magnifier design may outperform a 2- coil system,
>>but this is difficult to achieve, and has never been demonstrated
>>in a spark-producing coil.
>>
>>John
>
>
>John, all,
>
>I say Antonio's premise of a magnifier's out performance of a conventional 
>coil has already been successfully demonstrated in a spark producing coil.
>
>We have a magnifier which has produced 15 foot sparks, photographed and 
>measured.  The tank capacitor is a small Maxwell 0.015 ufd cap.  That's 
>not a typo - that is 0.015 ufd.  The transformer is a dinky 1.5 kva unit, 
>which admittedly was pushed hard - it actually got warm to the 
>touch.   The rotary disk is maybe 6 inches in diameter.  The resonator 
>coil is 24 inches long.
>
>Several people on this list attended a 1997 Teslathon and saw this coil 
>perform, first-hand.
>
>OK, somebody out there show me ONE conventional coil running a 0.015 ufd 
>cap making 15 foot sparks.  Just one.  Then I'll say conventional coils 
>can match magnifiers' performance.

It is interesting to back figure what goes on here (I don't know the 
details of this coil).  If we take John's formula of Spark Length = 1.7 x 
SQRT(input power) and assuming your transformer is 14.4kV we get:

15 x 12 = 1.7 x SQRT (11211)     11211 watts over 14400 volts gives a 
current of 780mA!  That is 7.5 times the rated current of 105mA!!  If all 
this is correct for your system, that tranny should have gotten warm fast 
as you indicate ;-))  So I am pretty sure you were drawing more than 
1.5kVA  Of course, how much of the great spark length is caused by the 
magnifier action and how much is caused by high transformer running VA is 
not known.

11211 watts implies 11211 joules per second of processed energy too.  For a 
15nF cap running at 21kV we can find a BPS.  Note the "/2" factor of an 
async gap too:

11211 = 1/2 x 15nF x 21000^2 x (BPS/2)

BPS = 6800!!

So the first question is was the gap running super fast or have many 
electrodes on it so it could get to the 7000 BPS area?

A "small" cap can run very high power too if the BPS rate is high.  The 
recent trend to larger cap values is mostly driven buy NST systems trying 
to match to the NSTs fixed current output.


>I helped Wild Bill Emery build the Wart Hog, a big conventional coil, and 
>it makes pretty impressive 12 foot sparks, but jeez, we're pumping 15 kva 
>from *two* pole pigs into it, and we have to use between 0.08 to 0.10 ufd 
>capacitance to get that much out.  That's a lot of capacitors which 
>equates into a lot of dollars. (and Bill, you know I'm not saying anything 
>bad about the Hog - it's a beautiful machine!)
>
>On one hand, 12 foot sparks from a conventional coil, using TWO pole pigs, 
>versus 15 foot sparks from a magnifier using a potential transformer that 
>I pick up and carry around by myself?   And people on this list say 
>conventional coils and magnifiers have equivalent performance???
>
>I say bull hockey!   *Anybody* out there, anyone at all, got a 
>conventional coil that can kick my magnifier coil's butt?

Greg Leyh does ;-))  But his coils have a power input that would vaporize 
our "little" coils!!  Were talking 130kVA for a length of about 30+ 
feet.  With a 0.8PF that is about 110000 watts.  But actually, using John's 
formula, it should get about 47 foot arcs...

http://www.lod-dot-org/electrum/electrumpics.html

But when we look at Bill Wysocks big 57+ foot Model 13 with 125KVA input, 
john's formula falls far short.

http://www.ttr-dot-com/model13.html

So in the case of big coils, magnifiers seem to have a great 
advantage.  They may also have an advantage with smaller systems 
too.  Lately, so much has been going on with two coil systems that maybe we 
have overlooked the magnifier systems especially in light of our new recent 
knowledge.  But the two coil system is getting to be so well known at an 
almost microscopic level now, that the three coil system may be up to 
bat.  Magnifiers, if they do perform remarkably better, would probably be 
found to match power to burning air better which is a poorly understood 
area.  It is also noted that Tesla's big coil was a magnifier and he knew 
two coil system very well!!  So could we "two coilers" have missed the boat 
on magnifier systems, oh heck yeah!! :o))


>Is anyone else on this list making 15 foot sparks with any conventional 
>coil, using a commercial power transformer that they can pick up and carry 
>by themselves?  NO?  And I ain't no Arnold Schwartzenegger either - I'm a 
>50 year old paper pusher.

With one hand, on a forklift lever ;-))

http://www.ttr-dot-com/images/img-11.jpg


>Show me 15 foot sparks with ANY conventional coil, ANY size transformer - 
>but with just one constraint:  0.015 ufd capacitance.  Let us see that 
>conventional coil equivalency in action, with real sparks.

With things like the Kill-A-Watt power meter, we can now measure coil input 
power very accurately, cheaply, and easily.  This has always been a problem 
in the past in comparing coil systems.  But now, we can write that problem 
off to "history".  The Electrum and model 13 are in the 200nF region so I 
guess that are far out of your 15nF challenge.  From the above 
calculations, a 15 foot arc 15nF coil would be most difficult.  The RMS 
current on the primary cap is very extreme!!  What type of cap did you use?


>Most of you conventional coil builders probably have a 0.015 ufd capacitor.

We use them for filters :o))

>You get excited when, after much hard work, and fine-tuning, and tweaking, 
>and getting the toroid JUST so,  you finally get your coil's sparks to 
>stretch out to reach maybe 6 feet or so and then WHAM! you kill your 
>garage door opener.  Then, if you want bigger sparks, you go to a bigger 
>transformer which means you're going to need to buy or build a bigger cap.

Once you get away from the current limits of an NST, Bigger caps are not 
mandated.  However, they do have the advantage of lower RMS currents and 
thus lower losses.  But even though the cap value may be small, one may 
have to go to a commercial or homade oil cap just to have it withstand the 
current.


>I challenge the coilers on this list-serve to take your 0.015 ufd caps and 
>build a conventional coil that doubles or triples your 6 foot spark length 
>and in so doing, shames me such that I have to tuck my magnifier building 
>tail between my legs and slink away, vanquished,  into the darkness . . . 
>. but I really, really doubt that I'll have much call to do any slinking.

All a magnifier system really has to do is significantly beat John's 
formula for spark length.  Two coil systems seem to be predicted very well 
buy John's formula.  Maybe we will need a new formula for magnifiers...


>Any Armchair coil-jockies who've never even built a coil, the ones who can 
>only bandy about "simulation this" and "simulation that" can keep quiet - 
>I want the *real* conventional coil builders who have varnish under their 
>fingernails to step up and build a 0.015 ufd coil and show me those 
>conventional *equivalent* 15 foot sparks I keep reading about but have 
>never seen.

I am not sure there are many "armchair coilers" anymore in the sense you 
imply.  The scientific calculator folks build coils now and the pure coil 
builders use computers too.  The pure "arm chair coilers" and their 
counterparts the pure "seat of the pants" coilers are both rare.  I think 
both "sides" have seen the advantages of "joining forces"...

So the real question here is do magnifier systems outperform two coil 
systems.  There is evidence to suggest "no" on smaller NST systems, and 
evidence to suggest "yes" on the big systems...  The details are a mystery....

Oh!  This page

http://bhs.broo.k12.wv.us/homepage/chip/current/bpool/bpool2.html

http://bhs.broo.k12.wv.us/homepage/chip/current/bpool/bpool.html

http://hot-streamer-dot-com/pool/

says that the actual input power is 8KVA and the tranny is 20,200 volts so 
the gap speed in the above is only 3660 BPS.

John's formula suggests 1.7 x SQRT(8000) = 12.67 feet.  So 15 feet is 18% 
further.  Perhaps you coil size is on the "edge" where magnifiers start to 
perform better than two coil systems?

http://members.aol-dot-com/futuret/page5.html

Cheers,

         Terry



>Bert Pool
>http://hot-streamer-dot-com/pool/tesla.htm
>