[TCML] NE Ohio Teslathon Postponed

[Harvey Norris <harvich@xxxxxxxxx>]

    I will now aim for Fri Sept 19th as a tentative date for holding a regional conference for NE  Ohio coilers to demonstrate their machines. We may be offering secondaries for sale wound on 4.5 in diameter PVC tubing.  Our own demonstration will consist in comparisons from an ordinary Delco Remy car alternator with diodes removed to output 3 phases of 456 hz to power a tesla coil via pole pig transformer.  The comparison will consist of using the same secondary and then powering the TC from a 60 hz 15,000 volt,30 ma NST. It can be shown and argued by voltage and amperage measurements that the alternator can input more energy to the TC then the NST, and this is quite unexpected to say the least since only one of three phases of the AC alternator are utilized. The 456 hz TC utilizes a smaller primary and 2.5 times the capacity the the NST design utilizes.
    I had picked my birthday of Sept 7th for the teslathon, as I had held many years back when Marc Metlica attended several times. A possibility exists of incorporating his idea of a triggered arc gap in which all three phases of the alternator three phase source could be utilized. By postponing the event until the 19th this and other further arrangements can be looked into. I am also looking for any URL references showing his idea of using a dimmer switch for the triggered arc gap.
    The garage area is sufficiently cleaned out so that both an indoor and/or outdoor event can take place. Things are still in disarray from this long needed garage cleanup.  In the alternator/pole pig connection  I have procured a special situation whereby the capacitance employed in the TC primary is reflected through the pole pig primary connection to the alternator stator windings so as to resonate producing two useful effects, but first the understanding of the principle of maximum energy transfer is noted, so that the comparison of actual currents and voltages can be compared to this theory of maximum energy transfer.  Generally speaking the two specifications noting the ability of the source of emf to produce power are given; these are the open circuit voltage without a load attached, and the current that source can deliver when a short is applied.  What the maximum energy transfer theorem implies is that when the open circuit voltage is cut in
 half by the amount of load attached, this is the point of maximum energy transfer, but in this situation only half of the short rating of available amperage conduction is available.  Thus the maximum power or voltage times amperage from the source is actually each of these ratings cut in half and then multiplied together, yielding one quarter of what would be available if the power ratings of open circuit voltage and short measurement of amperage were simply multiplied together. Thus this maximum power output of the NST should be [15,000 V* .03A]/4 = 112.5 watts.  Now the same procedure is applied to the alternator phase as a source of power. Because of the fact that the pole face field rotor becomes remanently magnetized,(in the correct polarity determined by its spin), the moment the alternator is turned on these voltage and amperage ratings become apparent. All three phases then read 1.6 -1.7 volts and a short of one of the phases shows a delivery of
 1.35 A. Now the pole pig is attached to one of the phases with the addition of an amperage meter set on its highest scale without the  secondary load of the TC primary attached.  This one threw me a loop because on the testing of two different higher voltage transformers, both amperage readings of the non loaded primary read 0 Amps. Apparently the open secondary condition of the pole pig transformer that determines the highest impedance of the primary has a non-linear response to the increase of frequency, where here the increase in frequency being 7.6 fold would mean 7.6 times less primary amperage conduction to the unloaded pole pig primary, but that may not be happening and later the actual ratio of expected currents vs derived currents can be calculated to show the non-linear increase of impedance with increased frequency. This has been noted before with the stolen high induction air core coils that exhibited 60 henry at 60 hz, but exhibited values
 near 200 henry at these frequencies.
     Now the first attempt of showing an alternator powered TC involved first making one at 60 hz powered by the NST, and that also was problematic but we arrived at a hit/miss solution with a 2 ft secondary with a larger top capacity that improved performance so as to exhibit 4 inch arcing.  This model uses 20 nf capacity.  When the alternator/pole pig combination was substituted as the power source the same coil only delivered 1 inch arcing, but even this was a first. Jumping the gun a bit, the alternator/ pole pig power source was reexamined to see if the capacity in the TC primary was near the maximum energy transfer point. A turn on of the alternator yielded 3 phases of 1.6 volts before the field is energized, where the middle phase 2 is selected for the pole pig. As mentioned no amperage is recorded into the pole pig primary until the secondary capacitive load of the TC primary is added.  With the arc gap separated and the field non- energized a
 series of amperage conduction and voltage output tests are made. The short as mentioned yields 1.35 A of a single phase, and an open circuit value of 1.6 volts. When the TC primary  value of 20 nf was added to the pole pig secondary its primary amperage went from 0 to .66 A, but the source voltage of 1.6 Volts did not decrease its value to half, which is what a purely resistive load should do by the premises of the maximum energy transfer theorem, where it is assumed that  having reached half of the short value of conduction will also reduce the source voltage by half. Instead what happens is that the stator voltage is increased by one third to 2.2 volts. So initially measuring things on the high voltage end for these circumstances, and also considering that since such low voltages are being employed non-linearities of voltage transformation may exist since this is the very low end of the saturation curve of the transformer, but nevertheless the first
 recording of output voltages showed 123.5 volts without the capacity attached and 184 volts when it is attached. Now all these measurements and comparisons of ratios seem to become distorted from their initially measured values at this lowest possible level of measurement conducted with an un-energized field, and these differences can be shown in comparison at real operation with an energized field with a 10 Amp  pole pig primary consumption, and after the TC had been redesigned to employ the nearest correct resonant secondary capacity to be determined by these unenergized field tests to be noted next. In that case after the TC primary was redesigned and the correct C value used, it was noted that by sending a third of an amp through the field, this created three phases of 7.1 volts with no load attached, but then attaching the TC primary to the pole pig secondary resulted in the primary stator voltage now going up 60 % to 11.5 volts. Thus at only a 7
 volt unloaded stator it becomes 11.5 volts conducting 10 amps into the pole pig primary, and the alternator can be pressed to do triple this duty for short periods of time, sending near 30 amps into the pole pig primary.
     Now getting back to the un-energized field tests, the next thing to be explored was the value of primary amperage consumption once the registered level of 184 volts at the pole pig secondary was shorted, and this yielded only a 1 amp primary consumption, when in fact a direct short of the stator lines connected to the current limited supply of the alternator yielded 1.35 A. This at first puzzled me so then obviously the next thing to do was to try various values of capacity for a pole pig secondary load. The capacities being used are a series string of five .1 uf values yeilding 20 nf. Taking one out of the string yields 25 nf, two taken out yeilds 33nf, and next a value of 50 nf. Note how the adjacent stator phase voltages having no load are influenced by phase 2's pole pig primary load.

Un-energized field tests initially yield three phases of 1.6 volts. With 20 nf  pole pig secondary load the stator voltages and amperages become;

Stator phase 1; 1.6 volts
Stator phase 2; 2.2 volts yielding .66 A to pole pig primary
Stator phase 3; 2.0 volts

Using 25 nf phase 2 then outputs .9 A with its stator voltage rising to 2.3 volts, showing 204 volts at the arc bars.

Using 33 nf;
1) 1.5 volts
2) 2.8 volts yields 1.55 A primary draw, it has exceeded its short value of 1.35A and also yielding 253 volts at arc bars
3) 2.5 volts

Using 50 nf; this begins to load down phase 1 which gets reduced to
1) 0.7 volts
2) 2.6 volts yielding 2.4 A primary draw, a 80 % increase in the alternator established current limitation and 262 volts at the arc bars!
3) 2.6 volts
Using 100nf now the demand begins to exceed the supply and the stator phases are all reduced to
1) 0.7 volts
2) 0.5 volts yeilding .68 A primary draw producing 91 volts at secondary, showing perhaps another unusual thing where we cannot predict the secondary  voltage output merely by the primary amperage draw but must also consider the input primary voltage.
3) 1.4 volts.

So obviously 50 nf becomes the first convenient value to select and by downsizing the primary from the previous NST design, superior arcing and power input seems available from the alternator 456 hz pole pig combination vs a single 60 hz NST. A higher power stator voltage reading shows that sending .8 A through field yields
1) 8.8 volts
2) 32.6 volts to pole pig primary where if we assume linearity of  the 10 amp measurement @ 11.5 volts, this becomes a 28 amp draw at 32 volts input yeilding 924 watts possible input power vs the noted 112 watts for the NST example.
3) 29 volts

Note that phase 3's voltage has not yet been severely loaded down, so our next piece of work will be to add a TC system to that phase, so that two somewhat oppositely phased TC's can be interacted together at their top terminals. It now does not seem far off in speculation for a three phase TC application with three identical TC's powered by a three phase high voltage transformer, which is also at my disposal for these experiments.
    To close here let us consider the voltage differences available from the NST vs pole pig/alternator combo. We might assume that 32 volts input becomes 62 fold through the pole pig transformer becomes near 2000 volts so the ratio to 15,000 volts would be 13 %.  But then again this amount of energy transfers 7.6 times faster at 456 hz and  multiplying .13 by 7.6 yeilds the original amount.  But since the V term is exponential it would seem that 60 hz @ 15,000 volts should have more energy transfer, however it may be true that since the 20 nf value being used is over four times the rated current limitation of the NST secondary, that it may only charge those caps to 1/4 of its 15,000 voltage rating? And additionally the value of capacity used for the alternator pole pig combination is 2.5 times higher at 50 nf, which the NST may not even be able to fire.  In any case I have made my argument that that alternator can outpower the NST, and I will
 tentatively demonstrate this on the 19th of September, and would appreciate any constructive criticism concerning the above power transfer analysis. We are also having problems taking pictures from a digital camera, so if any one attending the teslathon has some trade secrets here, that would be appreciated.
     All of these things may open new doorways for designing a TC to match the output of the bus generators, employing 6 phases as they are a matched dual set. An unmagnetized field rotor test there yielded an open circuit voltage of 1 volt @ 400 hz, but a whopping 5 amp short draw. These are also operational powered by a 5 hp 220 volt single phase motor.  Perhaps by the 19th these can also be included in demonstrations.

Sincerely
Harvey D Norris
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