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The Tesla Thermionic Valve Wireless Energy Transmitting Apparatus

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Steve Conner

Wed May 13 2009, 08:38AM

Registered Member #30 Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706

CS, this is beautiful!

I can't believe you even made a vintage-looking line cord. Where did you get a brown IEC connector, or did you paint one? Anyway, I can't wait to see it working!

Sulaiman

Wed May 13 2009, 11:10AM

Registered Member #162 Joined: Mon Feb 13 2006, 10:25AM
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 3140

Very nice looking project!

Hope it works out as well as you hope.

Good luck !

Sparrow338

Wed May 13 2009, 11:21PM

Registered Member #661 Joined: Sat Apr 21 2007, 03:17AM
Location: Ventura, CA
Posts: 41

Wow! That is incredible work, the steampunk style is awesome. Great attention to detail, looks beautiful, can't wait to see it finished.

I love that spacer you made to go between the two 40kv doorknob caps. I'll have to give that a try sometime, looks just like you ran it on a lathe.

I have a question for you; where are you getting all the brass hardware? Epically those ball screw "end-caps."

-Sparrow

Cesiumsponge

Thu May 14 2009, 12:23AM

Registered Member #397 Joined: Wed Apr 19 2006, 12:56AM
Location: Western Washington
Posts: 125

I painted the IEC connector. I would absolutely kill for a real brown one! I tried hard but couldn't find anything like it. The brown krylon I used isn't holding up well so I'll have to look for something else. I guess the plastic is kind of oily or something. Making the mains cord was fun.

The brass spheres are pre-tapped and threaded units I buy from toolsupply on ebay.

Brass hardware like nuts and bolts are purchased at Home Depot in small quantities but I feed off large purchases at McMaster Carr. It is actually cheaper to buy in 100pc bulk at McMaster than the nickel/dime bags at the local hardware store, but it requires a larger financial investment up front. I bought my threaded thumbscrews, brass and copper washers, and some bolts through McMaster. Since I don't know what length I need, I ended up buying longer bolts and cutting down the length to what I need. Cheaper than buying multiple boxes in 1/4" increments.

I got the larger diameter "end caps" came from an insanely expensive internet store called Grand Brass Lamp Parts. I would never buy there again (shipping was $20 on top of the insane prices. I think my order ended up being $60 for 8pcs plus the adapters). No other stores had what I need though and a redesign would require changing the diameter of the standoffs that make the pillars (which would be even more expensive). If I had a lathe...this would all be much easier/cheaper!

aonomus

Thu May 14 2009, 07:57AM

Registered Member #1497 Joined: Thu May 22 2008, 05:24AM
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Posts: 801

Cesiumsponge:
Try taking a new clean IEC connector and using vinyl dye instead. Its like spray paint but its meant for plastics.

- Take a new clean connector, dump it in isopropyl alcohol to clean it, let it dry. (and handle with gloves from this point onwards)
- Hang the connector by one of the solder tabs, mask off all the metal parts
- Spray, dry, check for any thin/uncoated portions, recoat if neccessary
- Dry and bake if neccessary (depending on the vinyl dye instructions, it might take a while for it to fully dry).

Cesiumsponge

Mon May 18 2009, 03:12AM

Registered Member #397 Joined: Wed Apr 19 2006, 12:56AM
Location: Western Washington
Posts: 125

A small update. There are a lot more fine details but I have been getting lazy and tired due to the warm weather and life in general. I'm nearing the end of this project and I have a four-day weekend coming up and I intend to do most, if not all the remaining work then.

I wired up most of my ground wire runs into bundles but haven't photographed them yet since I need to take apart the top deck to get good photos. I need to finalize terminations and then cable lace them together. Every other bit of wiring is done other than that and the primary/feedback coil is in place, including installation of all feedthroughs.

I finished my grid leak resistor assembly today. The design changed quite a bit from the initial inception and it got overly complex for the sake of aesthetic steampunky goodness but it has been completed and mounted. It is comprised of over 50 individual pieces.

It consists of three 0-3kohm variable resistors set in series. It's currently set at 1kohm each, giving 3kohm total, the same value I used for my previous coil. Each is rated at 50W dissipation and will be sufficient. The variability will give me flexibility in testing grid leak values.

They are sandwiched together with two pieces of brass, insulated with a phenolic spacer. The needlessly complex bracket is in place so that I can visually "wrap" the grid leak resistor around the curvature of the primary coil. The two bracket assemblies pivot at the axis through the resistor on either end and is tensioned with the knurled thumbnut up top. Each bracket is attached at the base of the assembly into the deck. I used copper bus material as my brackets and phenolic to tie the top and bottom brackets together. I used plenty of tapped brass spheres and knurled thumbscrews to continue the theme.

The mica cap seen in the photo next to it is the grid leak capacitor I will parallel with the resistor assembly to form the grid leak network.

aonomus wrote ...

Cesiumsponge:
Try taking a new clean IEC connector and using vinyl dye instead. Its like spray paint but its meant for plastics.

- Take a new clean connector, dump it in isopropyl alcohol to clean it, let it dry. (and handle with gloves from this point onwards)
- Hang the connector by one of the solder tabs, mask off all the metal parts
- Spray, dry, check for any thin/uncoated portions, recoat if neccessary
- Dry and bake if neccessary (depending on the vinyl dye instructions, it might take a while for it to fully dry).

How well does dye show up on a black plastic? Doesn't it require bleaching first?

Cesiumsponge

Mon Jun 01 2009, 07:52AM

Registered Member #397 Joined: Wed Apr 19 2006, 12:56AM
Location: Western Washington
Posts: 125

I finally had first light. I made a terrible assumption that the rectifier tube's symbol =(> |)--- is the same as the symbol for a diode -->|--. I assumed that the diode's schematic representation evolved from the tube rectifier symbol so they were identical. No, the cathode ended up being anode and anode was cathode. I actually ended up wiring my rectifier in reverse. That'll teach me to make assumptions! I spent some time redoing the wiring and re-lacing all the cables.

Everything except the primary and feedback coils are in their final state of assembly. I got sidetracked once I got first light so I spent the rest of the night tinkering with it instead of taking photos of the progress. I'll take pictures of the coil soon, possibly tomorrow.

Here is the grounding stuff all wired up and bundled, and the dressed-up IEC jack.

I'm going to start a thread on this since I seem to have some questions with proper tuning. Here are a couple of "wild" shots at 100-110VAC input. The sparks have lost linearity of the stereotypical "sword-like" appearance and branch out in an unpredictable manner. They're also quite hot. The linearity and sword-like appearance reappears once the voltage is turned down. I can't keep it running like this without having the plate start to get cherry red, though it can run indefinitely around 85-90V without any noticeable plate glow. They're right around 17" or so to a grounded sheet above the coil.

This looks to be the Fres, roughly 389kHz.

70VAC, 3A draw. 4.5-5" streamers.

80VAC, 4A draw. 6.5-7" streamers.

90VAC, 7A draw. 9.5-10" streamers.

100VAC, 11-11.5A draw (needle dances). 15.5-16" streamers

At 105VAC, it'll hit the 17" grounded foil sheet suspended above the breakout point and draw 13-13.5A

Myke

Mon Jun 01 2009, 10:58PM

Registered Member #540 Joined: Mon Feb 19 2007, 07:49PM
Location: MIT
Posts: 969

Wow. Nice arcs. I really like how the camera picked up that short of a wavelength. Makes it look really pretty with that violet in there.

*dies from being crushed by the amazing-ness*

Cesiumsponge

Tue Jun 02 2009, 12:43AM

Registered Member #397 Joined: Wed Apr 19 2006, 12:56AM
Location: Western Washington
Posts: 125

The streamer colors vary a bit when captured on camera depending on other ambient lighting. The auto WB is usually fairly good at judging but if there is other lighting nearby, it'll make the streamers look much bluer. I had almost all the lights out when I took the last few images. For example, the first three images I have above are unnaturally bluish because I had a halogen and fluoro light in the shop on which caused the auto WB to shift the hue so the streamers turned out inaccurate in hue.

The primary on there right now just has some household wire making up the primary with lots of tape and ugly slits where I'm using a gator clip to experiment with taps. I ran out of vertical room on my workbench with a variable height grounded strike plate (replaced the suspended foil because it wasn't flat enough to get an accurate reading). About 1" above that is the steel rail that the garage door arm rides on so I tried moving my grounded strike plate out of the way for a direct strike to the garage door opener rail. I successfully made several streamer strikes to it at 120V (roughly one strike every 2-3 seconds) which puts the length at 19.25"!

Except the grid feedback was very unhappy and it arced across a good 6" of PVC primary coilform and ruined the primary coilform so now I can't use it because it'll arc at the slightest provocation. Also the plate was starting to incandesce a dull cherry red, indicating it isn't going to stay cool for much longer so it's definitely not a steramer length achieved under normal operational circumstances. This was at turn 33. I had charted 50-120V measurements from turn 30 to 33 up until my primary coilform crapped out.

I'll have to dig up another length of 6" PVC and prep it as a coilform.

Here is a no-nonsense overview of the coil as it stands right now, and also a picture of the arcover that has halted my process until it is fixed. The primary coilform can be fixed but the feedback coilform is toast...it charred that baby!

Here is a photo of the bleeder resistors I have for the voltage doubler capacitor bank.

Dr. Drone

Tue Jun 02 2009, 01:55AM

Registered Member #290 Joined: Mon Mar 06 2006, 08:24PM
Location:
Posts: 1673

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