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Proud Mary

Thu Dec 30 2010, 08:00PM

Registered Member #543 Joined: Tue Feb 20 2007, 04:26PM
Location: UK
Posts: 4992

Nicko wrote ...

Proud Mary wrote ...

Of all the faults this forum may have, poverty of imagination is the most damning of all - round and round we go on the creaking carousel of flybacks and MOTs, the same rotten little circuits cloned from one empty head to another as the wheel is re-invented yet again.

But how could it be otherwise when stress seems ever laid on the generation of high voltage power, rather than its applications, where a million and one things still wait to be discovered?

Well, I'm with you to some extent on this, but everyone has to start somewhere, and its oh so easy to be purist about it...

One of my favourite reads, though now slightly outdated, is John Madox's "What remains to be discovered".

At this time of year, the projects forum will be a bit quiet - the financial climate alone has meant that less time may be spent on personal projects - and for many, dare I say it, 4HV may not be the prime focus of their lives

As you are well aware, the world and its people are a rich and varied group - lets embrace them all and be glad of it !

I dare say you are right, and it is not BjÃ¸rn alone who descends into an Ibsen-like angst and neurosis in the dark months of the year.

Hazmatt_(The Underdog)

Thu Dec 30 2010, 08:02PM

Registered Member #135 Joined: Sat Feb 11 2006, 12:06AM
Location: Anywhere is fine
Posts: 1735

Bjorn, you know very well that this site "lives" off of charity, and a lot of us contribute when our lives allow. I intend on adding to the wiki a lot more, but I work long days full of frustration in a demanding enviornment, so, yes, my "productivity" is low.
I also have my own research and amps that I'm to get finalized so I can move on and digest data.

So be patient, good will come, it just takes time.

Patrick

Thu Dec 30 2010, 08:26PM

Registered Member #2431 Joined: Tue Oct 13 2009, 09:47PM
Location: Chico, CA. USA
Posts: 5639

Grenadier wrote ...

Maybe some of these people are working on secret projects. I am myself, though most of you won't find out until it's done (that could be a year or 2).

I too have been involved in a long time secret project... if it works. (So far all math suggests it will) this device will replace both MOTS and flybacks entirely! Its still super-secret, but this forum has been instrumental to my success, I will give you a teasing hint, a "modified cross section transformer".

Other Projects:
-Ive been chasing HV measurement. (mostly my own orignal work, with help from many forum members)
-DeSeversky Lifter project (Type 2 Gen 3 mod 34) is held up by lack of HV measurement.(All original work)
-Original work on 12 different capacitive divider probes failed, but still important gained lessons.

There are three more projects too secret to mention, but all will be posted here for critical peer review.
I suspect many others are being secretive too.

Uzzors wrote ...

... Looking at the projects section right now I can pretty much only see "new" names for the first several pages. (new being anyone I don't remember being here from when I joined)

BjÃ¸rn wrote ...

The negative signs:

When searching for something, the good stuff is always found in the archives.

I agree here. The way I see it the knowledge base among the forum users is just as good as it used to be, but there are no where near as many interesting threads to be found. Discussions and real-time experiments seem to have vanished entirely. Nobody is making new circuit designs or developing new projects, but instead simply copying what has already been done before by someone else. I don't see how this can be remedied.

two thoughts, a spell check button in the thread reply box would help. And second, a useful search feature would be nice, the existing search function is to dam primitive.

As this forum has helped me greatly I have and will continue to donate. (even in this crap economy, a 13% rise in tuition, and being laid off, also financial aid has been reduced for me. I had to eat less food so I could gather up the donation.)

ScotchTapeLord

Thu Dec 30 2010, 08:52PM

Registered Member #1875 Joined: Sun Dec 21 2008, 06:36PM
Location:
Posts: 635

Although the archives hold a wealth of good information while the modern post tends to be more along the lines of "ZVS HELP!" I don't think there is a reason to be outwardly negative about it. Groups of people like the SSTC veterans don't come along as often as simple, curious tinkerers simply due to the unconventional nature of the hobby of electronics.

I know when I first joined, I just wanted advice on my coil gun. I understood nothing, and was pretty set on being a marine engineer. A lot has changed since then... but one of the reasons that it took me time to get involved with the more intricate circuits was because I looked at the coil gun, understood what was going on, and looked at Tesla Coils and proceeded to wipe the drool of confusion from my face at terms like "resonance" and some mysterious "Q" thing. But as I understood more about the electronics behind the coil guns I was interested in, I started to understand what was going on with other stuff, like ignition coil drivers! And after zapping myself with an ignition coil several times, I was ready to tackle bigger and better endeavors. The result? A half finished coil gun, a half finished SSTC, etc.

Well, I can't remember where I was going with that, but I want to say that it's a roll of the die that decides whether someone is interested in electronics, and then it takes a while to develop that interest, so the chances of those two things both happening are rare. But one thing is for sure, the next person fall into those categories has a good chance of finding his or her way to 4HV and mustering up the next revolution. We just have to be patient...

If the hobby were more widespread then of course we'd have more riveting conversation than trying to stack MOTs, but there just aren't enough people involved to expect a new prodigy every year. You guys just have to be satisfied with me for now. ;)

Perhaps if the hobby were more widespread then we'd have license to expect more, but we're more of a secret cult society... which is a good thing, I guess, since with the additional prodigies, we'd also have additional kids blowing their fingers off with capacitors giving the hobby a bad reputation and making it EVEN harder to get capacitors. So... I don't know.

Keep up truckin', 4HV.

Bjørn

Thu Dec 30 2010, 09:03PM

Registered Member #27 Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 02:20AM
Location: Hyperborea
Posts: 2058

Young members is never a problem. The ratio of young and inexperienced members versus experienced members that can set a good example is a problem. When there are few people that sets a good example the noise level increases and we fall back to posting youtube videos and links to all sorts of nonsense instead of doing anything interesting and productive. This causes the remaining experienced people to go somewhere else since they can find that sort of thing everywhere.

I find the younger members to be a positive thing too. Sure, some are fresh off the Internet, but give them time and they'll learn how to spell and write posts without using smilies. I know I was insufferable when I first joined, as were many other users here too. Given time and some guidelines from the moderators most newbies turn out okay. They're also the ones who end up bringing 4HV forward, or at least keeping it alive. Looking at the projects section right now I can pretty much only see "new" names for the first several pages.

This is the exact thing I am thinking about, it only works if there are enough members setting a good example for people to follow. If someone is very young and/or a complete idiot does not matter much if there is improvement.

When it comes to projects and experiments there seems to have been a tendency to go for the largest and most expensive parts instead of doing something clever an innovative. Getting longer sparks is just more of the same old. What about doing some simple but clever experiments and complete them instead of waiting months trying to get some expensive parts for free.

This thread has caused the chat room to enter a third and rare state of working so now is a good time to visit.

I added a new item on the positive list, based on this thread and comments in the chatroom.

Steve Conner

Fri Dec 31 2010, 09:37AM

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

BjÃ¸rn wrote ...

Young members is never a problem. The ratio of young and inexperienced members versus experienced members that can set a good example is a problem.

Well, I've been a member for almost 10 years and three changes of forum software, so I guess that counts as some form of experience.

The bottom line is, I got a job doing high voltage research, but I can't write about what I'm doing because it's commercially sensitive. (Ironically, it involves getting rid of unwanted arcs and sparks, which is far more relevant to industry than making impressive sparks.) We've taken on some pretty ambitious stuff in the last few years, and it hasn't left me much time or inclination to play with electronics or computing as a hobby.

As far as "giving to the community", I've been spending a couple of hours a week teaching analog electronics to 1st year students, and that is quite enough. I won't say anything in case any of them are reading.

So, if you want someone to set an example, there's mine. Get outa here and get a job blowing stuff up.

All of my old work can be found at

IntraWinding

Sat Jan 01 2011, 02:22PM

Registered Member #2261 Joined: Mon Aug 03 2009, 01:19AM
Location: London, UK
Posts: 581

I don't know what to say. I hope 4HV carries on. Shame about the Wiki.

doctor electrons

Sat Jan 01 2011, 03:52PM

Registered Member #2390 Joined: Sat Sept 26 2009, 02:04PM
Location: Milwaukee Wisconsin
Posts: 381

BjÃ¸rn wrote ...

The negative signs:

When searching for something, the good stuff is always found in the archives.
The wiki failed.
The chatroom alternates between two different modes of failure.
Some members do not bother to use the alphabet anymore.
The average age of members have dropped to a level where we are in danger of entering an infinite blow up stuff loop.

The positive sign:

New people seems to join.
Almost everyone learn something new and a few people learn and improve enough to have a lasting effect on their life

Do you see any positive signs that can be added to balance out the list?

I underlined the most important thing here. I think thats the key. When someone is new to electronics, sure the blow stuff up thing
is an easy attention getter. Once more knowledge is gained it becomes an endless quest to learn more. When that happens, blowing stuff
up gets swept aside! (well for a little while at least!) I sure hope 4hv isn't going anywhere!!

Pinky's Brain

Sat Jan 01 2011, 06:54PM

Registered Member #2901 Joined: Thu Jun 03 2010, 01:25PM
Location:
Posts: 837

Proud Mary wrote ...

But how could it be otherwise when stress seems ever laid on the generation of high voltage power, rather than its applications

Such as? I would like an example of this glorious past which wasn't just about aping old academic/military research which due to the advance of consumerization became possible on an amateur budget and building nicer looking tesla coils ... as far as I can see the arrival of cheap bricks on ebay had more to do with the flurry of activity in the past than anything else, a flurry which has run it's course.

Us new arrivals are copiers of you initial copiers, a different crowd ... for us there isn't the excitement of being one of the first to do in our garage what was previously only done in research labs, we are less trailblazers and more so just people who like sparks. Probably a slightly lower quality crowd :) In my experience there's always a couple of gems in the shit though, and the few experienced people who can stomach low signal to noise ratios and still contribute on internet fora tend to be some of the best in my experience ... you might not have a lot of company on your own level if you stick around, but your fellow grognards will be good people.

quicksilver

Sat Jan 01 2011, 09:04PM

Registered Member #1408 Joined: Fri Mar 21 2008, 03:49PM
Location: Oracle, AZ
Posts: 679

This site is extremely unique: perhaps a handful of others deal with similar issues. MANY large (& popular) electronic oriented sites BAN discussion of HV!* The FUTURE of this site as well as others (IMO) correlates to other issues.

1.) MANY HV commercial designs are being altered for conservation of energy. Parts are (or will become) scarce.

2.) The hobbyist bears a large responsibility for safety. Some ignore it, some get overly frightened without further investigation, some take it in stride after understanding risks & study. But those issues exists and frighten parents, etc. Emphasis on safety is certainly available however as with ALL hobbies with substantial risk, it has an impact.

3.) What % of hobbyists really have an EE background? How does that reflect on newer designs? Is it realistic to expect an expect at anything to continually coach beginners? Some experts get a certain joy from that - others find it a serious burden. Should moderators become more strict with searching before asking or developing a thread?

*

QUOTE:
"Forum members must not knowingly provide any information that may adversely affect another member; this includes, but is not restricted to, information that may potentially result in injury, death, damage or destruction of property and possessions. The administration takes this matter seriously and has the right to remove any contentious content and deal with the offending member as it deems is necessary. "

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