Wireless Power? (The work of Nikola Tesla)

[sophiecentaur]

I'm amazed about the claim of 90% efficient transfer of power from one coil to another. What if another coil were put nearby? Would that get 90% of the power too? 180% of the input power would appear. That would be amazing good value.

 

[Meizirkki]

No. The input power would be shared between the two receivers. Tesla coils are "transponders" rather than transmitters and receivers.

 

[sophiecentaur]

No. The input power would be shared between the two receivers. Tesla coils are "transponders" rather than transmitters and receivers.

It's a transformer, in fact. Where's the magic in that? Not all transformers are made of iron and handle mains electricity.
I wish someone could tell me what's supposed to be different about these things with the name 'Tesla' attached to them. Transformer windings are essentially magnetically coupled coils because it is a near field effect and the impedance is not the same as for free space.
This way of close-coupling small pieces of equipment to a power source could have useful applications (subject to the interference levels being controlled). A 'charging table' would be another step up from 'the dock'. Efficiency need not be high because low power is involved.

But there seems to be some confusion about the distance over which this type of coupling exists. It is only in operation within a wavelength or so from the primary / transmitter. Only a 'free wave' will propagate over longer distances and energy can only be 'directed' using a large aperture antenna. Furthermore, the mutual impedance between wide spaced transmit and receive array is low (a receive antenna can't "suck" energy from the source). You cannot avoid 'wasting' most of your power and it is a brave man who disputes Maxwell's Equations.

People go and spoil it all by extrapolating a near-field process to long distance high power transmission as if it's the same thing. Tesla had a number of totally off the wall patents which are fully available for development but have never been (they were duff); there is no implication that a patented idea will actually work. Likewise, there may well have been uninformed pen-pushers in the Pentagon (or whatever it was called at the time) who decided that one or two of his untested ideas were a potential threat. There was no need to justify these decisions on rigorous technical grounds. Once declared secret, they were hidden from normal scrutiny and are not available for a healthy scrutiny /de-bunking. They just sit there, proving to the gullible that they are suppressed by that great conspiratorial body they love to hate. Tesla must be chuckling in his grave.

 

[gushovard100]

Tesla coils joined in single base wire connection format connect by conduction. Tesla lodged his first patent application that said transmission and then set out another Patent with virtually the only difference being the word conduction. It appears that the engineers at the time didn't get the conduction thing. And he didnt mean by EM he meant by wire connection. A simple single wire system I have built demonstrates conduction through one wire not magnetic transfer of power since both coils are 180 degrees out of phase. If they were acting as a transformer or by electromagnetic connection they would need to be out of phase to transmit energy using magnetic energy. It uses voltage and Amperage to do the job. Sure, it puts out a little EM radiation but very limited and usesless in the process since it is out of phase.

 

[sophiecentaur]

Tesla coils joined in single base wire connection format connect by conduction. Tesla lodged his first patent application that said transmission and then set out another Patent with virtually the only difference being the word conduction. It appears that the engineers at the time didn't get the conduction thing. And he didnt mean by EM he meant by wire connection. A simple single wire system I have built demonstrates conduction through one wire not magnetic transfer of power since both coils are 180 degrees out of phase. If they were acting as a transformer or by electromagnetic connection they would need to be out of phase to transmit energy using magnetic energy. It uses voltage and Amperage to do the job. Sure, it puts out a little EM radiation but very limited and usesless in the process since it is out of phase.

Welcome
I suppose you acknowledge that Maxwell's Equations describe all there is to know about the way Electric and Magnetic Fields behave. In which case, if you attempt to give an 'explanation' of an electromagnetic phenomenon, it should follow from those equations.

Whatever the "conduction thing" is, Maxwell governs what happens. Maxwell applies to a simple battery and bulb circuit, a transformer, a coax cable, waveguide, near field - far field EM power transmission - everything. If you want to quote from a Patent as a form of proof of your ideas then that is not valid. There are millions of Patents based on absolute nonsense; we all know that.

Your simple "single conductor" system would need some more detailed description, along with measured results, to a reasonable standard.

"wire connection" involves EM just as much as a Radio transmitter. Read your EM theory. Not all EM waves are radiated waves.

 

[Meizirkki]

It's a transformer, in fact. Where's the magic in that?
...
I wish someone could tell me what's supposed to be different about these things with the name 'Tesla' attached to them.

Is there supposed to be magic in that? I'm really having some hard time here trying to understand your hate for Mr. Tesla. Yes Tesla coils are a sort of transformer and there is no magic.

I can (once again) try to explain you the major differences between Tesla coils and a conventional transformer:

- The secondaries can be far away from each other. Farther than magnetic induction used in conventional tranformers can reach.

- The secondaries do not need a conductor between them. The single wire used in my efficiency test can be replaced with a capacitor or a capacitance of natural medium such as water (I expect Earth grounding to work too, but I haven't tested it yet). I will provide test results for this later.

- Thanks to their structure, Tesla coils store energy in the oscillating field. This is rarely the case in conventional transformers.

- Conventional transformers tend to work with a wide range of frequencies, depending on their structure. Tesla coils work with only one frequency (though, input signal can be a harmonic of the oscillating field). The frequency of the oscillating fields is determined by the physical size and shape of the coil.

- Conventional transformers usually have many layers of wire on top of each other. Tesla coils can not operate if there is more than one layer. This is not a problem with isolation, but a necessity for the operation. The propagation of high frequency signal is very different in single and multilayer coils.

Hope this helps you understand the differences.

 

[sophiecentaur]

I don't "hate" Mr T at all. What I do hate is the attitude that people have towards him. It is irrational and sycophantic. No one ever give me any solid evidence that his inventions are actually of any use (except the high voltage generator, which I have made and which is very impressive). The existence of Patents or 'suppressed secrets' are no evidence at all and neither are stories of American farmers experiences - with respect, they could have been persuaded that they had seen anything that Mr T told them they'd seen.

Transformers ("Understanding of"): I did not say that the Tesla design of transformer was conventional. The air core and the tuning are both significant differences between it and a mains transformer. Have you seen the transformer coupling that is used in radio IF strips or have you seen the transformer coupling that is used in Radio transmitters? No iron there, either and usually, a narrow band of operation. You mention specifics of coil design. If you look in radio engineering publications from the last century, you will find all sorts of wrinkles about how to wind the most effective and lossless coils for MF filtering and matching. It's very hard to characterise these structures (or at least it was, before computers were available).

As you haven't provided a drawing (schematic or otherwise) I can't comment on how this 'single wire coupling' operates. If you can't explain what is going on in terms of conventional EM theory then that doesn't mean anything special except that you haven't analysed what is going on. You are surely not trying to say that Maxwell doesn't apply to coils with a 'T' marked on their design.

'Storage of energy in an oscillating Field' is an example of Resonance. Inductive loop communication systems often to use resonance to improve efficiency.

You haven't said how you were measuring the Power in your experiment. It is extremely easy to confuse measured Voltage with Power and it is the bugbear of reliable RF power system appraisal. If those measurements are not bombproof then an apparent 90% could be a much lower real value. What did this efficiency test consist of? How did you ascertain the power that your source was delivering? What sort of separation have you made your system operate over?

a capacitance of natural medium such as water

This phrase rings alarm bells with me. I reads a bit 'new age' to be included in a serious discussion about an Engineering topic. What is it supposed to mean and how would it be implemented?

 

[Meizirkki]

This phrase rings alarm bells with me. I reads a bit 'new age' to be included in a serious discussion about an Engineering topic. What is it supposed to mean and how would it be implemented?

I did not mean the capacitance of water, sorry. I meant to say that it is possible to use capacitor in the place of wire, and natures own materials can be exploited to form this capacitor.

In his patents, Tesla has connected the sedondaries of his coils to Earth. I have not been able to test this yet, but I have (today) used water to form this capacitor. It is as simple as cutting the wire between secondaries and dropping the wires to a pot of water. They wire does not need to be stripped from insulating material. When both wires touch the water, it is enough to form the capacitor.

Air can not be used to form the capacitor explained above, because air is already used to form another capacitor at the top end of the coils. (Big spheres should be used at the top end, big surface area = more capacitance = longer distances)

Tesla called this "Disturbed ground and air method", which makes perfect sense to me.

 

[sophiecentaur]

I did not mean the capacitance of water, sorry. I meant to say that it is possible to use capacitor in the place of wire, and natures own materials can be exploited to form this capacitor.

In his patents, Tesla has connected the sedondaries of his coils to Earth. I have not been able to test this yet, but I have (today) used water to form this capacitor. It is as simple as cutting the wire between secondaries and dropping the wires to a pot of water. They wire does not need to be stripped from insulating material. When both wires touch the water, it is enough to form the capacitor.

Air can not be used to form the capacitor explained above, because air is already used to form another capacitor at the top end of the coils. (Big spheres should be used at the top end, big surface area = more capacitance = longer distances)

Tesla called this "Disturbed ground and air method", which makes perfect sense to me.

It would really help if you were to draw a diagram of what you see is going on here. The capacity between two spheres, separated by a few metres is extremely small ( a few tens of pF). The 'other ends' of the coils would be 'grounded' in some way, I imagine. With a stake in the ground or in a pool of water would make little difference. It's just an Earth connection between the two bases which would usually be best with a 'copper' plane between the two coils but a few wires would be almost as good.

There will be a mutual inductance between the two coils and a (tiny but finite) capacitance between them. That will be the coupling mechanism between the two in the near field. The far (radiated) field will not have established itself for a small separation but the currents in the two coils will be the result of the Impedance Matrix - self and mutual impedances and the 'drive point' voltage. Having resonant structures will give you effectively much bigger 'elements'. This is just an extension of the idea of top or bottom loading short monopole antennae.

btw, what sort of Q do you reckon you are finding for these coil / ball structures?

 

[Meizirkki]

It would really help if you were to draw a diagram of what you see is going on here. The capacity between two spheres, separated by a few metres is extremely small ( a few tens of pF).
...
btw, what sort of Q do you reckon you are finding for these coil / ball structures?

Here. This is how I think it works.

The capacitance is indeed very small. A friend of mine did some calculations and said it would be very unlikely for my coils achieve distances beyond ~100 meters. And this was for my first set of coils which operated at ~14MHz.

I can think of three ways to improve the distance: raising the voltage, installing a bigger sphere on top of the coils and using higher frequency.

I have not been able to test the Q of my coils in operation. I don't even know how to do it. If I remember correctly the LCR tester thingy showed a Q ratio of 5.5 for each of the secondary coils and 5 for the primaries. I am not sure about this though, and I don't know whether the tester is accurate.

Luckily my boss here in Germany is interested in this kind of "lost inventions" too. He provided me with materials and let me wind pancake coils for demonstration this week. I thought I wouldn't be able to do any testing this month, but thanks to him I've been able to test the "water capacitor" and try a bit longer distances. The function generator here can go only up to 1MHz which is just enough to achieve the transmission somewhat out of tune. I won't be measuring efficiency, but I can post here any tests that can be made without accurate measurements. (Demonstrating the water trick and longer distances).

 

[gushovard100]

The distance between my two resonating tertiary coils is 1.5 meters and have a capacitance between them of about 2.5 pF. The coils operate under load with my current set up at about 9,000 volts. The way I measure power to the circuit is at the input to the primary coil which is at 24 volts. This is measured by an amps probe through an oscilloscope with peak current of 24 amps with a base of 6/10 us (only pulse one way) which gives about 10.18 amps RMS x 24 volts = circa 245 watts. This enables me to run 8 fluro lights in series with an RMS voltage drop across them of just on 1000 volts very brightly. A flame sometimes blows down the center of the lights and burns them out so I have to change them too regularly.

If we do the maths. I run the coils at 100,000 Hz. 2.5pF using 9,000 volts in each coil 180 deg out of phase falls a little short of the energy transfer between the coils to produce the above effect. My equipment is very reliable. Peak voltage drop phase to phase is 18,000 volts which means the maximum energy exchange between the coils is about 40 watts. This assumes the whole capacitive cavity has a voltage drop of 18,000 volts between the coils but it isnt. Top of one coil to bottom of the other is about 7,000 V so I have been really generous since reality is the actual transfer is probably way less than half this amount. The extra capacitance needed is normally termed stray capacitance. I need another 500% stray capacitance to get it to balance. The airbourne magnetic transfer is zero since the coils are 180 deg out of phase. I think Maxwell was one of the giants in this field. I even believe in the conservation of charge. I am starting to sound like I am at a religious convention LOL

 

[gushovard100]

I came across this series of videos which I like. This gentleman has heaps of coils all running synchronously.

http://www.youtube.com/user/moonfther

 

[sophiecentaur]

I came across this series of videos which I like. This gentleman has heaps of coils all running synchronously.

http://www.youtube.com/user/moonfther

"A wireLESS system, using a single WIRE ?? Is that wireless or wired? The linking wire could be replaced by earthing each unit, I think. But at least he states that it's an induction system.
A very entertaining room full of stuff, driven off the same supply. I wonder what power it's using (and about the interference it's generating, too). No mention of efficiency.

 

[Combsbt]

"A wireLESS system, using a single WIRE ?? Is that wireless or wired? The linking wire could be replaced by earthing each unit, I think. But at least he states that it's an induction system.
A very entertaining room full of stuff, driven off the same supply. I wonder what power it's using (and about the interference it's generating, too). No mention of efficiency.

It's in the comments of the second video.

This system runs off the grid...meaning I have my own power supply. Its a Solar set up charging a 12v 96 amp hr battery run through a 2000watt inverter giving me 110 out.

 

[Meizirkki]

Here are two photos from my new coils and the water test.

The coils are out of tune and efficiency is terrible, but this is just to show that the concept is not flawed.
http://i.imgur.com/8dkyz.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/Hm7l5.jpg

 

[sophiecentaur]

You are making a very neat job of those constructions - well done. At least your results should be repeatable and reliable.

I have asked before but you still haven't mentioned how you actually measure the efficiency and powers involved.
You responded to my "2X90 = 180%" comment by saying that the power is divided between the two coils. Have you actually measured a drop of 50% in the power delivered to just one coil when another is introduced?
It would be interesting to know how those multiple coils in the 'garage full of Teslas' movie interacted with each other.

The 'concept' of EM coupling between structures is sound enough - it is definitely not "flawed" . The question is how much coupling is involved, which can only be determined through valid measurement.

 

[sophiecentaur]

It's in the comments of the second video.

I can hear no comments in any of the videos about the RF frequency used, the power involved (not the electricity supply power, which is not relevant) the Q of the coils of the Efficiency of the system. The only figure you quote is a 2kW inverter, which doesn't tell us any more than the maximum power it can supply.

Did you try operating the coils by sitting them all on a ground mat (mesh of wires) rather than a single wire?

 

[Meizirkki]

I have asked before but you still haven't mentioned how you actually measure the efficiency and powers involved.

Schematic and complete calculations are in the efficiency test paper, I hope they're presented clearly enough:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QirnU-yX7XPJY_1MaW0UqU-egkO3-6WoxhcDQ3yiOyE/edit

The schematic is a picture and those may take some time to load. If it fails to load on browser you can download the entire document as pdf and open it on your computer.

 

[sophiecentaur]

Schematic and complete calculations are in the efficiency test paper, I hope they're presented clearly enough:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QirnU-yX7XPJY_1MaW0UqU-egkO3-6WoxhcDQ3yiOyE/edit

The schematic is a picture and those may take some time to load. If it fails to load on browser you can download the entire document as pdf and open it on your computer.

Can you tell me how the volts on the 100Ω, R1 resistor is telling you the Power input to the Coil? If you do not know the input impedance then you cannot know the Forward Power All you can tell is the power dissipated in the 100Ω resistor. (Which you need for a measure of real efficiency) As I said before, measuring RF power into a load is not trivial. You do not know the power delivered by your signal generator or the power into the load. You are misleading yourself if you infer too much from your Voltage Measurements.
Also, have you used two 'secondaries' and verified what you have told me about the sharing of (most of) the power between them? That would be a good indicator of whether or not your conclusions hold water.

I do not doubt that you are getting some measurable coupling but I have difficulty in accepting that it could be as high as you think it is.

It wouldn't be difficult to squeak those coils and to get an idea of the Q involved.
If you really want to test whether or not there is 'Radiative Power' involved, you could use a receiver at a distance and see how the signal level received behaves with and without your 'secondary' circuit.

 

[Meizirkki]

Did you try operating the coils by sitting them all on a ground mat (mesh of wires) rather than a single wire?

Yes, I have tried that with my coils in Finland and the pancake coils here. Sadly all attempts to use the the ground mat and PE ground have failed. I don't know why, but it may have something to do with the tuning of the coils since whatever is connected to them is a part of them. Another problem may be that this mesh of wires is sitting in the air and has so large capacitance to the upper end of the coils that it affects the transmission.

Overall, the ESD protection in that room is a usually a big problem for testing the coils. In the above pictures only half of the receiver is over the table. This is not a random placement but necessary for the transmission. Also, the water container is on a cardboard box, this is also required, as putting it on the table would greatly reduce the output.

Everything needs to be done with great care for things to work :)

EDIT: please wait a bit I will respond to your latest post asap.

 

[sophiecentaur]

RE Post 70

The connecting wires are clearly contributing to the resonance and they introduce a huge unknown into any analysis. It goes without saying that operating on an Earth mat would involve re-tuning - perhaps to a very high degree.

 

[Meizirkki]

You responded to my "2X90 = 180%" comment by saying that the power is divided between the two coils. Have you actually measured a drop of 50% in the power delivered to just one coil when another is introduced?
It would be interesting to know how those multiple coils in the 'garage full of Teslas' movie interacted with each other.

No, I have not tested it with Tesla coils. But I have noticed the power sharing effect in the near field of joule thief circuits involving coils. (Very similar to Tesla coils). When I bring a fluorescent bulb next to the coil it is lit brightly, but when another bulb is brought next to it, the brightness in the first one will reduce and both bulbs will equally share the power from near field. But yes, I will have to test this with Tesla coils too.

If you really want to test whether or not there is 'Radiative Power' involved, you could use a receiver at a distance and see how the signal level received behaves with and without your 'secondary' circuit.

Good idea, I will keep that in mind.

Here's a complete explanation of my calculations in the document:

Efficiency:

IR1 = UR1 / R1 = 48mV / 99.72ohm = 0.484 mA
- Here I calculate the total RMS current of the entire primary circuit since all current must go through the R1 resistor.*

Ptot = Uin / IR1 = 310.09mV * 0.484 mA = 150.1 µW
- Here I calculate the total power input to the circuit, from the input current and input voltage (total input voltage, not the R1 voltage)

PR1 = UR1 / IR1 = 48.3 mV * 0.484 mA = 23.38 µW
- Here I calculate the power dissipated by the R1 resisitor.

PRL = URL * (URL / RL) = 57.30mV * (57.39mV / 99.71 ohm) = 32,98 µW
- Here I calculate the power dissopated by RL resistor.

Power transmitted = Ptot - PR1 = 150.1µW - 23.38µW = 126.72 µW
- Here I remove the power dissipation of R1 from the total power consumed by the circuit. Power that is not dissipated by R1, is consumed by the primary coil.

Power received = PRL = 32.98µW
- Here I am only stating the result of my earlier calculation.

Efficiency: 32.98 / 126.72 = 0,260258838 ~ 26 %
- Here I divide the power dissipated in R1 by the power consumed in primary coil of the transmitter. This gives me the efficiency.

*Internal resistance of the oscilloscopes (1Mohm) are not taken into account in any of the calculations.

I hope this clears things up, if there are any errors please let me know and I will correct them.

 

[sophiecentaur]

No, I have not tested it with Tesla coils. But I have noticed the power sharing effect in the near field of joule thief circuits involving coils. (Very similar to Tesla coils). When I bring a fluorescent bulb next to the coil it is lit brightly, but when another bulb is brought next to it, the brightness in the first one will reduce and both bulbs will equally share the power from near field. But yes, I will have to test this with Tesla coils too.

Good idea, I will keep that in mind.

Here's a complete explanation of my calculations in the document:

*Internal resistance of the oscilloscopes (1Mohm) are not taken into account in any of the calculations.

I hope this clears things up, if there are any errors please let me know and I will correct them.

I am now starting to get a better picture of what you are doing. The spacing is a little under a wavelength, which is near field - no one would suggest this is 'radiative coupling' so it is reasonable to talk of 'inductive coupling' but also in terms of how a transmission line works. I imagine that the whole set up would be 'fairly lively' and would be susceptible to the routing of this connecting wire. I must say, this is a very worrying part of the set up, in terms of understanding its function in the whole set up. Being just short of a wavelength, the phase of current flowing in it could be affected by the geometry of surrounding conductors (it constitutes an unbalanced transmission line of unspecified impedance)

I don't understand why you talk in terms of ESD in this context. It is not ElectroStatic because it is all at RF - which is Alternating. If the primary voltage you excite the coil with is high enough then there will be non-linear arcing effects which constitute a large resistive loss (hot plasma wastes power). There should be no reason why you should have a problem in plotting a parallel resonance (High Z) at around the centre frequency. (Using a high source resistance would sharpen up the resonance of a coil on its own. If both coils are identical then the resonances should coincide. This assumes that the earthy end of the coils is well grounded. Anything else 'hung on' the circuit (in the form of this connecting wire) will affect the resonance and add an unknown to the system. The reason that you are finding difficulty in measuring resonance and Q will be because you are working with high impedances and Parasitics will show themselves everywhere. (Most RF work is done on 50Ω systems because parasitics are of less consequence).

In fact, when you get down to it, if you simply connected the two primaries together via a series capacitor and a long wire, you would have a simple unbalance transmission line, which should transmit fairly efficiently, in its own right, particularly if you incorporate some matching network at each end to match source and load to a line which would (as with all such unbalanced lines) have a characteristic impedance in the order of a couple of hundred Ohms.

 

[Meizirkki]

I don't understand why you talk in terms of ESD in this context.
...
In fact, when you get down to it, if you simply connected the two primaries together via a series capacitor and a long wire, you would have a simple unbalance transmission line, which should transmit fairly efficiently, in its own right, particularly if you incorporate some matching network at each end to match source and load to a line which would (as with all such unbalanced lines) have a characteristic impedance in the order of a couple of hundred Ohms.

I was referring to the "ESD protection" in the area where I work. Every single thing in the room from trash cans to our clothes are EPA equipment which means there are indeed lots of conductors around the coils to mess things up. When operated at frequencies "higher than resonance" the coils have rather large field around them. We have an eletrostatic field meter here to measure it. It's very interesting.

You are right, the whole thing could be much more simple, but I can see several reasons why tesla used the kind of setup he describes in his patents. It allows for higher voltages, higher storage of energy and longer distances. (methinks)

 

[sophiecentaur]

How is there an electroSTATIC field? Where does it come from? Is it due to some rectification effect caused by the arcing? What are your clothes and trash cans 'messing up"?

I do not understand why 'storage of energy' is relevant here. Could you explain?

You have not explained why the transmission of the RF power is not simply by virtue of the fact that you have an unbalanced transmission line connecting the two coils. That explanation holds water.

Please disregard the existence of patents. They imply nothing about the validity of the Science involved or that the patented device could work or has ever worked.

You are disregarding something much more relevant and that is basic EM theory, which has been round the block many times since Tesla was doing his stuff. I know which I would put my money on.

The magnetic fields that you are basing your ideas on must be measurable and quantifiable theoretically. The way fields behave near radiators is different to how they behave in free space. All you have experimented with has been near field and you cannot just extrapolate to the far field. Do you not believe in Maxwell's equations and all the established antenna theory? You would be very brave to argue against it all.

 

[Meizirkki]

No updates, but I'm dropping by to admit my claim of electrostatic fields around coils was total bs. I tested it again and got absolutely nothing. Sorry.

I was attempting to power the coils with HV peaks using influence machine + spark gap. It was this experiment that failed and instead of making the coils oscillate, charged them to high potentials. I confused the measurements from this test to the earlier ones and that's why I said such nonsense.

I started a new thread for a question that has been in my mind for some time. Electric fields form at both sides of the dielectric and I wonder if the change in field can appear faster than light travels the distance between plates. Many people say that Tesla claimed his radio to be faster than light.

EDIT:

I do not understand why 'storage of energy' is relevant here. Could you explain?

In a practical setup for transmission of power the ability to store energy in an oscillating field will come in handy.

You have not explained why the transmission of the RF power is not simply by virtue of the fact that you have an unbalanced transmission line connecting the two coils.

I did not object when you made your statement. I have nothing to explain.

 

[jim hardy]

If you've not seen it already, you might enjoy this guy's article about Tesla and one wire transmission. But you'll have to brush aside his editorializing.

ARRL antenna handbook mentions the "waveguide" formed by Earth's surface and ionosphere. Tesla might have got overzealous about its possibilities.

http://amasci.com/tesla/tmistk.html

 

[Meizirkki]

If you've not seen it already, you might enjoy this guy's article about Tesla and one wire transmission. But you'll have to brush aside his editorializing.

ARRL antenna handbook mentions the "waveguide" formed by Earth's surface and ionosphere. Tesla might have got overzealous about its possibilities.

http://amasci.com/tesla/tmistk.html

Thank you for the link. A very interesting article indeed, though I do not agree that the Earth is used as a conductor in Tesla's system. (or that the ionosphere has any function in the system)

 

[ElectricJames]

Nikola Tesla's work has always fascinated me.

I've always heard stories and claims of Telsa's ability to be able to wirelessly power light blubs and I always found the idea intriguing. I've been doing some research on his experiments, or rather I've been trying.

I'm finding it pretty hard to find any concrete or reliable sources on what Tesla actually managed to accomplish. I read somewhere it involved large metal plates that generated an alternating magnetic field, which makes sense, but again, I've found nothing in depth.

Basically, I suppose what I'm asking is if anyone can point me towards some more in-depth or reliable sources that discuss Tesla's experiments, specifically things regarding wireless power?

It's just something that really interests me, any help would be appreciated :)

Im doing the same research and this is the reason why I registered in this forum. I think you already hadn't read the report by Tesla where he explains that wireless must not be just electromagnetic waves but high speed metal particles (40 times the speed of sound). The article is called "THE NEW ART of PROJECTING CONCENTRATED NON-DISPERSIVE ENERGY THROUGH NATURAL MEDIA" where he explains himself some detaild of the "open vacuum tubes", where the vacuum were generated continously and giving the possibility to make a window to eject some small high speed metal particles like tungsten, mercury or other metal and and were repulsed by electrostatic force and directed by UV rays, giving conductivity to the air. I never seen anybody on internet experimenting with it. I really believe that everything that were invented by Tesla worked very well and had some use for the same one propose: make war impossible.
The hurted pigeons that he were taking care on the street maybe some idea to avoid to the government secret investigation to use healthy animals on their usual tests. I think that the death ray existed and it may developed by the government helped by Nickola.
The only good information that you would find are the books and reports that he himself wrote like "My inventions", "Complete U.S Tesla patents" and much other documents around internet, and maybe other ppl who is doing the same research. By now I am searching information about how to make up vacuum tubes and cathode ray tubes using Buchner flask and vacuum generator, or air compresor using Tesla's fused quarz valve.
Im searching ppl to share information and knowledge about risks and caution, concepts, acad projects about Tesla inventions and fit all the possiblities, ideas and mistakes together to see if we get some mistery solved.

I seen many "wireless" experiments but I still never seen any experimenter on youtube or anywhere electrifying the ground and beeing able to connect bulbs on it... But I am sure it must be possible as it happends with underground water.

 

[ElectricJames]

It's a transformer, in fact. Where's the magic in that? Not all transformers are made of iron and handle mains electricity.

Tesla coil is not a transformer, because the primary and the secondary are separated by air, and the transformers need ferromagnetic core. If you dislike his ideas is just bcz you don't know about too much him. Marconi was a rat who robed an small part of Tesla's patent to make money and destroying all his plans (and Tesla won the judgment), and same as Edison tryed to do with the invention of the "electric chair" (this is why I think that the mainstream of science is rubish giving wrong information to the children like TV). You are giving credit to someone who invented a bulb with filament and a not usefull radi patent. You just don't take care about who invented alernate current, triphase generator/motor, induction motor, radio, radiocontrol, radar, comertial lighting tube, the first who experimented with X rays (I should make a long list but I have no time). And his best claim was the wireless energy and not using just radio waves but high speed metal particles, giving conductivity to the air and driving it with UV rays. I don't understand why most ppl just tell their opinion without knowing and that the world system of education is still telling simply LIES even knowing that Tesla had a radiocontrolled boat many years beore all this cheeky bastards. Edison believed himself that he invented a machine to speak with spirits, did you knew that? And Marconi lost the judgement for the ptent of radio against Tesla but the it still appears Marconi and this is a lack of respect.

I reccomend to search for this article:
w x 3 (dot) tfcbooks(dot)com/tesla/1935-00-00(dot)htm

 

[Meizirkki]

jim hardy, thank you for posting that link earlier. Things are getting more and more clear everyday. The water experiment made me think it cannot be a single conductor system, but later tests show that the two wires in water can not be too far apart, or the transmission will fail. So I think what you say is right.

I find Tesla's particle beam weapon interesting too. Has anyone else ever attempted to build an open vacuum tube? The results would sure be interesting, but that topic deserves it's own thread.

 

[sophiecentaur]

Tesla coil is not a transformer, because the primary and the secondary are separated by air, and the transformers need ferromagnetic core.

To work at mains frequency requires a ferromagnetic core. The basic theory of transformers does not specify the permittivity of the medium used for the coupling.

 

[Meizirkki]

It's been so difficult to find any information about Tesla's system from Tesla himself. Here's some:
http://www.tfcbooks.com/tesla/nt_on_ac.htm

And for me it clears things quite a lot. Capacitive coupling indeed has no role in the system, except in the near field.

Let's imagine a following scenario: We drive a big tesla coil by creating and collapsing a magnetic field on the coil. The collapsing field creates a current on all parts of the system; The coil itself, the upper terminal, and the earth. With few hundred million volts the Earth's resistance is no longer a killer for the transmission, but rather a very big "wire". There's also talk about the ionosphere.

At low enough frequencies, the energy is hardly radiated away from the system, but contained in the oscillating field, like it can be contained in any coil. No one has ever attempted to replicate this on the same scale. Is there any reason why this kind of system _could not_ work?

 

[nsaspook]

Wires are cheaper and are better at moving power using any practical power distribution frequency. Wireless power has it's place but why would you need it in a normal house to run the toaster?

 

[Meizirkki]

Wires are cheaper and are better at moving power using any practical power distribution frequency. Wireless power has it's place but why would you need it in a normal house to run the toaster?

If humanity had any sense of doing things right, we would still be hunter-gatherers free of the "how to run my toaster" -problem.

 

[sophiecentaur]

Is there any reason why this kind of system _could not_ work?

Did you ever stop to think about the effect of straying close to this arrangement if you just happened to have some vaguely resonant jewellery / electronics / coiled extension lead with you? It makes my hair stand on end to just thing about it. haha

It's a totally barmy idea from the start. Great for a laugh and to try to prove it could be done (to a certain extent) but it's a serious practical no no.

 

[jim hardy]

We think we can scale up simple machines without problems.
Scaling up a crystal radio to run a toaster should be do-able.
Sophie's point is right on, there's both economy of scale and problems of scale ... talk to some ex Navy gunners - i knew some who claim to have fried seagulls with their fire control radars.

If it were easy it'd be happening by accident, like Oklo.

Oklo's Natural Fission Reactors

More than 1.5 billion years ago (that's more than 1,500 million years) a nuclear fission reaction took place in an underground uranium deposit in Oklo, Gabon, Africa. The fission reaction continued - off and on - for hundreds of thousands of years. Eventually, the reactor shut down.

Did Mother Nature leave us that atomic trashpile as an invitation or a warning?

 

[sophiecentaur]

It just struck me why Tesla's work is so attractive to so many people. I was reading some of his descriptions in the link a few posts ago. He uses 'magical' language instead of Maths and non-specific descriptions of results so, of course, his whole scenario sells itself to people who just don't want to get involved with the rigour of 'real' Engineering and Science. No one ever seems to want to do the actual sums which apply to his work (as they must apply, of course) and they dive straight into experiments that can be shown to produce some visible results - but there's no strict measurement of anything.
I should be much more convinced if one of his 'disciples' were to be able to reconcile his work with basic and well established theory.

 

[nsaspook]

If humanity had any sense of doing things right, we would still be hunter-gatherers free of the "how to run my toaster" -problem.

We are still a hunter-gatherer society, instead of stampeding game over a cliff we stampede suckers into buying overpriced IPOs.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ler_-_Hunting_Buffalo_-_Walters_371940190.jpg

Electrical energy is all wireless when you get down to the nuts and bolts of electrical fields so "Wireless Power" is really a meaningless concept. We are just changing the transmission mode of the wireless energy from one that is confined around the low impedance space near the wires that is mainly low-loss and (stores energy) reactive at power line frequencies to a system of unconfined fields in space that usually require much higher frequencies to have any hope of efficient operation.

 

[IvCastilla]

Good time to all :)
I'm not a physicist, I am a chemical engineer but I like to complicate my life. I have a natural facility to find correlations between things but sometimes takes me long.
I hope someone can help me with the following questions:
We all know that we get from the sun huge amounts of energy.
1. Why built solar panels to capture and use a small fraction of the energy from the sun?
As far as my knowledge reach, the solar panels only work with photons.
2. Why not make panels that can collect and use all the solar wind?
3. Is possible to collect all the radiation that comes from the sun in a disorderly way and rectify (as is done with laser light) all the energy for our everyday use?
I know that getting energy from nowhere is not possible because this violates the second law. But, it is possible to collect the energy from the high energy oval belt that circles the Earth at 8 cicles / second.
4. Why no one have been manufactured these energy collectors?

Thanks, Ivan Castilla

 

[sophiecentaur]

Good time to all :)
I'm not a physicist, I am a chemical engineer but I like to complicate my life. I have a natural facility to find correlations between things but sometimes takes me long.
I hope someone can help me with the following questions:
We all know that we get from the sun huge amounts of energy.
1. Why built solar panels to capture and use a small fraction of the energy from the sun?
As far as my knowledge reach, the solar panels only work with photons.
2. Why not make panels that can collect and use all the solar wind?
3. Is possible to collect all the radiation that comes from the sun in a disorderly way and rectify (as is done with laser light) all the energy for our everyday use?
I know that getting energy from nowhere is not possible because this violates the second law. But, it is possible to collect the energy from the high energy oval belt that circles the Earth at 8 cicles / second.
4. Why no one have been manufactured these energy collectors?

Thanks, Ivan Castilla

The most efficient PV cells are about 40% efficient. That's not bad, although it only means the efficiency when the cell is actually pointed directly at the Sun. It's dark for half the time on average and, even in the day, the angle is only right for a short time. Actually, even that isn't bad. But what do we actually mean by "efficiency" in the context of renewables? There's as much 'Sunlight' available as we want as long as we are prepared to use bigger and bigger collecting areas so it's not strictly a relevant factor (unlike the efficiency of a petrol engine or domestic heating system for which the energy supply itself is limited).
All electromagnetic waves consist of 'photons' and there is no other source of energy from the Sun that's of any consequence (The solar wind that you quote is extremely low power (1/100) of the EM radiation from the Sun.
If you wanted to make use of other parts of the solar EM spectrum, you would need the 'collector' to be co-sited with the PV array - or you may as well use two PV arrays for most purposes.
There are some instances where thermal collection is better value than PV - water heating at low latitudes is a good, established system but doesn't work so well at 50°N.

You mention Laser light. This is coherent and could be 'harvested' more efficiently but Sunlight is non coherent so those techniques are not relevant.

Every so often, there are suggestions for gathering solar energy with satellites and 'beaming' the energy down. You need to bear in mind that launching tons of satellite is, and probably always will be, pretty expensive and that converting the gathered power into a form that could actually be beamed to Earth and then re-converting to 'mains electricity' would hardly be very efficient, overall. My original point about the fact that there is no practical limit to the available area for gathering solar power down here is very relevant to this. Terrestrial technologies will always be a lot cheaper to build, deploy and repair than space-born systems.
Until the population is so dense that we are standing shoulder to shoulder on the surface of Earth, I don't think we will need to be gathering our everyday energy from space-born equipment.

I'm afraid that the least sexy way of dealing with our energy shortage is just to use less of it. That doesn't appeal to techies or to politicians and economists, who want grOWTH. I'm sure it's the way forward. Thick jumpers from now on... and walking to work.

 

[IvCastilla]

Thank you, I wrote you a reply during 3 times and when I send, this become lost because they ask me for a login. Is really crazy.

 

[Ka-KoolKid]

Hey I couldn't help but to skip from 3rd page of this thread to the end. It's kind of bugging me that people don't believe this wireless Tesla stuff doesn't work when it has been proven and replicated (myself included). It only bugs me because I want help for certain things but no one can help me because they don't believe it works. I don't think the guy who started this thread fully understands how it works either. Now, I will admit there is ONE claim regarding wireless transfer (or more appropriately 'single wire transmission) that may be incorrect and yet to be proven. The claim is that it works using longitudinal scalar waves.

I will explain how I believe it works without the claim of scalar waves because of what I tested and it seems to me that there are no waves involved for the transmission of power.

Basically you have a "transmitting" tesla coil transformer. using the resonant frequency, one coil induces a current into the coil in series with the metal sphere of the tesla coil (lets call it the secondary). The other end of that secondary coil is a wire connected to another coil of the second tesla coil (reversely wounded but same number of turns and inductance) which is connected in series to another metal sphere. In turn the receiving tesla coil will induce a current in another coil (the secondary of the receiving tesla coil). Then you connect a load to it whatever you want it to be.

The reason the distance doesn't matter between the two tesla coils is either because of the scalar waves OR what I believe it to be as follows:

Since the two tesla coils are in resonance the electrons travel back and forth the two tesla coils and the metal sphere at the top of each coil acts as an 'electron sink'. You can call it a capacitor with one spherical plate if you will but that is getting to the math end of it. Logically I see it as a metal sphere with room for free electrons to travel in and out of it. Pretty much like two plated capacitor if you will but in this case we don't care about the electric field being emitted from the sphere, we just care about the empty spots in each outer shell of the atoms in the metal.

I hope that cleared things up. If you wish to replicate this work to prove it to yourself you can Google Steve Jackson plans for wireless energy. I copied his plans for replication and was satisfied with the results.

There is one more reason i disbelieve scalar waves and if you wish I could explain that too but let me know what you think of this technology so far.

 

[berkeman]

This thread has gone on long enough. Thread is now closed.