Free Energy | searching for free energy and discussing free energy
News announcements and other topics => News => Topic started by: franco malgarini on February 16, 2015, 10:52:26 AM
-
With speaker:
______________________
http://autocostruire.forumcommunity.net/
-
I have just built a simple crystal radio for OU research. Its simply a tuned 'tank' LC , a germanium diode, a capacitor (0.01 for audio or 10uF for DC), a piezoelectric earpiece and a 56k resistor across the 0.01uF cap as a load for audio.
I'm 25km from the AM transmitters. Using a ferrite rod antenna as the tuning coil only doesn't work well, so an external wire antenna 20 feet long is coupled to the ferrite using the smaller winding normally found on ferrite antennas. The other end of the winding is connected to the water pipes for a good earth.
I can get 1.3V on the 10uF capacitor and no load resistor, it takes time to charge (seconds). Without the tuned circuit, and just a diode there is practically no charging of the capacitor. Quite amazing, as you would initially think that many more radio waves would be rectified by the diode, instead of just one signal. The large Q of the tuned circuit builds up the voltage for the frequency being tuned.
Power wise only 2-4 micro watts are available at the best load of about 70k. Voltage drops way down, below 1 volt.
The reason I built this crystal set is to try doped (radioactive) galena diodes and small transistors exposed to uranium oxide. Moray is said to have used similar diodes in a crystal set. The result, apparently, was enough power to make 2000 ohm 1920's horn speakers usable.
The circuit you describe would only work loudly when quite close to the transmitter. Otherwise there is simply not enough signal.
My simple circuit is actually able to power an 8 ohm speaker directly, but you need to put your ear right next to speaker to hear the whisper!
An impedance transformer, like the one in your diagram, made the volume very slightly better.
-
Good antenna for crystal radio is better:
http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/electronics-projects-how-to-add-an-antenna-to-a-cr.html
_________________________
http://autocostruire.forumcommunity.net/
-
I just use a Slinky spring toy strung across the ceiling of my room as an antenna. This baby picks up enough power from the radio stations to make a green LED light up on the output, at certain times of the day. Not brilliantly but surprisingly bright anyway. The fidelity of the audio is remarkably good, using a piezo element in a plastic spicecup housing or a high-impedance magnetic earphone. I have a potted chunk of lead galena, tickled by a bit of phosphor-bronze wire from an old guitar string, or optionally a 1n34a germanium diode. When you get the right spot on the galena it works better than the diode.
-
That's a sweet looking set! Damn clever coupling system too. I have a slinky somewere ... I've made only two batches of synthetic galena , undoped and set in woods metal.
In the lab, using a nearby signal generator , they produced less voltage on the cap when compared to the diode. I used a very thin strand of copper as the whisker. Any pressure at all and it conducted both ways. I need to try them on a radio signal to be certain before I change the synthesis. Do you need any pressure on your galena? Also, have you measured any shorted I or open v from the galena
-
Thanks, the coil set is called a "variometer" and has quite a good tuning range by rotating the inner coil. The inner and outer coils are in series, with contact made in the pivot points. The radio is a version of the so-called "aussie radio" that I found on a Crystal Radio website. Lots of really nice ones there.
I did some research and found that the phosphor bronze wire is supposed to be the best whisker material, it is stiff enough to make a good contact with the galena and holds a sharp point well, and it's the material most wrapped classical guitar strings use for the "wrapping" so it's easy to get a bit from an old, or even new string. I have to use a little pressure, not too much, for the contact, and probe and scratch around for a while to find the best spot. I think that the key is to find a single "diode junction" on the surface of the galena, usually it is in a crevasse or ledge in the crystal. My crystal is a chunk from a not-very-nice "mineral sample" sold to kids for their rock collections. It's embedded in ordinary solder, in a little copper pipecap. Hard to get it to stick properly in the solder, it floats in the molten solder!
I haven't measured the voltage from the galena itself, this is a tricky measurement to make because of the sensitivity of the whisker adjustment. I feed the output into a small stereo amp (mono mode) and the sound fidelity is every bit as good as from a standard powered AM radio tuner. Or use the piezo element or high-impedance headphones for truly "no power" operation. I was amazed when I first put the LED on the output, so I soldered it into the circuit permanently. Sometimes I get the LED bright without hearing any audio modulation, that's strange because I don't know what I'm picking up then.
That's a sweet looking set! Damn clever coupling system too. I have a slinky somewere ... I've made only two batches of synthetic galena , undoped and set in woods metal.
In the lab, using a nearby signal generator , they produced less voltage on the cap when compared to the diode. I used a very thin strand of copper as the whisker. Any pressure at all and it conducted both ways. I need to try them on a radio signal to be certain before I change the synthesis. Do you need any pressure on your galena? Also, have you measured any shorted I or open v from the galena
-
Great info,now I know what a variometer looks like! I will chase down some cheap strings on eBay. Meanwhile I will see if a pn junction in a 2N2222A with its can filled with UO2 does anything out of the ordinary. I just found my stash of 1960s germanium semiconductors. From memory they have some liquid inside, unlike the modern one I just did. I will find out tomorrow. According to the Moreland patent an audio amplifier with such a modded transistor melted the speaker with all extra power !!! I may need to invest in 1000w speakers before I attempt the experiment ;D
-
Take a saturated solution of uranium nitrate on some gold or platinum foil.touch a chunk germanium direct onto it(the solution) and see if you get a circuit pomodoro.at least the uranium will be intimately incontact.compare with saturated magnesium nitrate sol.
-
I have always wanted to make one of these but had no place in my apartment outside to string an antenna. TK just solved that with the slinky idea...brilliant! I can run it up near my ceiling.
About 5 years back, I bought some germanium diodes but, there is no number on them. I believe they were what was recommended for my first Bedini set-up. (I have to look up on the schematic to see what was called for) Will one of these possibly work in making a crystal set? If so, I have every thing I need to make a simple one.
Bill
***EDIT*** I looked it up. The germanium diodes I have are supposed to be 1N4001
-
I have always wanted to make one of these but had no place in my apartment outside to string an antenna. TK just solved that with the slinky idea...brilliant! I can run it up near my ceiling.
About 5 years back, I bought some germanium diodes but, there is no number on them. I believe they were what was recommended for my first Bedini set-up. (I have to look up on the schematic to see what was called for) Will one of these possibly work in making a crystal set? If so, I have every thing I need to make a simple one.
Bill
***EDIT*** I looked it up. The germanium diodes I have are supposed to be 1N4001
Whaat? 1n4001 is a silicon diode, a 50 V, 1 A rectifier diode. Usually in a plastic DO-41 package. Very not likely to work in a Crystal set.
Most modern era (within the last 50 years, say) germanium diodes are in clear glass packages. They are usually "point contact" devices and you can see (with a magnifying lens) inside the glass to see the little whisker thing from the Anode side making a point contact with the little chunk of germanium on the Cathode side. They will have low forward voltage drops, like below 0.3 V when checked with the Diode Check function of your DMM, usually. (The exact value will depend on your meter, but will usually be half or less of what a 4000-series rectifier diode will read.) Schottky diodes will also have a low forward voltage drop but aren't suited for Crystal Radios in spite of that, except for some special ones. Special, meaning none that I have or can easily get!
By coincidence this topic is also being discussed on OUR. I tested a few of my diodes and reported there just this morning.
There are lots of 1n34a germanium diodes being advertised on EBay, from China, with really low prices. It would be interesting to see if they are genuine.
These at least have a picture that _looks_ like a genuine germanium point-contact diode.... some other listings don't.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/10-PCS-GERMANIUM-DIODE-1N34A-DO-7-1N34-IN34A-/140769037475
I have a few genuine point-contact 1n34 or 1n34a and 1n60, and they measure 0.249 - 0.270 Vf on my diode checker. I found one that measures 0.247, it is marked "12101 3CT". Another has no numbers but has black, gold, red and green color bands and measures 0.257 Vf.
For comparison, a 1n5711 Schottky measures 0.372 Vf and a 1n4148 measures 0.686 Vf, and a 1n4004 rectifier gives 0.600 Vf.
I have some marked 1n270 gold-bonded Ge point-contacts pulled from old TV chassis, they measure 0.252-0.258.
But a 1n5817 Schottky measures 0.181 !! Testing four others from that batch: 0.178 -0.182 Vf. A 1n5819 gives 0.220.
Retesting a 1n270 gives 0.256, same as before.
I'm going to try one of those 5817s in my crystal set right away!
Meter is El Cheepo XL830L with smoothjaw gator clips as probes for good contact.
And this testing was all stimulated by an article here:
http://baec.tripod.com/articles/crystal.htm (http://baec.tripod.com/articles/crystal.htm)
-
TK:
Yes, your photo is exactly what mine appear to be. Glass tube and all. I may be mistaken on why I ordered them..about 6 years ago. I thought it was for the Bedini...but I might be wrong. I will look at one under my microscope to see if there is any number on them...or...is there a color code for these like resistors?
I think I remember someone on a topic here saying that real germanium diodes were getting scarce and folks should get some before they are gone. I bought about 50. Did I send you some in that package? I might have as they are in the same container as my 2N3055 transistors from my Bedini projects. I might not have either...it is hard to say at my age...ha ha.
All I know is that I have missed 2 days of work here due to 12" of snow!!! I do not get sick, vacation or any weather related days so...no pay. I am going in the a.m. even if I have to walk the 6 miles to get there. Oh, Thursday, they are calling for up (or down?) to -27 degrees with the wind chill, which is great as I work outside.
Bill
-
Here is as close a photo of my diode as I could get.....
Probably not real clear but...best I could do at the moment.
Bill
PS I just checked one of my Bedini motors...I did use a 1N4007 on them. I bought a handful of those at the same time. Sorry for my confusion.
-
Yes, I think you maybe did send me a few of those. They look like 1n60 to me, which is a 100V germanium, similar to 1n34a but just a little higher voltage. Fine for crystal sets.
No, these won't have any numbers or color bands, just a black band or end for the Cathode. The one I've got with the color bands is the only one I've ever seen that looked like that. I don't remember where I got it, either.
-
Yes, I think you maybe did send me a few of those. They look like 1n60 to me, which is a 100V germanium, similar to 1n34a but just a little higher voltage. Fine for crystal sets.
No, these won't have any numbers or color bands, just a black band or end for the Cathode. The one I've got with the color bands is the only one I've ever seen that looked like that. I don't remember where I got it, either.
Thanks. So black is -, very good to know. I will try building a simple set once we thaw out around here. I just checked again, for Thurs. they are now calling for -28 with the wind chill. Tomorrow is only -9 so, not as bad....ha ha.
Bill
-
TK, how far are you from the transmitter? 3V+ and a few mA is quite a huge signal.
I tested a few Ge transistors, using the base emitter as a diode and none give the same amplitude as a 1970s unbranded Ge signal diode.
-
TK, how far are you from the transmitter? 3V+ and a few mA is quite a huge signal.
I tested a few Ge transistors, using the base emitter as a diode and none give the same amplitude as a 1970s unbranded Ge signal diode.
Good question, I've been meaning to look it up. So... with some googling and looking on Google Earth....
The transmitter towers are 4.27 km from our house, and the station radiates only 2500 Watts during the day and only 90 Watts nighttime!
(I knew it was close but I didn't realize how close. It's practically a short walk from home.)
Their antennas are in a directional pattern and we are on the direct line of direction of their radiation pattern.
I'm using the Slinky antenna stretched out to around 3 meters, and the radio is only grounded through the house mains ground wire, instead
of my actual Earth ground rod outside in moist soil. This house has a metal roof and normally it's hard to pick up radio stations
inside.
I agree, the signal received by the radio is extremely strong. When I do use the outside ground wire, I can get more stations but at less
overall power. So maybe there is some pickup from the house mains, in addition to the power from the radio station itself (at 1.420 MHz).
-
Wow, that's very close. I wonder if you can still light the led at night? I used to enjoy picking up strange distant AM stations at night, when FM was 'experimental' . I guess they didnt lower their power at night back then.
-
Yes, it's about 10 pm here now and the green LED is flickering dimly. Not making a lot of light but definitely visible from across the room.
-
Still pretty good, from 90 W and 5km away. I managed to find a lump of natural Galena amongst a pile of rocks I was given ages ago. Although the reception where I am at the moment is very poor and noisy, it it did seem at least as good as the diode. I still haven't got the proper cat whisker, I'm using a piece of hard copper at the moment.
-
I have been searching the web for a good design to make my first one. I think I am advanced (maybe) enough to go a little bit passed the most basic crystal radio designs. However, I do not want something waaay to complicated for my first one.
Is a variable air cap. a good option for one of these radios in the basic form? It would seem to me this is better than tapping into loops in the coil placed at fixed points on the length. I like the design TK used but, that may be above my level to make at this time. Except for the slinky antenna, that I can do, ha ha. What a great idea.
Bill
-
Yes, most use a variable capacitor. Intermediate designs have a variable coupling coil. This unloads your LC tank and let's you separate stations better. I'm getting a few stations at once, the strong stations swamp out the weak ones.
-
http://www.midnightscience.com/catalog5.html (http://www.midnightscience.com/catalog5.html)
I found this site with a lot of interesting parts including an $11.00 (US) variable cap. I can also get a cool pointer knob for about $2.00 more.
They sell galena here if folks want to go that route.
Bill
-
I see they (the site linked on my above post) also have a coil calculator here:http://www.midnightscience.com/formulas-calculators.html (http://www.midnightscience.com/formulas-calculators.html)
Bill
-
Good find! I like those air variable caps. They are quite reasonably priced too. Some of the accessories seem a bit pricey, like the knobs pointers and spacers, but the caps themselves look good. Custom manufactured for the midnightscience shop, too.
And those new-old-stock Galenas, and tickler assemblies, wow.
-
Thanks. Yes, I have been shopping for the air caps and their price is not bad...plus like $5 shipping but...what can you do?
Did you see where they have a reduction drive on a similar cap? Then, you can add another reduction drive to that cap to get something like 48:1 for fine tuning. I just wanted to go this way instead of clipping to a pre selected place on the wound coil.
They do not offer slinky antennas though...they must be behind the times over there, ha ha.
Bill
-
Hi guy's. I played around with lots of crystal radio's but this one that I made is by far the best.
Most of the info is here in the clip, although the quality is not HD. I made a drawing that shows it as it is setup in the clip.
My dual gang vari cap was hand made and very crude but it performed much better that the dual gangs I got from old radios!!!
I can get quite large voltages from this setup, and in the clip here it is running a standard wall clock, but since then I improved it even more.
The transmitter is about 25 kilometres from me and I tune to 774khz, but I noticed I get another station which happens to be an octave above at about 1550khz.
I'd really like someone to make one of these to see how it goes....a few more coil taps around the centre of the primary might be an idea too....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQT01-OA89k (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQT01-OA89k)
-
Also it will run a 4" speaker that has an audio trans pretty well.....and I think my diodes may have been 1n60's in the video.
My latest antenna was just a blue data cable....I joined the 7 cores together at the radio coil end.
-
I just made some homemade synthetic galena, one of a few attempts. Quenching seems to give more sensitive galena than letting it cool naturally. When the reaction starts, the mixture glows red possibly gets hot enough for the top layer to melt, or so it seems. The top of the galena looks as if it melted (~1100 C). Quenching in water is done a few seconds after the glow begins. Water must not be allowed to seep inside the crucible. Use only steel, no glass or ceramic or other common metals. The rough, porous side is set in woods metal or wrapped in aluminum foil.
Compared to two samples of natural galena, the synthetic one is superior. most of the 'melted' side is active and the signal is just as good and occasionally slightly better than a germanium diode.
In the next experiment this synthetic sample will be melted in a steel tube under nitrogen in an electric furnace at 1250C and allowed to cool in the furnace.
-
Pomodoro:
Very cool experiment. Keep us posted on the result of your next batch.
@ All:
I have a question about the radio I want to build. I have been reading on various crystal radio sites about all of the many designs available to build.
One site explained that to get really good reception, your coil has to be in resonance with the desired signal. (Tank circuit) He explains that you can use just about any wire for your coil, stranded, mag. wire...etc. and the gauge size is not that important. It is very important that you match the resonance with your signal. Great. He does not say how this is done.
I always listen to a local station here (transmitter about 10 miles away) at 930 kHz. I salvaged an air capacitor from an older am radio and I have my germanium diode. I want (actually have to now) build this with supplies I already have here. I went to the coil calculator site I posted here a few posts back, and I can not figure out how many turns of what gauge wire I need to be able to resonate at 930 kHz? I know I can tune it with the air cap. Also, I have some ferrite rods I can insert into my coil for coarse tuning. What I want to make sure is that my coil will be within the range of my tuning abilities to receive 930 kHz while resonating.
Is there an easy way to calculate this? Wire length, diameter of coil, wire size? The coil calculator has three variables and you must supply 2 of them to get the third. I don't know 2 of them at this point.
I have a nice 1.250 x 12" long clear plastic tube that I want to wind my coil on. I have various sizes of mag. wire here...32,22,18, 38.
I have a nice ceramic earphone and, I plan to use the a.m. antenna I built many years ago that I use on my stereo receiver to get the station I am talking about, as well as many, many others. I will just tap into it.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Bill
-
The inductance of the coil required to resonate will depend on the capacitance of the variable capacitor. There are plenty of sites with LC resonance calculators eg: (http://www.1728.org/resfreq.htm)
For a typical cap of 150pF it looks like you need a coil of 200uH for .93MHz.
So unless you know the capacitance of the cap, probably try a coil of 300uH for a start.
if you have an oscilloscope you can easily find the resonant frequency of the coil and cap by pulsing it wit a battery and watching the sine wave.
Also, Litz wire is best for the coil, but not mandatory.
-
Hi Bill
Here's how I would proceed. You are using a design that will be tuned by the air-variable capacitor, right, rather than by tapping the coil.
So go to the coil calculator site you linked earlier. The old air-variables are usually 365 pF at full capacitance. So plug in 930 kHz and, say, 200 pF into the resonant frequency formula and solve for inductance. I get 147 microHenry for the necessary inductance of the coil.
Now go down to the coil calculator and put in your inductance and the radius of the coil form. I put in 147 uH and 0.625 inch radius, and I went to another website and looked up the diameter of #22 bare wire and got 0.0253 inch. For a closewound coil this is the "pitch". The calculator returned 114 turns, for 2.88 inches of winding length on the form.
So I'd wrap 120 turns of the #22 wire onto the form. This isn't going to be a very high "Q" coil though. For higher Q consider using a larger diameter form, and re-run the calculation. Make two coils, see which works better for you!
I seem to remember that 300 turns on an oatmeal box form works pretty well for a tap-tuned set with fixed capacitance. You can always sand off the insulation along a 'stripe' of the coil and solder a tap or three on there.
The radio will be influenced by other variables as well, so give yourself plenty of room for experimentation. Plug in other numbers for the capacitor, use the smaller wire, larger diameter form, different frequencies, etc etc.
ETA: The photo below is an old tap-tuned crystal set I made a long time ago. The coil is wound on a plastic 35mm film can. The capacitor is 47 pF. The coil has about 140 turns or so. This set actually works pretty well! It does need a good antenna and ground. I have not tried it with the slinky antenna!
-
Pomodoro:'I just made some homemade synthetic galena, one of a few attempts'
Try doping with various elements including radio-active material.I remember my own series of tests with melted germanium boules,was doping to make it p+ or n-.definitely made a difference on the micro-amp meter
-
Radio-Active material???
Not generally available I would have thought.
-
Lakes:'Radio-Active material???
Not generally available'
Mr pomodoro plays in the varsity labs
-
Try doping with various elements including radio-active material.I remember my own series of tests with melted germanium boules,was doping to make it p+ or n-.definitely made a difference on the micro-amp meter
The whole aim of this is to include a little uranium. I need to melt the galena completely to make sure the uranium dioxide has a chance of dissolving or hopefully reacting with it.
If it does help to amply the signal, it would need to behave a a true negative resistor, at RF. I cant see the device amplifying in any other way. In the basic crystal set circuit, with the same load, I should see less loading of the tuning LC circuit, that is, a higher voltage across the LC circuit. That is, if it is a N type negative resistor. If its an S type I would need to incorporate it in a shunt LC, requiring a coupled coil to the tuning coil.
I haven't been able to find any scientific literature on semiconductors mixed with radioactive substances as yet. Surely someone in the 1800s or early 1900s would have tried all of this.
-
Pomodoro:'Surely someone in the 1800s or early 1900s would have tried all of this.'
Doesn't mean records are still available today.plenty underground
-
Pomodoro:'Surely someone in the 1800s or early 1900s would have tried all of this.'
Doesn't mean records are still available today.plenty underground
Someone would have put their findings in a physics journal to beat other scientists to it. Also, an amplifying crystal diode would have made big bucks before the advent of the vacuum tube in the mid 20s.
-
Pomodoro:'Someone would have put their findings in a physics journal to beat other scientists to it.'
better late than never.did you manage to register anything from the doping yet?
-
Hi Bill
Here's how I would proceed. You are using a design that will be tuned by the air-variable capacitor, right, rather than by tapping the coil.
So go to the coil calculator site you linked earlier. The old air-variables are usually 365 pF at full capacitance. So plug in 930 kHz and, say, 200 pF into the resonant frequency formula and solve for inductance. I get 147 microHenry for the necessary inductance of the coil.
Now go down to the coil calculator and put in your inductance and the radius of the coil form. I put in 147 uH and 0.625 inch radius, and I went to another website and looked up the diameter of #22 bare wire and got 0.0253 inch. For a closewound coil this is the "pitch". The calculator returned 114 turns, for 2.88 inches of winding length on the form.
So I'd wrap 120 turns of the #22 wire onto the form. This isn't going to be a very high "Q" coil though. For higher Q consider using a larger diameter form, and re-run the calculation. Make two coils, see which works better for you!
I seem to remember that 300 turns on an oatmeal box form works pretty well for a tap-tuned set with fixed capacitance. You can always sand off the insulation along a 'stripe' of the coil and solder a tap or three on there.
The radio will be influenced by other variables as well, so give yourself plenty of room for experimentation. Plug in other numbers for the capacitor, use the smaller wire, larger diameter form, different frequencies, etc etc.
ETA: The photo below is an old tap-tuned crystal set I made a long time ago. The coil is wound on a plastic 35mm film can. The capacitor is 47 pF. The coil has about 140 turns or so. This set actually works pretty well! It does need a good antenna and ground. I have not tried it with the slinky antenna!
TK:
Thank you very much for the info. I did not know that a larger diameter made a difference. I will do as you suggested...a good starting point. I should have looked at the value of the variable air cap but, it looks like a "standard' one that can be purchased on some of the radio sites. (Not those really good ones that are replicas) I do have a bunch of litz wire salvaged from an old TV yoke. I may not have enough for a larger coil however. I was going to use your slinky idea but, I don't have one at the moment and my challenge is to use what is on hand...and have it work well. (or at least work, ha ha)
Pomodoro:
Thank you for your input as well. I appreciate it.
@All:
One can purchase uranium from Bob Lazar's site...United Nuclear. Also, you can salvage Americium from just about any smoke detector. I do not mess with any of that stuff.
Bill
-
Pirate:'One can purchase uranium from Bob Lazar's site...'
Or from ebay,minerals&gemssection
-
Uranium is not dangerous externally - just don't eat it or breathe it in! Same as the americium. Am is like a modern day radium, but you can't get much out of the detector.
Profitis, I have not doped anything as yet. Still getting to know the normal galena first. The first melt attempt leaked out of a stainless tube at 1250c. The tube had a flat bottom which I thought was an integral part, but obviously wasn't.
-
At the mention of Radio Active material I was reminded of the boy who built a reactor out of smoke detectors.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn
-
Pomodoro:'Still getting to know the normal galena first. The first melt attempt leaked out of a stainless tube at 1250c. The tube had a flat bottom which I thought was an integral part, but obviously wasn't.'
Chekout the meltingpoint of PbTe2: 940 celcius.it might also be worth a try.I've made it plenty times by just meting pb and te together until reaction initiates.its same family as galena
-
Not sure if I've got tellurium. I did end up filling the can of a 2n2222a with UO2. The top of the can is easily 'opened' by filing it away. IThe filing actually files away only at the edges leaving a small disk, which can be replaced back on top after the yellow powder is put in the can. A bit of glue does the rest. I haven't done any testing of that as yet, apart from measuring the Vbe and Vbc voltage drops, which remained the same. Using it as a diode in the crystal set was not too good, as expected. It needs to be used as an audio amp as in the Moreland patent. I'm making all the items first and testing them later.
-
Pomodoro:'I did end up filling the can of a 2n2222a with UO2.'
You may get small effect like this but I doubt it will be registerable.can hardly wait to see actual doping results.doping should theoreticly have orders magnitute greater effect
-
Since the current is in the microamp level, we are not asking much from the uranium. The question is if the electrons dislodged by alpha particles can be made to flow in the direction of the RF current only, and they need to keep their energy. Simply dislodging energetic electrons randomly might increase the conductivity of the galena but will amplify nothing.
Bill, that site has cool chemicals, UO2 is dirt cheap. Strange how he has no thorium though.
-
Pomodoro:'Simply dislodging energetic electrons randomly might increase the conductivity of the galena but will amplify nothing.'
Might also be specific to where you prick on the crystal.the uo2 won't dissolve in the mass but rather disperse as colloidal entities.prick one section you might get a galena effect,prick another you might touch a uo2 particle and a galena at same time,maybe get a tri-fold transistor type whacko effect? Exciting
-
At the mention of Radio Active material I was reminded of the boy who built a reactor out of smoke detectors.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn)
I read the book about him called...(I think) The Radioactive Boy Scout. It was a very good read. If memory serves, he salvaged Americium from 100 smoke detectors that be bought surplus. He made a wave guide or target guide (or whatever you call it) out of lead and bombarded some uranium with the beta (or alpha?) particles focused by the lead. In a few short weeks, the radiation levels being put out set off some gov. sensors a good distance away and the entire neighborhood had to be evacuated.
Anyway, it is a great book for anyone that like to read about science stuff. That kid was obviously very smart....but careless.
Bill
-
TK:
I decided to use a large peanut butter jar at 3.8" dia. I ran the numbers using your figure for capacitance for this larger diameter and, the answer I ended up with was 20 turns? That seems like a very small number of turns. Does the diameter really make this much difference? I can re-run the numbers using a smaller gauge wire say like 28, which would require more turns I believe. I will see what happens.
The cool thing about using a peanut butter jar (plastic) is that you can contain the entire radio circuit in side the jar with the windings on the O.D. and hook-up posts mounted in the plastic lid. I saw someone else do this and this is the only thing I have of a larger diameter right now.
I am not too worried as I have those ferrite rods (.500 dia. x 6" long) that I can slide inside the jar from the top to lower the freqs. I can receive if I get too high. I just did not think it would look good with only 20 turns.
I know, performance should trump looks...and I agree but...if I can do both that would be better. I even have some 32 gauge mag. wire and can run the numbers again with that.
Thanks for your help. As soon as I can afford a slinky, that will be my adjustable antenna. Perhaps you should alert the Slinky folks about this new use for their old product?
Bill
-
If we dont use a detector, can the circuit build higher voltages if let to do so? Just wondering. Seems that the transmitters send out quite a bit of high amplitude signals. Maybe some super fine tuning can produce more out. Say if the tuned circuit is allowed to build, then take some when it reaches a predetermined higher level.
Mags
-
The detector [diode) can charge a capacitor and you can then discharge it at will. The most power would be gained from no detector and a resistor as load across the tuning coil/cap. The value of the resistance for max power needs to be determined experimentally.
-
If we dont use a detector, can the circuit build higher voltages if let to do so? Just wondering. Seems that the transmitters send out quite a bit of high amplitude signals. Maybe some super fine tuning can produce more out. Say if the tuned circuit is allowed to build, then take some when it reaches a predetermined higher level.
Mags
I was also thinking about something similar for later. I can hook up my 650 F cap and let it charge for a long time....then use that stored energy.
Maybe I can add a switch and a small amplifier circuit (to run a small speaker) so, when the cap is fully charged, it can run the amp for a while, then switch back to reg. crystal radio power and let the cap charge up again?
Bill
-
I was also thinking about something similar for later. I can hook up my 650 F cap and let it charge for a long time....then use that stored energy.
Maybe I can add a switch and a small amplifier circuit (to run a small speaker) so, when the cap is fully charged, it can run the amp for a while, then switch back to reg. crystal radio power and let the cap charge up again?
Bill
Hey Bill
Was thinking, instead of taking from the tank every cycle via diode and load, let the tank build in potential before taking from it. Hadnt made a crystal set in 30 years. So it interests me now, how high can that potential be in the receiver tank if left to do so without taking from it till it reaches some higher level. If we keep taking from it, the signal is damped every cycle. So we make a set without the diode and see how high it can build, if it does.
I did a circuit on sim a while back where I had 2 loads being driven by a driven resonant tank. Each load was rectified with many diodes in series, one load for each cycle. The diodes provided a voltage drop so the low ohm loads only conducted what was left over after the diode drop. So there was some nice current into the loads without 'killing' of the higher level ring in the tank. I have to look through my codes for that circuit.
Mags
-
TK:
I decided to use a large peanut butter jar at 3.8" dia. I ran the numbers using your figure for capacitance for this larger diameter and, the answer I ended up with was 20 turns? That seems like a very small number of turns. Does the diameter really make this much difference? I can re-run the numbers using a smaller gauge wire say like 28, which would require more turns I believe. I will see what happens.
The cool thing about using a peanut butter jar (plastic) is that you can contain the entire radio circuit in side the jar with the windings on the O.D. and hook-up posts mounted in the plastic lid. I saw someone else do this and this is the only thing I have of a larger diameter right now.
I am not too worried as I have those ferrite rods (.500 dia. x 6" long) that I can slide inside the jar from the top to lower the freqs. I can receive if I get too high. I just did not think it would look good with only 20 turns.
I know, performance should trump looks...and I agree but...if I can do both that would be better. I even have some 32 gauge mag. wire and can run the numbers again with that.
Thanks for your help. As soon as I can afford a slinky, that will be my adjustable antenna. Perhaps you should alert the Slinky folks about this new use for their old product?
Bill
By a curious coincidence, I have an AM station broadcasting at 1480 kHz with its antenna just a few km from my house. The variometer-tuned crystal set in the picture below has 24 turns on the outer coil and 30 turns on the inner coil, and has a 95 picoFarad capacitor in parallel with the coil set. It tunes the 1480 kHz station perfectly at about the midpoint of the inductance range of the variometer.
The wire on the coil set is #30 Kynar-insulated silver-plated copper wire-wrap wire. The inner coil is 1 5/8 inch diameter and the outer is 3 inches. I use the Slinky antenna with another 100 pF capacitor in series with the antenna as a "matcher".
So yes, I think your capacitor-tuned set might work very well with just 20 turns on the large diameter former. You can always wind more turns and put taps in at 20, 30, 40 turns and see which works best. When you get to 20 turns, just make a "twisty loop" in the wire sticking up and continue winding. See the image of the capacitor tuned set below. Once you're finished winding you can strip the enamel from the "twisty loop" and attach a wire to it for the tap.
-
TK:
Thanks. I thought I was using the calculators incorrectly. It looks like I may miss yet another day of work on Thurs due to another snow/ice storm so, if so...I will have some time to work on this. It is bad news as I don't get paid but, there is nothing I can do about it. (They are calling for 1.5-2" of ice in an ice storm turning to snow with a snowfall of 8-10" on top of that. (Starting at noon on Wed.)
We have many stations here on the am band but, I listen to 930 at work and at home as it is mainly talk radio. You can also get Coast to Coast at midnight. I just thought it would be cool to be able to get a station I actually listen to.
Are you using a real earth ground? Or just clipping to the screw on a switch plate or plug? I can always run a wire out to my carbon rod from my earth battery for a good ground if need be. Does a really good ground improve performance? Or, is one ground as good as another?
Thanks again for the help and guidance.
Bill
-
A good earth ground is best. Your earth battery carbon ground probably will work fine. If you have metal conduits in your home, the outlet coverplate screw might work OK too. The better the ground the better performance you'll get, just like with antenna. The Slinky is a compromise. For the very best performance you'd want an elevated "long wire" antenna in an "L" shape with the lead-in wire connected at the junction of the two straight legs, and a ground that is a copper pipe driven 4 feet into moist soil or something like that. The antenna lead-in should be insulated from contact with stuff like the house frame, etc.
But you can get acceptable performance with other arrangements, like the Slinky and more casual grounds if the stations are strong or nearby.
-
TK:
Thank you. I figured that this might be the case. I suppose I should have made one of these when I was a kid but...it's never too late...right?
Do you get better long distance reception at night with the ionosphere skip? (or whatever it is called) No matter what happens, this is a really fun project that will help me learn more of the basics.
Weather here is bad and I saw at lunch on TV video of snow in TX!!! I just got home and we have sleet/freezing rain turning to snow later with a low of 15 F. I will most likely be snowed in..again but, we will see.
If we have a blackout from the storm, can I run my heat pump from my crystal radio? (Just kidding)
Thanks,
Bill
-
Here are some Current vs Voltage curves of my collection of galena. Homemade synthetic galena is compared to natural galena and a germanium point contact diode. The synthetic galena is at the moment not as good as one of the natural samples, although in a crystal radio circuit it gives good audio volume and nearly as current into a load. Compared to a germanium point contact diode, galena is not as good. Although not shown in the graphs, the forward drop is about the same as germanium, but the downside of galena is that it conducts too well in the reverse direction, especially when the voltage gets high enough. This is not a problem in a crystal radio, since the antenna voltage is quite low, and the galena works just as well as germanium. As you can see, some of the sample start conducting in the reverse direction just below 0V and these samples give less audio volume, as the reverse current ' cancels out 'the audio from the positive side of the radio wave. I'd like to improve the quality of the synthetic galena before doping with the uranium.
-
Nice pomodoro.it would be interesting to see how well pyrites can get catch a signal as compared to galena.I hear MnO2 (pyrolusite) samples also have good ability to catch a radiowave.
-
I need to brush up on semiconductors. Here are some questions:
1. PbS( a lump not in a diode configuration) is an insulator until a critical voltage (band gap) is applied, then it becomes a conductor. Correct?
2. The catwisker acts as the p type semiconductor, creating the diode with the n type galena?
3. How is the p type formed, is it an oxide on the metal? It can't be pure metal only correct?
4. Why is a fine point needed, as a thick wire turns the diode into a normal conductor?
5. Why does some galena conduct well both ways with the same catwisker that works well on another sample.
-
1. PbS( a lump not in a diode configuration) is an insulator until a critical voltage (band gap) is applied, then it becomes a conductor. Correct?
I think this only applies to light of that bandgap energy.
2. The catwisker acts as the p type semiconductor, creating the diode with the n type galena?
Correct
3. How is the p type formed, is it an oxide on the metal? It can't be pure metal only correct?
Its the pure metal.a depletion-schottky zone is formed in immediate vicinity metal/semiconductor
4. Why is a fine point needed, as a thick wire turns the diode into a normal conductor?
Something to do with accumulation of charge at a point?
5. Why does some galena conduct well both ways with the same catwisker that works well on another sample.
This is beyond the scope of this text-book
Some semiconductors eg tellurium conduct far better parallel to its own crystal plane than across its crystal plane. Try putting a magnet near the galena and see if the hall-effect does anything to the power pomodoro
-
Thanks. Well I've only got one quartz tube left to melt the galena. Moreland used 10:1 or 20:1 PbS : UO.
Too much apparently stops the PbS recrystallizing.
I'm not sure how to make synthetic galena as good as natural.
-
Excellent I wonder what effects it will have.go easy with that last tube pomodoro
-
This is what the melted galena looks like. I will dope this same batch for a direct comparison.
-
Nice
-
The deed is done!
Find out in a few days how the doped galena behaved. The Uranyl oxide did not sink to the bottom with its higher density but is either well dispersed or dissolved. The galena is very crystalline.
-
Great! .what ratio do you have in ther.is it depleted or natural UO2
-
Great! .what ratio do you have in ther.is it depleted or natural UO2
12:1
There is no mention of it being depleted on the label.
-
Glad to hearit.max energy
-
Greetings everyone!
I have just finished reading this thread and would like to join in on the fun. I'm nowhere near as advanced in the knowledge of all of these aspects you have been getting into as of late, so I will try to keep my posts short and sweet until I have a completed build and am able to really contribute something. I have some ideas to test out later on once I have a complete, working crystal radio.
Up until recently, I was wasting my time on ###### nonsense and silly battery charging bs and realized that it's a dead end path, so this will be my first REAL, relevant project/build.
Also, some of you following this thread already know me from the O-scope thread, and know that I have a Gen Rad 1330-A oscillator to play with, which seems to me to be a great device to have for this CR device build and testing.
I am building my own Variable Air Caps, and plan to do the Aussie-style Variometer along TK's specs in earlier posts on this thread. I have some 1n34A's en route from Thailand. I want to jump in on the Galena fun at some point, but not just yet.. :) I'm open to any suggestions, as well.
Variable Air Cap Instructable link: http://www.instructables.com/id/air-variable-capacitor-from-scrap-aluminum-sheets/?ALLSTEPS
Brian
-
Greetings everyone!
I have just finished reading this thread and would like to join in on the fun. I'm nowhere near as advanced in the knowledge of all of these aspects you have been getting into as of late, so I will try to keep my posts short and sweet until I have a completed build and am able to really contribute something. I have some ideas to test out later on once I have a complete, working crystal radio.
Up until recently, I was wasting my time on ###### nonsense and silly battery charging bs and realized that it's a dead end path, so this will be my first REAL, relevant project/build.
Also, some of you following this thread already know me from the O-scope thread, and know that I have a Gen Rad 1330-A oscillator to play with, which seems to me to be a great device to have for this CR device build and testing.
I am building my own Variable Air Caps, and plan to do the Aussie-style Variometer along TK's specs in earlier posts on this thread. I have some 1n34A's en route from Thailand. I want to jump in on the Galena fun at some point, but not just yet.. :) I'm open to any suggestions, as well.
Variable Air Cap Instructable link: http://www.instructables.com/id/air-variable-capacitor-from-scrap-aluminum-sheets/?ALLSTEPS (http://www.instructables.com/id/air-variable-capacitor-from-scrap-aluminum-sheets/?ALLSTEPS)
Brian
Brian:
This is a fun topic and I am working on my first radio also. I have had a lot of help thus far and, with the use of those calculators that I posted links to, I wound my coil on a large, empty plastic peanut butter jar. I installed my connector terminals in the lid and, I am now working on trying to figure out my connections on my variable capacitor salvaged from an older radio. There are like 6 connections. I marked the connection that went to the am antenna so, I know that one. I am still trying to figure out the other one that I need. I have a capacitance meter (cheap, from China) and I will try that to see what it reads when I turn the knob while checking the other connections.
Anyway, great fun and what a great way to learn some of this stuff. I made my own am antenna I use on my stereo receiver but, I may just make another one for this radio. Then, I want to see if I can light an led like TK has done. I think his secret is that slinky antenna he is using, ha ha.
Best of luck on your radio project. Check out those links to the coil calculators I posted a while back. Very helpful to me thus far.
Bill
-
Brian:
This is a fun topic and I am working on my first radio also. I have had a lot of help thus far and, with the use of those calculators that I posted links to, I wound my coil on a large, empty plastic peanut butter jar. I installed my connector terminals in the lid and, I am now working on trying to figure out my connections on my variable capacitor salvaged from an older radio. There are like 6 connections. I marked the connection that went to the am antenna so, I know that one. I am still trying to figure out the other one that I need. I have a capacitance meter (cheap, from China) and I will try that to see what it reads when I turn the knob while checking the other connections.
Anyway, great fun and what a great way to learn some of this stuff. I made my own am antenna I use on my stereo receiver but, I may just make another one for this radio. Then, I want to see if I can light an led like TK has done. I think his secret is that slinky antenna he is using, ha ha.
Best of luck on your radio project. Check out those links to the coil calculators I posted a while back. Very helpful to me thus far.
Bill
Bill,
It most definitely seems like a fun topic/project, and also a great learning process and tool. I have already read the entire thread and have copied notes to notepad and saved all the links to the calculators, so I'm good there thanks to your questions earlier in the thread!
Are you talking about those little (round about) half inch cube capacitors that come from the standard cheap-o AM/FM radios? I have a bunch of those that I never did figure out....
Does your capacitance meter have a pico setting, or does it just do micro's down to the thousandth? I wouldn't mind getting my hands on a cheap but good LC meter with a pico setting.
That slinky might just happen to be key.... hahaha. I'm planning on running a high-tension wire across the ridgeline of my roof for my antenna. Haven't decided on exactly what kind of wire to use yet, but I have loads of RG6, Cat5e, and phone line at my disposal. Might go with RG6 with the outer insulator stripped off so I have a combo of copper, dielectric, and aluminum up there that I can experiment with the configs on. Should be interesting, though. I already have a 5' Cu pipe and 5' piece of rebar hammered into the ground for my ground connections, and if that just happens to not be enough, I'll hook up to the Cu waterlines as well.
I'll definitely be trying to light an LED as well.
Best of luck to you as well. I hope you get those capacitors figured out!
Brian
-
Hi guys,
I have always considered crystal radio as a prove, there is a free energy we can tap. Today I have played with some different setup and found when I just connect my 1.6W speaker directly on two separate grounds ,the speaker is buzzing and quite load. No diodes or coils- just straight connection to the two separate grounds.
The sound or vibration is also the energy, the question is now what I can do with that? :) May be It's good for scaring Mosquitoes? :D
-
Hi guys,
I have always considered crystal radio as a prove, there is a free energy we can tap. Today I have played with some different setup and found when I just connect my 1.6W speaker directly on two separate grounds ,the speaker is buzzing and quite load. No diodes or coils- just straight connection to the two separate grounds.
The sound or vibration is also the energy, the question is now what I can do with that? :) May be It's good for scaring Mosquitoes? :D
John,
What is the config of your two grounds? I want to try this. Then we will know if it is something specific to your location or not.
Brian
-
Hi Brian. One of my gnd is the half inch diameter rod ,2 feet deep, 45 feet thick speaker wire. My second gnd is the central heating In my house. The sound gets even more intens with the scope gnd lead connected. I want to perform a test today. I have burried an old satelite disch for gnd purposes in other corner of my garden . I will to try to connect the speaker just between theese two garden gnds. the sound has a quite srength. You can well feel vibrations when you touch the speaker.
On one side it is nice to see you getting some free bite, on the other side it is scarry if you realize you are surrounded with such strong fields from mains. Not supprizing many people dies on cancer thees days.
Also thinking is it god or bad for other project I made where I use Gnd (Ruslans device ,etc..)
-
Well, I have spent quite a few hours with the doped galena, using it in a crystal set and unfortunately it behaves like the other galena.
No amplification of signal at all. No way it can drive a speaker directly.
Loading of the tuning coil is the same when a load is connected. Curve trace is the same as the undoped sample. The good old germanium diode is still king. Not sure what else to do with it at the moment.
-
Have you got any chunks germanium crystals lying around pomodoro
-
I don't but a friend might. What have you got in mind?
-
The guys at hong-kong polytechnic got current from ambient with silicon touching aluminum foil: http://arxiv.org/abs/1406.4622
--- Quote ---We report experimentally that the electricity is generated from ambient thermal fluctuations across a non-ideal diode consisted of a silicon tip and an aluminum surface. The output is tuned by the contact force which modulates Schottky barrier heights as well as rectifying ratios of the diodes. The interaction regime between the silicon and the aluminum locates at the quantum-classical boundary where thermal fluctuations are appreciable, and the rectification of thermal fluctuations leads to the electricity generation. This finding offers an innovative approach to environmental energy harvesting.'
I got similar results with germanium crystals(same periodic table family as silicon) but my crystals are very small(less than o.5mm each)was wondering what larger crystals will do.
-
Well, I have spent quite a few hours with the doped galena, using it in a crystal set and unfortunately it behaves like the other galena.
No amplification of signal at all. No way it can drive a speaker directly.
Loading of the tuning coil is the same when a load is connected. Curve trace is the same as the undoped sample. The good old germanium diode is still king. Not sure what else to do with it at the moment.
Hi pomodoro,
By pure luck I came across an article on the web some time ago and it may be useful for you. It is in The Electrician, Vol 77, April 21, 1916, page 82 and the title is "On Radium Antennae"... what is more it refers to tests done by Leo Szilard on radium coated lightning conductors and that is what prompted the author of the article to test somehow antennas with radium.
Sorry for the bad quality of the picture I uploaded, you may be luckier to extract a better quality, the original scan is low quality.
You can find and download Volume 77 from here:
https://archive.org/details/electricaljourna77lond
Gyula
-
Gyula:
Very interesting info. Thanks.
Bill
-
http://makearadio.com/crystal/54.php (http://makearadio.com/crystal/54.php)
This is the radio I am building. Almost completed today. What I don't get is the 22k resistor across the antenna and ground parts of the circuit. Why is this there?
Bill
-
http://makearadio.com/crystal/54.php (http://makearadio.com/crystal/54.php)
This is the radio I am building. Almost completed today. What I don't get is the 22k resistor across the antenna and ground parts of the circuit. Why is this there?
Bill
Hi Bill, the 22k (sometimes 100k ) is to make the crystal earphones work properly. Because they have infinite resistance and some capacitance, the voltage would build up to a dc level - without the resistor bleeding some power away.
Guyla, thank you for the radium info. I had run into that article before, but in the scientific american instead. I did try waving uranuim salts around a ferrite rod antenna inside a proper radio, but it had no effect. Now that I have a crystal set I will try it on a wire antenna instead. Unfortunately uranium is a million times weaker than radium. I think another way to reproduce the experiment is to use a negative ion generator instead of radium. I'm not sure how it works but perhaps the effective antenna area is increased by the conducting ionized air?
Profitis, my friend gave me a few small chunks of germanium 99.9999% pure. The picture shows my stock of germanium. I can try replicating you experiment, tell me how how did it exactly.
Regarding the uranium doped galena, I'm getting the feeling that the Moreland patent application is a fairy tale. Why are there so many people in this field spinning yarns, turning their ideas into supposedly factual events? I get the feeling this Moreland chap may have given conferences on his device and needed this patent application to boost his status.
-
http://makearadio.com/crystal/54.php (http://makearadio.com/crystal/54.php)
This is the radio I am building. Almost completed today. What I don't get is the 22k resistor across the antenna and ground parts of the circuit. Why is this there?
Bill
Bill,
That looks like a great little project! let me know how it works out for you. I'm not even done building my capacitors, but I won't have my germanium diodes til about the 18th. However I've heard that almost anything that is of a crystalline structure would work, even some coal, and pyrite. (I have a good bit of both) Don't know if that's true or not but I may try it anyway. Might be able to get some galena from a friend of mine who collects crystals and minerals. I'll hopefully be done with my caps tomorrow, and will then put something together and play around a bit. (fingers crossed I get it done and get a working set up!!)
Brian
-
Like this pomodoro.wave a book over it with your other hand to see if blocking light out makes a dif to the current.you can dope germanium with a trace antimony or silver and a blowtorch.(This is pyrites in the pic)
-
An OC140!!, good lord, that takes me back a lot of years.
I wonder if these could be collectors items? :)
-
...
Gyula, thank you for the radium info. I had run into that article before, but in the scientific american instead. I did try waving uranuim salts around a ferrite rod antenna inside a proper radio, but it had no effect. Now that I have a crystal set I will try it on a wire antenna instead. Unfortunately uranium is a million times weaker than radium. I think another way to reproduce the experiment is to use a negative ion generator instead of radium. I'm not sure how it works but perhaps the effective antenna area is increased by the conducting ionized air?
Profitis, my friend gave me a few small chunks of germanium 99.9999% pure. The picture shows my stock of germanium. I can try replicating you experiment, tell me how how did it exactly.
Regarding the uranium doped galena, I'm getting the feeling that the Moreland patent application is a fairy tale. Why are there so many people in this field spinning yarns, turning their ideas into supposedly factual events? I get the feeling this Moreland chap may have given conferences on his device and needed this patent application to boost his status.
Well, I am a lurker on this topic (or on nuclear chemics and physics) and I think that alpha particles coming from materials like radium does ionizes air in its vicinity, and this makes air more conductive locally than normally it is, this turns out from Page 34 of this file here: http://www.iaea.org/inis/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/04/054/4054050.pdf (http://www.iaea.org/inis/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/04/054/4054050.pdf) In Page 35, the radioactive lightning rods are mentioned too.
IT is very possible that your uranium salt is too weak to casue detectable effects. In the test described in The Electrician, the strength of the radium bromide used was defined as very weak, of 50000 units. Somehow it should be figured out how it compares to your uranium salt strength, how weak is the weak which is still good, lol
Re on the ion generator: perhaps Tesla's ozon patent could be taken as a start. What you wrote that the effective antenna area increases due to the ionized air: well I am guessing a yes here but I could think of the followings too: the effective quality factor, Q, of an antenna (and possibly the LC circuits coupled to it) is increased by the effect of the particles, reducing Ohmic losses both in the antenna and in the LC circuits coupled to it, as it were 'inducing' negative resistance in those wires pf the antenna and the coils, so the selectivity of the system increases hence the received signal is enhanced.
Gyula
EDIT: This video may also be of interest here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8GlzUjYazs
-
Hi Gyulasun,
That video is pretty cool, thanks.
Cloud chambers are really neat devices to see some of the energetic particles that swirl around us constantly.
Radium (clock)hands in cloud chamber
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAYDae9zhrs
Cosmic Rays @0:05 they have some interesting data
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnKvtazt5So
How to build a cloud chamber
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xky3f1aSkB8
We truly live in a sea of energy. It's just how do we focus/tune this randomness into coherence. I haven't seen any videos of these cloud chambers where they put a coil in them with varying frequencies and see how they change the local space around them, would be interesting.
-
Good video Gyula!
Well, I made the doped galena, knowing that it went against current science. Unlike magnetic and electronic devices, there have not been many replications of these experiments, so I though that there might be a very slight chance of some anomaly showing up, especially when similar devices were supposed to have worked in T. H. Moray's earlier work. I assumed that Moray's early work (lighting a single light globe with what appears to be a crystal radio set and in another device, being able to power a 2000 ohm horn speaker directly) was authentic (a big assumption to say the least ) and figured that he either received lots of power from the station, used feedback to the antenna to improve its performance ( description of inch long sparks from his antenna in later versions) or the radioactive sources produced the power.
I decided to focus on the last aspect for now. Although the nuclear magnetic battery experiments I did a while ago with uranium salts did not show any increase in the Q of the coil (Brown) , having read Moreland's good description of Morays work and Moreland's own patent application i decided to try these galena experiments. The quantity of Uranium trioxide used was 0.25g in 3g of galena. I only used a lump of about 1/3 of this total mass. Now even if we assume that all of the energy from the uranium can be utilized, we still come up with a very small value. I'd need to work it out , but it is puny. You mention increasing the conductivity of the coil to increase the Q. But would we also get this effect by irradiating the bare coil with a negative ion generator, like the ones popularized in the 1980's. Pointy needles are made to have a high electrostatic voltage and millions of ions per second stream out of the points. The ions would contact the coil and leave electrons on its surface, also giving it a high negative electrostatic charge, but would it really increase its conductivity? I'm not so sure.
-
An OC140!!, good lord, that takes me back a lot of years.
I wonder if these could be collectors items? :)
Not sure, there must be thousands around still. I've got oc70 or 71s as well. I love the glass bulb and rudimentary structure. Apparently they cost a lot compared to today's transistors, inflation adjusted.
Profitis I tried a quick test with germanium against al foil and no voltage or current at all occurred.
-
Thanks pomodoro.I get about 0.3 microamp with single crystals,ruled out light but its not exactly practical.
-
.... You mention increasing the conductivity of the coil to increase the Q. But would we also get this effect by irradiating the bare coil with a negative ion generator, like the ones popularized in the 1980's. Pointy needles are made to have a high electrostatic voltage and millions of ions per second stream out of the points. The ions would contact the coil and leave electrons on its surface, also giving it a high negative electrostatic charge, but would it really increase its conductivity? I'm not so sure.
Hi pomodoro,
I agree, I do not think either that using ion generators the Q of coils would change for the better, in fact it would not change at all. Alpha particles (that come from radium, polonium etc) penetrate the wire while ions would not, this is a big difference.
Gyula
-
Hi Bill, the 22k (sometimes 100k ) is to make the crystal earphones work properly. Because they have infinite resistance and some capacitance, the voltage would build up to a dc level - without the resistor bleeding some power away.
Thank you very much. I was really wondering about that.
Bill
-
Hi pomodoro,
I agree, I do not think either that using ion generators the Q of coils would change for the better, in fact it would not change at all. Alpha particles (that come from radium, polonium etc) penetrate the wire while ions would not, this is a big difference.
Gyula
Yes, that's absolutely true. I've decided to try and work out exactly how much energy the 0.25g of Uranyl Oxide can give through its decay. The conversion of this alpha, beta and gamma energy into electricity is, at the moment, very inefficient with out current technology, but lets assume in out case it is 100%. Also, we need agree that this is the only and total energy available from our diode and no aetherial or other nuclear processes are occuring, which will provide us with yet unknown energies. I'm also assuming the uranium is not depleted, which would mean that the radiation would be approximately halved.
The atomic weight of UO3 is 238+3(16) =286
Mass of Uranium in UO3 =238/286*250mg = 208mg
Activity of natural Uranium = 25.28 Bq/mg (disintegrations per mg) [If depleted , then it is 14.8 Bq/mg]
So disintegrations per second = 25.28*208mg = 5259
The range of alpha decay energy is 4.2-4.8 MeV, assume 4.6. (beta and gamma decay is insignificant compared to the alpha decay).
Or , in the more convenient unit of Joules, 4.6x1.602x10-19- = 7.3x10-19J .
The power from the 0.25g of UO3 is then =5259x7.3x10-19 = 3.8-15 watts. This tiny amount of power is all the uranium can supply, assuming all electrical processes are 100% efficient.
Yakes! I did not realize it was this low actually. So I'm guessing even the microampers from the antenna are too large to have been helped by the uranium.
-
3.8-15 watts is actualy quite a lot pomodoro.enough to power a clock.take a infrared photoshot of a gram of the stuff in the dark and chek how much temperature is evolved.I'm thinking thermo-electric is the way to go to atleast tap a few percent of the total ergs
-
You shud also try some lenr experiments with that uranium salts.try stimulate fission it with electrolysis
-
Sorry its 3.8x10-15, I left out the 10
-
Lol ok. That is minuscule
-
Pomodoro,
look at this video!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8GlzUjYazs
-
Yes, its a sweet little detector! I think nichrome wire would do just as well, or even copper. The alpha particles, allow the passage of electricity, which would not have passed without them. i was hoping that this would have happened in the galena, lowering the drop in voltage a diode always imposes on the signal. Just as in the video, the particle would help electrons or holes overcome the barrier more easily. But sadly it just doesn't happen. Certainly power wise, if the calculation is correct, we can expect nothing. Even helping with a coil's Q will be impossible, if the rate of energy loss is greater than 4x10-15 J .
I've still got the 2n2222A with a fair bit of UO3 stuck in its case. I'll make a simple class A and B (for a bit of distortion) amplifier and see if less power is drained from the battery compered to a standard one. I'll use noise for its input since, according to the patents, pure, sine waves don't work (don't ask me why). I don't expect it to work any differently to the normal transistor, but experimental results don't always follow theory so its worth a shot.
-
On the video u have a triode, where the screen can be activated by your radio signal,
the voltage should be increased to 8000V(pulsated).
You should be able to harness the output through the transformer.
It probably needs this high voltage to get the ions flow from the environment (air).
Regards
-
On the video u have a triode, where the screen can be activated by your radio signal,
the voltage should be increased to 8000V(pulsated).
You should be able to harness the output through the transformer.
It probably needs this high voltage to get the ions flow from the environment (air).
Regards
Any power extracted from this device will come 100% from the power supply, no free energy!
All the alpha does is ionize many air molecules near the wires which break down the normally insulating air gap and allow conduction of the 8000 volts through the air. A limiting resistor in the power supply drops the voltage drop as soon as a current starts and the spark is extinguished.
Its a common misconception that avalanche generation of ions is an energy multiplying effect. think of it this way, one 4MeV alpha particle might generate say 1000 ions and free electrons in the air. Yes , we have multiplied the particles. Their energy will individually be a fraction of the original 4MeV.
Now think carefully, what is so special about these electrons and ions in the air anyway, a piece of metal has zillions of these already. All they can do is conduct current from a power supply lead to another, just like a piece of metal does every day, using energy from the power supply. They allow conduction in a gas, that's all they do.
There is a 'battery' that uses a radioactive source directly to create electricity. It requires huge amounts of very active isotopes and does collect the particles directly on a plate. A high voltage develops, similar to a capacitor charging, but the wattage is very weak.
-
Any power extracted from this device will come 100% from the power supply, no free energy!
All the alpha does is ionize many air molecules near the wires which break down the normally insulating air gap and allow conduction of the 8000 volts through the air. A limiting resistor in the power supply drops the voltage drop as soon as a current starts and the spark is extinguished.
Its a common misconception that avalanche generation of ions is an energy multiplying effect. think of it this way, one 4MeV alpha particle might generate say 1000 ions and free electrons in the air. Yes , we have multiplied the particles. Their energy will individually be a fraction of the original 4MeV.
Now think carefully, what is so special about these electrons and ions in the air anyway, a piece of metal has zillions of these already. All they can do is conduct current from a power supply lead to another, just like a piece of metal does every day, using energy from the power supply. They allow conduction in a gas, that's all they do.
There is a 'battery' that uses a radioactive source directly to create electricity. It requires huge amounts of very active isotopes and does collect the particles directly on a plate. A high voltage develops, similar to a capacitor charging, but the wattage is very weak.
IMHO, power supply only creates a voltage potential. Once the current starts flowing, its an extra power, which can be harvested.
(Just thinking logically), but I can be wrong.
In any case, by having this kind of a device in hand will allow to do the measurements of the current, which should prove it one way or another.
Th number of ions can be in millions.
Regards
-
I fully understand your logic, I thought along those lines a while back, but imagine the electron tube , what we had before the transistor. A cloud of electrons is created at the cathode, by a filament when heated. This filament is supplied by say a 100 watt supply called PS1. This cloud of electrons is equivalent to the ones created by the alpha in the video. A separate power supply PS2 supplies 8000V between the anode ( equivalent to the tungsten wire) and the cathode ( equivalent to the aluminum disk). Do you still think any current flowing between anode and cathode is from PS1 and none from PS2? You will find PS 1 still giving 100w just to make the election cloud and Ps2 supplying all the current. Now imagine removing the heater and putting a strong beta (electron) emitter instead. You have saved the power from the heater PS1, but unfortunately, PS2 still provides the voltage AND current.
-
I fully understand your logic, I thought along those lines a while back, but imagine the electron tube , what we had before the transistor. A cloud of electrons is created at the cathode, by a filament when heated. This filament is supplied by say a 100 watt supply called PS1. This cloud of electrons is equivalent to the ones created by the alpha in the video. A separate power supply PS2 supplies 8000V between the anode ( equivalent to the tungsten wire) and the cathode ( equivalent to the aluminum disk). Do you still think any current flowing between anode and cathode is from PS1 and none from PS2? You will find PS 1 still giving 100w just to make the election cloud and Ps2 supplying all the current. Now imagine removing the heater and putting a strong beta (electron) emitter instead. You have saved the power from the heater PS1, but unfortunately, PS2 still provides the voltage AND current.
Isn't PS2 supplies the voltage potential - there is no current because the circuit is open (if PS1 is off )?
-
Isn't PS2 supplies the voltage potential - there is no current because the circuit is open (if PS1 is off )?
Hi telecom,
Yes, (in the example by pomodoro) PS2 supplies the voltage potential and the circuit is indeed open for PS2 so no current taken from it and this situation changes the moment you place an electron emitting source very close, this closes the circuit for PS2 and current will flow. However this current comes from PS2, not from the electron emitting source: the latter behaves like a switch by providing a conducting path via air (or in an electric valve via vacuum) for the potential difference of PS2.
In the video you refer to the sparks (whenever they occured) were fed from a HV power supply, all what the alpha particle sources did was to insure a conductive path between the wires when placed nearby. Okay? If you have questions please ask.
Gyula
-
Hi telecom,
Yes, (in the example by pomodoro) PS2 supplies the voltage potential and the circuit is indeed open for PS2 so no current taken from it and this situation changes the moment you place an electron emitting source very close, this closes the circuit for PS2 and current will flow. However this current comes from PS2, not from the electron emitting source: the latter behaves like a switch by providing a conducting path via air (or in an electric valve via vacuum) for the potential difference of PS2.
In the video you refer to the sparks (whenever they occured) were fed from a HV power supply, all what the alpha particle sources did was to insure a conductive path between the wires when placed nearby. Okay? If you have questions please ask.
Gyula
Hi Gyula,
thanks for the response, but its not that simple.
What the conductive path consists of ?- it consists of ionized air, positively charged ions and electrons.
This is what the current made of - out of the carriers of the charge.
So I conclude, that radioactivity creates current.
After all , what Pomodoro is trying to achieve with his experiments with the galena?
Extra current?
This is from the internet:
An electric current is a flow of electric charge. In electric circuits this charge is often carried by moving electrons in a wire. It can also be carried by ions in an electrolyte, or by both ions and electrons such as in a plasma.
https://www.google.ca/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&rlz=1C1LENN_enCA488CA488&ion=1&espv=2&es_th=1&ie=UTF-8#q=electrical%20current&es_th=1
-
Here is a vid of what the guy claims is a super simple fm crystal radio.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dStaIdMqCsQ
Tito posted it in the Energy Amplification thread
The guys that posted the vid is all about radio stuff. He has another vid of what looks to be a tunable fm crystal set, but the vid wouldnt load for me at the time.
Back when I was a kid, using a wood burning tool as a soldering iron ;D , I messed around with this stuff. I had a small transistor radio with the tuning cap in the square clear plastic casing. I soldered a short wire across the cap and I was able to get short wave, I believe it was, as the stations were not in english. Cant remember which connections of the 4 corners that I put the wire across.
Mags
-
Telecom , you would need to insulate the 8000v electrodes and accelerate the generated ions/ electrons through the field to generate the current just from the alpha. Problem is that without current flowing through the supply you will get charge buildup at the insulated terminals.No current! Discharging this 'capacitor' and repeating the process will take power out of the supply.
-
Pomodoro:'Its a common misconception that avalanche generation of ions is an energy multiplying effect. think of it this way, one 4MeV alpha particle might generate say 1000 ions and free electrons in the air. Yes , we have multiplied the particles. Their energy will individually be a fraction of the original 4MeV.
Now think carefully, what is so special about these electrons and ions in the air anyway, a piece of metal has zillions of these already. All they can do is conduct current from a power supply lead to another, just like a piece of metal does every day, using energy from the power supply. They allow conduction in a gas, that's all they do.'
I think the guys who were reporting excess energy managed to get some sort of assymetric ensemble arrangement of potentials eg (chemical vs electrical) where there was localized negentropy of some sort(remember the papp guy).I suspect that it was by mere chance that the guys reporting excess stumbled onto their arrangements after fiddling around. I'm sure most of them had no idea why they were getting an excess or even how they were getting excess.
-
Telecom , you would need to insulate the 8000v electrodes and accelerate the generated ions/ electrons through the field to generate the current just from the alpha. Problem is that without current flowing through the supply you will get charge buildup at the insulated terminals.No current! Discharging this 'capacitor' and repeating the process will take power out of the supply.
There is no need to insulate anything, this guy on the video already getting an excess current,
I think he mentions that the wires can burn down from it.
How you are planning to generate the an excess energy in your setup with galena?
-
I think the guys who were reporting excess energy managed to get some sort of assymetric ensemble arrangement of potentials eg (chemical vs electrical) where there was localized negentropy of some sort(remember the papp guy).I suspect that it was by mere chance that the guys reporting excess stumbled onto their arrangements after fiddling around. I'm sure most of them had no idea why they were getting an excess or even how they were getting excess.
On the contrary, it is obvious that it comes from alpha decay.Each alpha particle has tremendous energy.
-
Well looks like I can't convince you. Changing the topic to real negative resistance, I would have needed the radiation to supply a current in phase with the voltage across the LC tank circuit. This current, being in phase and changing in intensity with the tank voltage would have supplied some current to the load, relieving some load off the tank. With less current flowing out of the tank, its loaded Q would have increased and so would its RF voltage . Already, we saw that the power out of the uranium is miniscule and we also required this power to behave as a negative resistance. I guess I expected the impossible, but I'm still glad I tried. I know Moreland is a fake, that's all I've achieved.
-
Telecom:'.Each alpha particle has tremendous energy.'
Yes but the total of natural uranium alpha decays energy/second is minuscule.unless he stimulated more decay/second somehow
-
Pomodoro:'I know Moreland is a fake, that's all I've achieved.'
Or you're doing it wrong.or he didn't give all the info.
-
Pomodoro:'I know Moreland is a fake, that's all I've achieved.'
Or you're doing it wrong.or he didn't give all the info.
Possible, but reading his application further, he is practically describes everything that Moray achieved, including the fat sparks at the antenna. He seems to have regurgitated everything that Moray wrote. I think he built up his status in the OU community with this patent application, and easily got money back from giving speeches around the place and some adulation , for a while.
Only fusion will give you enough power, but then you have to convert it to elecctrical energy, and the heat will be a problem. Moreland once again had nothing physical show the world, just ideas that never materialised.
-
Possible, but reading his application further, he is practically describes everything that Moray achieved, including the fat sparks at the antenna. He seems to have regurgitated everything that Moray wrote. I think he built up his status in the OU community with this patent application, and easily got money back from giving speeches around the place and some adulation , for a while.
Only fission will give you enough power, but then you have to convert it to elecctrical energy, and the heat will be a problem. Moreland once again had nothing physical show the world, just ideas that never materialised.
-
Telecom:'.Each alpha particle has tremendous energy.'
Yes but the total of natural uranium alpha decays energy/second is minuscule.unless he stimulated more decay/second somehow
I can easily get hot stone which gives 250000 hits per second. But during the ionization it works as an
avalanche, each hit is making millions of ions.
-
Well looks like I can't convince you. Changing the topic to real negative resistance, I would have needed the radiation to supply a current in phase with the voltage across the LC tank circuit. This current, being in phase and changing in intensity with the tank voltage would have supplied some current to the load, relieving some load off the tank. With less current flowing out of the tank, its loaded Q would have increased and so would its RF voltage . Already, we saw that the power out of the uranium is miniscule and we also required this power to behave as a negative resistance. I guess I expected the impossible, but I'm still glad I tried. I know Moreland is a fake, that's all I've achieved.
You already have all of it in that youtube video, you just need to apply antenna voltage to the grid of wires,
like in a triode.You should look for the increased current, not the voltage.If you look at the video,
you can see how many sparks the radioactivity can produce - this is proportional to the energy.
-
Houston we have another problem! Unfortunately, the triode only works under vacuum. You can not modulate a grid in air. The best you can achieve is a thrysistor action. Off or all On. Please dude, try the video experiment for yourself, im sure eBay has some cheap equipment. You will see that all the current is from the power supply. You owe it to yourself.
-
Houston we have another problem! Unfortunately, the triode only works under vacuum. You can not modulate a grid in air. The best you can achieve is a thrysistor or thryatron action. Off or all On. Please dude, try the video experiment for yourself, im sure eBay has some cheap equipment. You will see that all the current is from the power supply. You owe it to yourself.
-
The triode works under vacuum because it relies solely on electrons for the current flow, while in this case its
the ions which produce the current.
Where can I get 8 kv power supply?
-
Hi Gyula,
thanks for the response, but its not that simple.
What the conductive path consists of ?- it consists of ionized air, positively charged ions and electrons.
This is what the current made of - out of the carriers of the charge.
So I conclude, that radioactivity creates current.
After all , what Pomodoro is trying to achieve with his experiments with the galena?
Extra current?
This is from the internet:
An electric current is a flow of electric charge. In electric circuits this charge is often carried by moving electrons in a wire. It can also be carried by ions in an electrolyte, or by both ions and electrons such as in a plasma.
https://www.google.ca/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&rlz=1C1LENN_enCA488CA488&ion=1&espv=2&es_th=1&ie=UTF-8#q=electrical%20current&es_th=1 (https://www.google.ca/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&rlz=1C1LENN_enCA488CA488&ion=1&espv=2&es_th=1&ie=UTF-8#q=electrical%20current&es_th=1)
Hi telecom,
You asked: "What the conductive path consists of ?- it consists of ionized air, positively charged ions and electrons."
I say yes and it is valid for the spark detector video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8GlzUjYazs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8GlzUjYazs) ) and you can hear in the video that he says the alpha particles ionize the air between the Alu surface kept at -8000V (he names it a cathode) and the tungsten wires kept at zero (ground potential, and he also says a conventional electric breakdown happens.
So If we are in agreement so far, now I ask: would the sparks occur if there were no 8000V voltage (potential) difference connected between the Alu surface and the wires?
I assume your answer is no and I would agree with it, so this proves that the current that caused the spark (because there must be current flowing when a spark is created) must have come from the power supply that keep the 8000V voltage difference between the Alu surface and the tungsten wires.
Agree with this? If not, please look up textbooks on breakdown voltage criteria between two electrodes etc. and look up also why a HV power supply smokes components when a higher than the allowed current is suddenly drawn from it. (An occuring spark does draw current what is more the value of the drawn current aproaches that of almost a dead short across the output of a power supply .)
Then you wrote: "So I conclude, that radioactivity creates current."
I think this is a wrong conclusion from the video, I would say radioactivity helps create a better conductive path in a media (in air, vacuum, solid matter and possibly in plasma) by supplying particles (by radiation) into the media, and the particles penetrate the media or matter.
In case of the spark gap of the video the alpha particles has the effect as if you decreased the distance between the Alu surface and the plane of the 4 tungsten wires. This is because the 8000V voltage difference cannot break dawn for the chosen distance the video shows between the Alu surface and the wires but due to the appearing particles the air in the distance will have much more ions than before and air can become more conductive hence the electric field of the 8000V can break down.
If you disagree with this, then please try to contact the author of the video (Carl Willis) and ask him to insert an appropiate DC current meter in the ground wire and monitor the meter whenever sparkings occur. I would be very surprised if the current meter would not measure a certain current flow when the alpha particle source is placed near the tungsten wires as shown. He would actually measure the average of the several spark currents.
This how I see this. I cannot explain this more precisely and of course you are free to think differently, but then some tests would be needed to convince others about the correctness of your way of thinking.
Gyula
-
...
Where can I get 8 kv power supply?
see some links:
http://tinyurl.com/q4pvcso
http://tinyurl.com/makacby
http://jnaudin.free.fr/lifters/labhvps/
Gyula
-
Hi telecom,
You asked: "What the conductive path consists of ?- it consists of ionized air, positively charged ions and electrons."
I say yes and it is valid for the spark detector video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8GlzUjYazs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8GlzUjYazs) ) and you can hear in the video that he says the alpha particles ionize the air between the Alu surface kept at -8000V (he names it a cathode) and the tungsten wires kept at zero (ground potential, and he also says a conventional electric breakdown happens.
So If we are in agreement so far, now I ask: would the sparks occur if there were no 8000V voltage (potential) difference connected between the Alu surface and the wires?
I assume your answer is no and I would agree with it, so this proves that the current that caused the spark (because there must be current flowing when a spark is created) must have come from the power supply that keep the 8000V voltage difference between the Alu surface and the tungsten wires.
Agree with this? If not, please look up textbooks on breakdown voltage criteria between two electrodes etc. and look up also why a HV power supply smokes components when a higher than the allowed current is suddenly drawn from it. (An occuring spark does draw current what is more the value of the drawn current aproaches that of almost a dead short across the output of a power supply .)
Then you wrote: "So I conclude, that radioactivity creates current."
I think this is a wrong conclusion from the video, I would say radioactivity helps create a better conductive path in a media (in air, vacuum, solid matter and possibly in plasma) by supplying particles (by radiation) into the media, and the particles penetrate the media or matter.
In case of the spark gap of the video the alpha particles has the effect as if you decreased the distance between the Alu surface and the plane of the 4 tungsten wires. This is because the 8000V voltage difference cannot break dawn for the chosen distance the video shows between the Alu surface and the wires but due to the appearing particles the air in the distance will have much more ions than before and air can become more conductive hence the electric field of the 8000V can break down.
If you disagree with this, then please try to contact the author of the video (Carl Willis) and ask him to insert an appropiate DC current meter in the ground wire and monitor the meter whenever sparkings occur. I would be very surprised if the current meter would not measure a certain current flow when the alpha particle source is placed near the tungsten wires as shown. He would actually measure the average of the several spark currents.
This how I see this. I cannot explain this more precisely and of course you are free to think differently, but then some tests would be needed to convince others about the correctness of your way of thinking.
Gyula
High-intensity ionizing radiation in air can produce a visible ionized air glow of telltale bluish-purplish color. The glow can be observed e.g. during criticality accidents, around mushroom clouds shortly after a nuclear explosion, or inside of a damaged nuclear reactor like during the Chernobyl disaster.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_damage#Effects_on_gases
-
see some links:
http://tinyurl.com/q4pvcso
http://tinyurl.com/makacby
http://jnaudin.free.fr/lifters/labhvps/
Gyula
Expensive!
need to look what diy tesla people r using
-
High-intensity ionizing radiation in air can produce a visible ionized air glow of telltale bluish-purplish color. The glow can be observed e.g. during criticality accidents, around mushroom clouds shortly after a nuclear explosion, or inside of a damaged nuclear reactor like during the Chernobyl disaster.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_damage#Effects_on_gases (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_damage#Effects_on_gases)
You seem to compare an elephant with a mouse.
Of course a high intensity radiation in air can surely produces what is described, no doubt.
In the spark detector video the particle source is nowhere near as strong as would be needed for those spectacular phenomena associated with high intensity radiation, this is why a HV supply was used.
It is interesting you disregard all what I wrote. Please do experiments and come back how the current draw of a HV supply increases when you place a particle source near to an airgap and the airgap fires as shown in the video.
Gyula
-
You seem to compare an elephant with a mouse.
Of course a high intensity radiation in air can surely produces what is described, no doubt.
In the spark detector video the particle source is nowhere near as strong as would be needed for those spectacular phenomena associated with high intensity radiation, this is why a HV supply was used.
It is interesting you disregard all what I wrote. Please do experiments and come back how the current draw of a HV supply increases when you place a particle source near to an airgap and the airgap fires as shown in the video.
Gyula
Ionizing properties of radiation were discovered in the 19the century, remember the experiment with electroscope???
-
It all boils down to this: No matter how many zillions of ions and electrons the alpha makes, you can't make them form a current of their own to power a load. You can't direct them using a potential and get a current just from the ions/electrons through a load. There are some alpha voltaic and beta voltaic patents but the power is negligible. Try it your rock, if you succeed, you will have achieved something great.
Edit, I'm not if the circuit below could work. Will the big plate shield the field from the smaller plates or will the zillions of ions and electrons be attracted to the plates and power the load? Will any current be drained from the supply? In any case something like this is what you need, you cant have the 8000V directly powering a device with the aid of the ions/electrons.
-
It all boils down to this: No matter how many zillions of ions and electrons the alpha makes, you can't make them form a current of their own to power a load. You can't direct them using a potential and get a current just from the ions/electrons through a load. There are some alpha voltaic and beta voltaic patents but the power is negligible. Try it your rock, if you succeed, you will have achieved something great.
I think that is correct.
Edit, I'm not if the circuit below could work. Will the big plate shield the field from the smaller plates or will the zillions of ions and electrons be attracted to the plates and power the load? Will any current be drained from the supply? In any case something like this is what you need, you cant have the 8000V directly powering a device with the aid of the ions/electrons.
I think it all depends on how many particles are able to penetrate through the big plates. The more of them can, the higher the current draw from the 8000 V supply becomes.
I editied your drawing to make the wires appear with a better contrast.
More or less, your drawing resembles a kind of multielectrode electric valve like a pentode where the outside supply voltage is between the anode (+ in your drawing and the cathode (- in your drawing) and 'big' plates could be the supressor grid and the screen grid. OF course the alpha particle source would replace the electron emitting real cathode of this pentode.
Gyula
-
I was thinking of solid plates, not perforated. These plate would block the charged particles from going to the 8000v plates.
-
Okay but then the question remains whether the electric field strength the 8000V source establishes between the + and - electrodes can have any effect on the alpha particles between the big (light blue) plates?
If not and the E field is screened by them in the volume / area where the particle source is placed, then I think the load will have a tiny current (if any at all) flowing in it because there would be no separation force i.e. a dipole for the alpha particles to take direction.
Gyula
-
Hi Pomodoro,
first of all, your power supply doesn't reflect what Carl Willis used.
If u remember, he said that his ground plates and the grid of wires are grounded.
So, anode is the ground, and cathode is -8000 V.
Secondly, why not to use a high voltage diode to prevent the backflow into the supply?
Thirdly, lets compare to the real triode - it has a very similar system where they r able to separate the output from the supply.
http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/vol_3/chpt_13/3.html
-
Yes gyula that's why I want sure that it would work. Your idea might work if the roles of the plates are swapped. There is a Farnsworth's multipactor patent US2189358, where the potential is applied to the inner thin wire grid, the electrons are attracted by it, but most pass through to the plate behind it, due to their speed
-
This is an idea attached - I'm by no means an electronics guru.
-
Guru or not, can you notice the load is directly connected in parallel with the 8000V source?
-
Guru or not, can you notice the load is directly connected in parallel with the 8000V source?
I used the same idea as in a triode circuit above.
But I will gladly approve any better design!
-
This perhaps is the better solution for the power take out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFohadroheM
-
I'm by no means an expert here, but here are some of my thoughts on your theories of pulling a current out of the Ether instead of your actual supply:
1: It is in no way advanced knowledge that electricity will take the path of least resistance. Therefore, in your diagram in post #134, the load is going to pull whatever power it needs from the supply, and the rest will be left to burn up in the modified triode device. Unless you are somehow creating miniature fission reactions with the alpha particles, nothing is going to feed back out to the load.
2: As for post #137, and my above comment, using a standard Tesla coil as a load is just going to draw off the main supply, and even if you used a transformer that has primary windings for 8000V, all that will be accomplished is a Tesla coil. If you aim to use the toroid or dome to draw energy from the Ionosphere, you will need to aim to reach the highest possible altitude with the toroid or dome in order to pull energy off of Earth's magnetosphere and the Ionosphere. If your aim is to draw static energy from the flow of water in the aquifers and it's channels, you will need to be positioned over a major aquifer and get deep enough to tap the static field that surrounds the rushing water.
If the goal is to draw on a power source that is not fed by the circuit supply, it must be an open circuit, and maybe it would be wise to get back to what Mr Tesla was doing with Colorado Springs and Wardenclyffe, and like I stated above, reach to the sky or "dig/drill for China" and get down to the aquifers, preferably to a layer of granite to maximize the static charge you can draw from. It can probably be done on a smaller scale using a stream, spring, or an artificial setup using living water. The more static charge, the better.
I have not done any of these things myself as of late, so don't start your attempts off of my words. Go research Mr Tesla's work for yourself and decide what is the best and most feasible method. I may be a bit inaccurate in my above statements since I have only spent limited amount of time studying Mr Tesla's patents, notes, books, and plans thus far, but in my opinion, this is the direction in which people should be trying to go to start. In my opinion, if one does not understand the basis of Mr Tesla's earlier work that led up to his discovery of the ether, there is a very small chance that one will actually succeed in drawing energy from it, unless they just happen to accidentally stumble upon a setup that does exactly that.
Not trying to be a buzzkill here or anything, but it would be great if we could bring this back to the topic of designing/building/testing/modifying crystal radios and experimenting with the main components in said devices without running off on wild tangents, untested theories and various other devices that have very little to do with crystal radios. If two or more people are interested in following up on any various ideas not closely related to the crystal radio, another thread can always be started and linked to in this thread.
I personally, along with several others I'm sure, have not yet learned very much about crystal radios and their operation and would very much like to do so. I know to some of you this seems like child's play and you are bored with it, but many people aren't and would love to learn more. Of course this is just a suggestion since I in no way have any control over what's said and done in this forum.
Thank you.
Kind regards,
Brian
-
1: It is in no way advanced knowledge that electricity will take the path of least resistance.
I think this is actually a part of a common knowledge.
2: using a standard Tesla coil as a load is just going to draw off the main supply,
This is not the case, they use it as an antenna.
If the goal is to draw on a power source that is not fed by the circuit supply, it must be an open circuit, and maybe it would be wise to get back to what Mr Tesla was doing with Colorado Springs and Wardenclyffe,
This is exactly what post 137 is about
-
Not trying to be a buzzkill here or anything, but it would be great if we could bring this back to the topic of designing/building/testing/modifying crystal radios and experimenting with the main components in said devices without running off on wild tangents, untested theories and various other devices that have very little to do with crystal radios. If two or more people are interested in following up on any various ideas not closely related to the crystal radio, another thread can always be started and linked to in this thread.
I personally, along with several others I'm sure, have not yet learned very much about crystal radios and their operation and would very much like to do so. I know to some of you this seems like child's play and you are bored with it, but many people aren't and would love to learn more. Of course this is just a suggestion since I in no way have any control over what's said and done in this forum.
Perhaps you should join a crystal radio forum in this case?
We here are trying to apply the above radio to produce some energy.
[/quote]
-
2: using a standard Tesla coil as a load is just going to draw off the main supply,
This is not the case, they use it as an antenna.
Thus far, the only time I have seen a Tesla coil used as an antenna successfully is when there is a transmitter matched to it's frequency, like the experiments done by kdkinen (youtube name) and others that are scale model Tesla Magnifying Transmitter systems. Do you know of anyone who has been able to use a TMT style receiver to pick up energy from random sources, and/or the aether? Or is that what you intend to try and accomplish?
That would be quite an achievement. Sounds to me like it would involve loads of calculations in order to figure out the exact specs to build the coil for to receive a specific frequency or range of frequencies, and also testing to figure out what is the most energetic frequency or range..
-
OK, so I have this nice loop antenna I built some years back. It is hooked up to my stereo receiver and works great. I wanted to use this,
or make another one like it, for my crystal radio I just made a few days back.
My question is...when I hooked it to my receiver, the radio had 2 inputs for an AM antenna. I had 2 wire ends from the loop antenna...easy.
On my crystal radio, I have one connection for an antenna. The loop antenna has 2 ends.
I read online that one end of the loop should go to ground. Easily done as I have a ground connection on my crystal radio. But, I also read that I should simply tie the two ends of the wires coming from the loop ant. and hook up to my single antenna connection on my crystal radio.
Which way is correct?
I am leaning toward the grounding idea, although, if one uses a long antenna strung between trees, one end is open and the other attached to the radio and no ground.
Very confusing.
Bill
-
Thus far, the only time I have seen a Tesla coil used as an antenna successfully is when there is a transmitter matched to it's frequency, like the experiments done by kdkinen (youtube name) and others that are scale model Tesla Magnifying Transmitter systems. Do you know of anyone who has been able to use a TMT style receiver to pick up energy from random sources, and/or the aether? Or is that what you intend to try and accomplish?
That would be quite an achievement. Sounds to me like it would involve loads of calculations in order to figure out the exact specs to build the coil for to receive a specific frequency or range of frequencies, and also testing to figure out what is the most energetic frequency or range..
This youtube video suggests attaching a wire to the secondary of the tesla coil to use it as an extended antenna to be able to pick up charged ions from the air - this concept was suggested by Tesla himself in his radiant energy patent.
Regards
-
OK, so I have this nice loop antenna I built some years back. It is hooked up to my stereo receiver and works great. I wanted to use this,
or make another one like it, for my crystal radio I just made a few days back.
My question is...when I hooked it to my receiver, the radio had 2 inputs for an AM antenna. I had 2 wire ends from the loop antenna...easy.
On my crystal radio, I have one connection for an antenna. The loop antenna has 2 ends.
I read online that one end of the loop should go to ground. Easily done as I have a ground connection on my crystal radio. But, I also read that I should simply tie the two ends of the wires coming from the loop ant. and hook up to my single antenna connection on my crystal radio.
Which way is correct?
I am leaning toward the grounding idea, although, if one uses a long antenna strung between trees, one end is open and the other attached to the radio and no ground.
Very confusing.
Bill
Im kind of wondering the same thing.. I have a length of 3-pair telephone wire pulled across the ridgeline of my roof and into the room,and I did not connect the wire ends on the far end at all. On the basic variometer setup, my end of the telephone wire goes directly to the single connection for an antenna. However, if I want to add an antenna matching capacitor, am I to split up the wires to 3 and 3, run one to each side of the cap, and one of those also to the antenna in on the variometer? If I do this, do I need to go up on the roof and connect all the wire ends together so it acts as a loop, making the two connections I have inside act as the ends of a loop? Or does this not really matter? (I guess I am about to find out!!) I will let you know what happens with these experiments, but I'm going to have to wait until morning to go on the roof and make connections at the other end.
I am considering making a spider web style antenna out of some of the 40' of solid silver wire that I have, and then coating it with fiberglass resin or epoxy. Kind of want to design something incorporating golden ratio/angles.
-
This youtube video suggests attaching a wire to the secondary of the tesla coil to use it as an extended antenna to be able to pick up charged ions from the air - this concept was suggested by Tesla himself in his radiant energy patent.
Regards
Well, who here is going to give this an honest attempt? If I had anything more than a 10" mini Tesla coil built, I would do it. I do intend to build a bigger Tesla coil in the near future, using actual proportional measurements and all that, but does anyone paying attention to this thread have a setup that the connections can be modified on to run some quick tests on that idea?
-
HMMM....
I am getting WAYYYYYYYY better signal, tuning range, and volume using a galena crystal and copper phosphorus catwhisker than I am with either 1n34A and 1n60 diodes. I can hardly hear it with the 160W amplifier on max when I use the diodes, and with the galena I have it quite loud with the volume midway up.
here's something else that's weird.... I had to put several layers of heat shrink tubing over the detector pieces that I need to touch to adjust, because if I touch it with bare hands, with rubber gloves on, with a rag, etc it makes the amp POP and shut off. fortunately it has a safety feature so that I don't blow it or the speakers up...
but it's 3AM now, and as much as I want to keep messing with this, I need to go to sleep or I won't do anything tomorrow! haha. Well, let me know what you guys think of all this. I can make a vid if need be.
Oh, and for my antenna coupling, I ended up having to put the cap between the antenna and the aerial input to the radio. doesn't really make any difference otherwise.
-
Just want to add an update on my setup:
I received my two 365pf variable caps, cat whisker, and 2000ohm earphone from midnightscience.com today.
Unfortunately, using the TK style Australia variometer there is very little tuning range. Also, there is 2.5kw(daytime, 44watt nightime) transmitter just over a mile away from me. That is the only station I am able to pick up right now.
I have a long, springy piece of blue steel that is the scrap from a lathe that I strung up across my ceiling as an alternative antenna. I figured it would be similar to the TK's slinky. It pales in comparison to the phone wire I have on the roof, but that may also be because I live in a stone house, and the stone may be deadening any radio waves that would normally penetrate standard wood walls.
I also received some more 1n34A diodes from a different source, and they perform the same as the other ones I tried yesterday. The galena crystal and whisker still beat the diodes (both 1n34 and 1n60) by at least 3x. Thus far, it seems that the sharper the point of the whisker is, the easier it is to get good contact, and the cleaner the sound is. The copper phosphorus is also outperforming the phosphor bronze thus far.
I'm going to do some testing with the scope shortly and compare the various options I now have.
-
....
here's something else that's weird.... I had to put several layers of heat shrink tubing over the detector pieces that I need to touch to adjust, because if I touch it with bare hands, with rubber gloves on, with a rag, etc it makes the amp POP and shut off. fortunately it has a safety feature so that I don't blow it or the speakers up...
...
Hi Brian,
If you switch your scope input to a sensitive amplitude range, and you touch its direct hot input (no probe) with a small piece of bare wire you hold in your fingers, what can you see displayed? Of course this depends on the time base selection too, I mean the 1 or 5 millisecond per DIV, and I assume you will see a sine wave on the normal mains frequency 50 or 60 Hz you have. The amplitude of this signal will change as you touch anything nearby like the metal body of the scope with your other hand. If this is so, then this signal (your body picks up from the EM field of the house mains wireing) makes your audio amp pop and shut off, I think. It is also possible that your hand or body picks up some other unwanted local signals from your enviroment which is already able to drive the audio amplifier.
IF you happen to have some Germanium transistors in your junk box (or in very old, at least 40-50 year old) discarded AM pocket radios, then you could test the base emitter diode of them as a diode, how they perform.
Also, you could test paralleling 2 or more 1N34A diodes (anodes to a common anode and cathodes to a common cathode) and hear how they perform. You may try this parallel operation with the galena crystal and whisker too if you have more.
Maybe your variometer has too small inductance for the frequency your local AM station operates on. At least each coil ought to have inductances above 100 uH at least or higher.
I found this link a very good experimental help on crystal radios, it is worth reading: http://www.bentongue.com/xtalset/xtalset.html (http://www.bentongue.com/xtalset/xtalset.html) you can read on diode types and on the effect of giving some DC biasing to them and on several other topic important for reception.
Addition: this file includes good experimental findings on crystal receivers, their diodes tests etc: http://www.qrparci.org/wa0itp/chap4.pdf
Gyula
-
Hey Brian
If you dont mind me asking. Can you measure the resistance of your coils? Also, if you have a meter, measure the output? The meter might lower the output being the meter a high impedance load. Just curious.
Wonder if we made a huge coil. !6awg wire, etc. Could there be more output?
Mags
-
Hey Brian
....
Wonder if we made a huge coil. !6awg wire, etc. Could there be more output?
Mags
Hi Mags,
Yes, I think you would get more output, especially if you would use the coil as a multiturn loop antenna which would be tuned by a variable capacitor. A multiturn loop like this from a random search: http://www.on4ceq.net/loop_80.jpg
Gyula
-
If you switch your scope input to a sensitive amplitude range, and you touch its direct hot input (no probe) with a small piece of bare wire you hold in your fingers, what can you see displayed? Of course this depends on the time base selection too, I mean the 1 or 5 millisecond per DIV, and I assume you will see a sine wave on the normal mains frequency 50 or 60 Hz you have. The amplitude of this signal will change as you touch anything nearby like the metal body of the scope with your other hand. If this is so, then this signal (your body picks up from the EM field of the house mains wireing) makes your audio amp pop and shut off, I think. It is also possible that your hand or body picks up some other unwanted local signals from your enviroment which is already able to drive the audio amplifier.
Yep, you are exactly correct. When I tested myself on the scope, I was reading 60hz and +/- about 1.5V. When I grounded myself, the signal stopped. When I touched a variable capacitor that has a connection to the aerial, I was able to change the amplitude a little bit by adjusting the capacitor. When I touched the other variable cap that I have connected to the Amp HP in + 6pf condenser cap back to - HP connection, it instead made the sine wave all positive, from 0 up to about 1.5V.
IF you happen to have some Germanium transistors in your junk box (or in very old, at least 40-50 year old) discarded AM pocket radios, then you could test the base emitter diode of them as a diode, how they perform.
I don't have any of those just yet.
Also, you could test paralleling 2 or more 1N34A diodes (anodes to a common anode and cathodes to a common cathode) and hear how they perform. You may try this parallel operation with the galena crystal and whisker too if you have more.
I'll try paralleling 1N34 diodes, and 1N60 diodes, but I don't have any more galena yet. I'm currently bidding on some trying to catch a good deal. I am probably going to order 2 grams of pure germanium to test also.
Maybe your variometer has too small inductance for the frequency your local AM station operates on. At least each coil ought to have inductances above 100 uH at least or higher.
I'm able to pick up that one station just fine, but that's the only station I am able to get. Maybe when their power output drops to 44Watts for the night I might get lucky and catch another station.
I don't think the inductance is an issue, it's the range that the variometer allows. I built mine almost exactly to spec according to the plans at the bottom of the page from the link below. The only difference between that setup and mine, is that I used SCH40 PVC pipes, outer is 3.5" and inner is 2.375".
http://crystalradioclub.co.uk/g4wpw.htm
I found this link a very good experimental help on crystal radios, it is worth reading: http://www.bentongue.com/xtalset/xtalset.html (http://www.bentongue.com/xtalset/xtalset.html) you can read on diode types and on the effect of giving some DC biasing to them and on several other topic important for reception.
Addition: this file includes good experimental findings on crystal receivers, their diodes tests etc: http://www.qrparci.org/wa0itp/chap4.pdf
Looks very interesting. I will definitely give it a read. I really don't know very much at all about radio waves, and learning calculations, good design ideas, and means of improvement are always great things, of course.
Hey Brian
If you dont mind me asking. Can you measure the resistance of your coils? Also, if you have a meter, measure the output? The meter might lower the output being the meter a high impedance load. Just curious.
Wonder if we made a huge coil. !6awg wire, etc. Could there be more output?
Mags
Mags,
Check above for a link to the setup I built so you know pretty much what I am working with. I will sketch up a diagram of the modifications I've made to it thus far and post it probably in the morning.
The resistance of the outer coil is .3ohm, and the inner is .4ohm, giving a total for the two at .7ohm. I'll post some scope shots in the morning, and get into some detailed output measurements as well. I assume you aren't talking about only a voltage reading, but some current readings as well. I actually bought a couple CSRs with my last digikey order.... now I just need to learn how to use them. .01ohm 5W and .1ohm 5W (both non-inductive Ohmite's).
Yes, I think you would get more output, especially if you would use the coil as a multiturn loop antenna which would be tuned by a variable capacitor. A multiturn loop like this from a random search: http://www.on4ceq.net/loop_80.jpg
Gyula
Gyula,
I mentioned before that I want to make an antenna or something with this 24awg solid silver wire that I have 40' of. In your opinion, would that type of antenna be something worth using that for? or should I just make one out of copper and save the silver for something else?
Brian
-
I figured out the issue where the galena was working better than the actual diodes, and it's all because of the crap radioshack binding posts I was using as my diode holder. I placed the diode across my copper plating and it works great that way. I'm even actually able to pick up more than just the one station, but that may be because they might have dropped down to 44Watts power for the night. I'll find out more on that tomorrow. I'm going to replace my binding posts with drilled and tapped brass bolts with small brass bolts as the movable stud part, and hopefully that works close to as well as it would if they were copper.
I guess that the lesson here is to make sure that the only materials that are used in any connections are copper or brass, and no nickel plated garbage like what RS is selling these days....
Also, I am getting 24mV and 24 microamps, and the nearest tower is broadcasting only 44watts at 1.2miles away. No clear line of sight.
-
Try adding a second diode the way I show mine on page two of the thread. I'm interested to see if it makes a difference.
-
...
I don't think the inductance is an issue, it's the range that the variometer allows. I built mine almost exactly to spec according to the plans at the bottom of the page from the link below. The only difference between that setup and mine, is that I used SCH40 PVC pipes, outer is 3.5" and inner is 2.375".
http://crystalradioclub.co.uk/g4wpw.htm (http://crystalradioclub.co.uk/g4wpw.htm)
Hi Brian,
Okay, that difference in the OD of the pipes practically increases a little the inductance of the coils so it is indeed no problem.
I mentioned before that I want to make an antenna or something with this 24awg solid silver wire that I have 40' of. In your opinion, would that type of antenna be something worth using that for? or should I just make one out of copper and save the silver for something else?
I do not think you should use the silver wire for antenna wire purposes, you could save it for something else (when you need really high Q coils working in the several MHz range up to VHF.
When you have time to read through the hints in the different topics of this link I referred ( http://www.bentongue.com/xtalset/xtalset.html (http://www.bentongue.com/xtalset/xtalset.html) ) you will find that impedance matching is one "secret" for a good crystal set operation, besides diode selection and other aspects like dividing the total AM band (500 to 1700 kHz) for several segments, etc. For antenna size, basically the longer the better, though a 8-10 meter long piece of wire, insulated at its binding points and together with a good ground, can give good results. Alternatively, later on you may wish to build a multiturn loop antenna (with OD maybe 40-60 cm) and this coil would serve as the antenna and the resonant and tuned coil for the crystal set, the diode could connect to either a tap on the multiturn wire or to a second, coupling coil.
It is very good you found the Radio Shack's crappy product and stepped over it.
Gyula
-
Try adding a second diode the way I show mine on page two of the thread. I'm interested to see if it makes a difference.
Scotty,
The second diode from HP+ direct to ground kills the signal almost entirely.
New measurements:
In my variometer setup, I have a 1n34A diode, and a 365pf variable antenna matching capacitor. Also, I have a tiny 10pf glass (vacuum?) capacitor as a condenser, which doesn't seem to matter either way since it does nothing thus far.
Last night at optimal tuning, on the 1300AM (WCLG) station @ 1.2miles away, 44Watts power:
with my connections proper, I measured -24uA and -24mV.
Today at optimal tuning, same station @ 1.2miles away, 2.5kW power:
-240uA and -356mV
It appears that the actual power I am getting comes from ground, and the airwaves have a negative potential.
With a 1Kohm resistor and 125ohm speaker from a telephone (fairly new style), the audio is actually audible from about 2 feet away. If I rid the room of any other noise, I can barely hear it at a distance of about 6 feet.
I have a 6 conductor, 24awg telephone wire antenna on the roof. It is approx 20ft long for the horizontal part, then there is about 25 feet extra laying on the upstairs floor loosely coiled up, then it runs thru the floor another 12 feet to where my connection is. I am going to go up and run the excess 25 feet along the ceiling and see if it changes any of my measurements.
Gyula,
That page definitely has a lot of great info that I will be applying at some point soon. I want to read thru most of it before I really dig in, and also experiment with this simple setup for a bit to gain a better understanding before I start adding circuitry and components. But that info will certainly come in handy!
Bill,
I've got it lighting an LED!! Dimly, and it changes in brightness with the modulation, or so it seems. Now to find a lower power LED to see if I can get it to light even brighter!
Brian