The Eric Dollard Lightglobe experiment

[gyulasun]

.... how would a DC potential build up on the secondary?
....

Hi pomodoro,

That is okay you question that and normally the answer would be: there is no way. 
However, at least one thing has to be considered: a HV capacitor (mentioned as door knob type) cannot readily be charged up by AC unless you are always lucky to interrupt the charging process at one of the peak amplitudes (or near to it) of the AC voltage.
Another thing is that the two scope shots under the pictures and schematics in your link show DC component (268V and 334V) if I understand it correctly.  (I am a bit uncertain though where the zero lines are in the scope shots (probably in the middle main line or very near to it where number 1 is shown on the right side in each shot) but the two DC values are included in the display.)
I do think that tuning such system is the main issue to get virtually 'any' waveform at the output, even having an average DC level too.

Gyula

[TinselKoala]

Hi pomodoro,

That is okay you question that and normally the answer would be: there is no way. 
However, at least one thing has to be considered: a HV capacitor (mentioned as door knob type) cannot readily be charged up by AC unless you are always lucky to interrupt the charging process at one of the peak amplitudes (or near to it) of the AC voltage.
Another thing is that the two scope shots under the pictures and schematics in your link show DC component (268V and 334V) if I understand it correctly.  (I am a bit uncertain though where the zero lines are in the scope shots (probably in the middle main line or very near to it where number 1 is shown on the right side in each shot) but the two DC values are included in the display.)
I do think that tuning such system is the main issue to get virtually 'any' waveform at the output, even having an average DC level too.

Gyula

The scopeshots appear to be from a LeCroy scope. The scopeshots show Channel 1 only. The baselines are shown by the digit "1" and the horizontal line at the right edge of the trace display area. In both shots Channel 1 is AC coupled, so any DC component will be filtered out. Apparently a 1000x probe is being used; the actual channel setting is 0.1V/div and the probe factor makes it 100V/div.

The DC values (268 V and 334 V) shown on the shots are the Trigger voltage settings wrt the channel baseline. The trigger voltage level is indicated by the little triangles on either side of the trace display area, and the horizontal position of the trigger is indicated by the small arrow at the bottom of the trace display. The trigger is set to rising edge, as indicated by the symbol to the left of the "DC 268 V". These values are -NOT- values of the traces themselves, they are trigger voltage settings. You can confirm this by looking at the little triangles on either side of the trace display and comparing their levels to the channel baseline indicators.

The timebase is set to 0.5 microseconds per division for both shots. On the top shot, the waveform peaks indicate a frequency of about 1.2 or 1.25 MHz, NOT the value indicated on the screen. (There is about one cycle in 0.8 us, or three cycles in 2.5 us). On the bottom shot, the waveform peaks indicate a frequency of about 2.47 MHz, in rough agreement with the value indicated on the screen as read by the cursor position (arrow on waveform at second peak) wrt the trigger point.

I think that the numbers in the channel setting boxes -20.0 v and -47 v normally indicate the offset, or vertical position wrt the center graticule marker, but these don't seem to correspond to the actual baseline positions as shown by the markers on the right side. So I'm wondering if the traces have been moved after the scope is stopped.

[Panul]

The problem is not that Dollard "tries to deceive" anyone. He just uses his own terminology and makes a few mistakes. All electrical phenomena can be deduced by the ampere and coulomb forces. Every other needlessly fancy or complex explanation is bogus.

[gyulasun]

The scopeshots appear to be from a LeCroy scope. The scopeshots show Channel 1 only.
.....

Hi TinselKoala,

Thank you for the kind explanations, now all the details are clear for those scope shots (I am not really familiar with LeCroy scopes, got used to mainly to Tektronix, first the analog 454 for decades, then a digital TDS220 and now an OWON).

@pomodoro, sorry for my mistake on the scope shots on the DC values.  Still there has to be a resultant DC average for the waveform to cause attraction for the metal foil or some repulsive thrust for the fingers.   
Unfortunately, the two scopeshots are not indicated which test points they were taken at.  Or are they? have not found reference.

Gyula

[TinselKoala]

 

The schematic for the Diathermy Machine is missing the four (4) spark gaps in shunt with the High voltage transformer secondary.  These missing components are the result of a drafting error.
Eric Dollard says there are historical corrections that need to be made to this text, but we didn't have time to make these at the conference. As soon as this information is available a revised document will be provided. So take the history of this device with a grain of salt for now.

So.... is it "soon" yet? Where is the revised and corrected document, does anybody know?

The scope traces are taken directly from the Diathermy Machine between the "Indifferent (Ground)" and the "High" terminals using a LeCroy 7kV 1000X 100 Meg Probe. These output connections are from the Diathermy Machine's Tesla Coil Primary. The internal Tesla secondary was not used. Even though no current was taken from the Tesla secondary it still impacts the natural output frequency. In a dark room streamers from the Tesla terminal can be seen.
For most of the conference the IB22 Spark Tubes were shorted across because the tubes appear to have melted portions in their outer walls.  It was the intent to tune the system to the natural frequency of the Diathermy machine. The initial capacitance of the two vacuum capacitor banks was 700 pF for the Left Wagon Wheel and 718 pF for the Right Wagon Wheel. Some minor adjustments were made during the conference
Mark McKay, PE

Which doesn't help much since the schematic for the Diathermy machine is incorrect and incomplete.  So, really, the scopeshots are meaningless and misleading, but are just there to make Dollard's sheeple go "ooh" and "ah...". 

Don't you just love it when people use many thousands of dollards... er, sorry, dollars worth of fancy equipment to produce meaningless and uninterpretable data?


I think that "grain of salt" has to be a pretty huge crystal of rock salt.