Hubbard coil

[TEKTRON]

What to use for a core material?

I think I would try brake rotor shavings ( free from brake shop) and mix with epoxy. I made a beautiful toroid in a jello mold and trued it up on a lathe. haven't wound it yet. no time to experiment now

[forest]

Hello all,
Is anyone still working on this project (or something similar)? I've ordered some materials to build a Hubbard 'type' device.
My thoughts on the Hubbard Coil: It was a SIMPLE divice with NO radioactive elements, just metal, wire and some plastic.
With that being said; If you wind wire around a piece of iron and then cut the iron into equal lengths without cutting the wire, you can see how a big long coil can be turned into many short coils where the wrappings alternate up and down each 'rod' AND keep the current moving (increasing) in the same direction (so that the magnetic fields combine). I visualize a sort of pumping effect here; two corkscrews twisting into each other comes to mind as well... Imagine four figure-eights so that the start of the coils tie to the end of the coils (in a moebius loop). This gives you an infinite (induction) loop. If you wrap it bifiliar and connect opposite ends you have two 'loops' AND you can also 'pinch' the current as well as 'push' it!! One wrapping not only inducts from the other wires on the same core, it also does so from the adjacent cores (more combining magnetic fields!) and (probably) a little from the ones at 90 degrees to those (which is at least half of them!). I think the 'push' (i.e. magnetic field coupling/current increase) would be more than the 'pinch' (i.e. loss/reduction of same)
It makes sense to me that the central winding is charged with INDUCTED power from the outer 8 coils (no/minimal power loss!).  The central core (and consequently the coil itself) has to be a little bigger (I think) because it needs a stronger magnetic field to keep the 'stray' potentials from 'leaving' the outer coils altogether. It seems to me that an added outer winding could give output as well. If an outer winding is used (needed?) then the inner and outer windings should be 1/4, 1/2, or full (wave) lengths of each other (Smith) to make oscillation easier (guessing here...?).
Shape relationships I believe are important. Those figure eights have sinusoidal waveforms built into them!
The trick is 'trapping' that 'flow' in those eight coils indefinitely. Leedskalnin's PMH anyone?!? Seems logical (to me) that the central core mass keeps the process together (speculation...). What to use for a core material? Crushed neos?? Anyways,  I'm looking forward to getting started and building something! Will post more when I have more to post.
Love the forum, keep up the research!!
PC
"If no one builds it nothing will change..."

I like your idea. I would like to see schematic, maybe I can help

[PhiChaser]

Thanks Loner!
A couple things that I ran into over the weekend (sort of): The old basic electrical book I have from college doesn't have ANYTHING about transformers sharing magnetic fields, just the standard series/parallel equations when the fields are NOT affecting each other. Any help on this one? Pretty sure this thing needs to have all those coils as close as possible for minimum loss/maximum potential. It worked because the fields combined and didn't collapse! (My thoughts anyways...)
The second thing was the 5 time constants to build up or break down a magnetic field. Visualizing this sort of thing as it travels through the wires and up and down those steel rods seems like there would be a magnetic 'rippling' effect almost (like water makes?!). Maybe 2 of 3 windings are increasing the magnetic field (5 of 8?) while the other(1) is 'pinching' it...
Can't wait for my metal to arrive...
Any thoughts on starting this thing when I get it built? Core material? Grounding?? Capacitance???
PC
Thanks for the steel pipe info Quark!!! THAT is exactly the kind of stuff that should be kept easy to reference! Nice!

[Paul-R]

If you wind wire around a piece of iron and then cut the iron into equal lengths

Yes, but -
It should be iron, and not steel since the iron sheds its magnetism quickly when
the current is removed.

[PhiChaser]

Yes, but -
It should be iron, and not steel since the iron sheds its magnetism quickly when
the current is removed.

Soft iron is about impossible to find in any quantities that can be really utilized and fit within my budget. The steel I have ordered is 1018 cold rolled (specs below).
C 0.14 - 0.2 
Fe 98.81 - 99.26  <<mostly iron eh?
Mn 0.6 - 0.9 
P 0.04 max 
S 0.05 max 
The current should be trapped in the coils (my hypothesis) and resonate (or wobble enough to keep going anyways).  Like a Hendershot device or a PMH, I think this thing needs a kick to start it and then it resonates all by itself (hopefully right?).
How to start (test) it? Use a homemade cattle prod?? Should I consider iron filings (packed into iron pipe?) for the center coil core maybe? I'm hoping to be able to easily change the central coil for testing. Everything always looks better on paper!!
Ah, my thumbs are already getting sore just thinking about all those fun hours of winding wire around metal rods...
All my schematics end up looking like some kind of spiral thing, I'm sure they aren't correct but I will try again fresh. How do you draw one long induction rod that is actually eight seperate rods that all touch electrically but have 8 seperate polarities so are really 8 seperate rods? AND they surround (touch?) the central winding but don't electrically connect to it directly?
PC

edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_constant
There is a diagram under the heading "Relation of time constant to bandwidth" that is an "An example response of system to sine wave forcing function.". The idea I had (edit: I'm sure I'm not the first!) of how to start the thing. Pretty much try to momentarily subject the loops to a multifrequency jolt of current (of some sort) and hope for the best... One thing at a time heh heh...
And another interesting one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_flux_density
"An infinitely long cylindrical electromagnet has a uniform magnetic field inside, and no magnetic field outside." If the outer coils are tied to each other does this mean that the center magnet core is NOT affected by the exterior electromagnets?