Ed Gray's Magic Tube

[Zarko]

You gotta give Edwin Gray credit for having some brains.  He built an Electrical Conversion Tube which transformed energy in a high voltage spark into pure potential.  Having heard of Tesla's work with super short unidirectional pulses, Edwin knew that this potential will travel through a circuit almost instantly, producing no heat at all.  As long as the pulses were short enough.  So Gray made the grid in his Tube short enough for the electricity to be cold, since the length of the grid determines the discharge time period.  If he needed more power in the pulses, he just added more mass to the grid by making it thicker.  This provided more free charge carriers in the metal, to be shorted to the central conductor by the electrostatic energy around the arc.  And he already knew more than most people: how to split the positive into two branches of the circuit, sending an equal amount of energy to each coil.

But he didn't stop there.  It is a measure of Edwin Gray's genius that he instinctively knew that the potential to the coils would have to increase as they moved apart, to ensure a constant torque.  So he added more grids to his Tube.  The closest grid to the center would have the most voltage, since it had the smallest surface area for a given amount of charge.  Half turn inductive loops interconnecting each of the grids ensured that the grids discharged sequentially, with the outer grid having the least voltage being the first to provide its potential to the circuit.  This resulted in the stair step waveform shown in the patent as 25a and 26a in his schematic.

Some people credit Marvin Cole as the inventor of the first motor.  Cole, a mechanical engineer, was Gray's neighbor back in Prescott, Arizona--a quaint little mountain community where I also resided in '59 and '60, having moved down from Las Vegas.  (Gray was there from '59 to '61.  Then HE went TO Las Vegas.)  But it was Gray who gave the key to the motor to Cole, drawing out the concept on beer napkins after he experimented and found that the unidirectional potential from the grids resulted in an unusual amount of repulsion.  Edwin Gray was the genius behind the technology.

[tim123]

I've noticed in my experiments, that including a spark-gap *seems to* add power to a circuit.

I've just been pulsing DC from a battery into an ignition coil, and using the HV output... Sometimes I use my bench power supply - but the big electric fields tend to mess it up.

For example - a neon bulb, or a normal incandescent bulb, will give out (much) more light  when there's a spark-gap, as opposed to being directly connected to the HV terminal.

I realise this is because the load is then reflected directly back to the power supply during the charge cycle - etc. So the spark gap is acting as an essential switch.

However, I felt there was more to it - and I looked into Ed Gray's tube. Very interesting. Here are some links I'd like to add to the thread:

- Electron Avalanche: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_avalanche
- Townsend Discharge: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Townsend_discharge
- Pat Flanagan's Electron Field Generator: http://energy21.freeservers.com/electroncasc.htm

Maybe saving the best for last:

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multipactor_effect

"The multipactor effect is a phenomenon in radio frequency (RF) amplifier vacuum tubes and waveguides, where, under certain conditions, secondary electron emission in resonance with an alternating electric field leads to exponential electron multiplication, possibly damaging and even destroying the RF device."

Is this not a clear route to OU? It sounds like the 'Multipactor effect" could be exactly how the Gray tube operated...

Any thoughts folks?

EDIT: "Multipactor was identified and studied in 1934 by Philo T. Farnsworth, the inventor of electronic television, who attempted to take advantage of it as an amplifier. More commonly nowadays, it has become an obstacle to be avoided for normal operation of particle accelerators, vacuum electronics, radars, satellite communication devices, and so forth. "

I would imagine that this effect actually causes a lot of current to be drawn from the power supply - and that's probably the problem...

However, maybe:
- the 'free' electrons could come from the dielectric medium, instead of the electrodes
- the electron avalanche could be intercepted by 'collector plates'
- it could be timed such that the electrons just oscillate about the collector plates - instead of impacting on the electrodes.

[Turbo]

Not only the Gray tube...many others too.
And, Yes it is a clear route to OU and it's well known.
Mr Farnsworth spend the latter part of his life investigating this effect.
Eric P Dollard verified the effect and confirmed that there was no power loss.
A lot of info available on the subject.

[tim123]

Diagram attached...
- Perhaps the 2 grids can act as emitter & collector - as shown - due to the AC electric field.
- In this case the 2 electrodes would be insulated - so they just provide the strong field.
- Outer electrode could be just earthed.
- It may not need an outer electrode - the gray tube didn't (apparently) - I don't know.

Ok, why wouldn't it work...?
- The electrons would be repelled by the collector. (But the emitter should still emit...)
- not sure of other reasons...

It's interesting to note that the Gray tube was - a sealed tube... Presumably to contain the ionised gas...

[Turbo]

I'm not shure why would you use mercury vapour ignitrons placed 3 in parallel so it can handle 75.000 Ampere's if the conversion grids are operating on high voltage?

This can be seen in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS4zl3f1fFI

Also, I do not think these CSET's or CONVERSION grids were evacuated tubes they simply look to be placed in some neat transparent plasic housing.
Conversion means from to so this tube converts something into another thing...

Which can be seen here: http://universalpower.webs.com/gallery/Edwin%20Vincent%20Gray/index.html