Testing the TK Tar Baby

[polln8r]

TK unmasked!

[Magluvin]

Tk
Do the thick copper rails that the caps are soldered to, act as part of the length of the loop? I see that the transistors are connected at the far ends of the copper strips from the loop itself.

Nice build.

MaGs

[sparks]

  You all be careful now cause when large amounts of reactive power become active power boom.  I once was approached by a very slippery character.  He was selling bascially cheat the wattmeter electrical systems that instead of increasing power factor decreased it to get by the wattmeter then recombined the wattless components into wattable   components.  I knew exactly what this guy was pitching but played the fool.  I had a little time on my hands and the guy was an interesting charactor so I let him go through the whole pitch then asked him if my electrician would need a special permit to install the system.   He got pissed and stormed out.  Tesla's cap coils have huge amounts of reactive energy stored in them.  Currents completely out of phase with voltage.  That's how he stores up the energy without melting wires and such.

[TinselKoala]

Tk
Do the thick copper rails that the caps are soldered to, act as part of the length of the loop? I see that the transistors are connected at the far ends of the copper strips from the loop itself.

Nice build.

MaGs

Yes. The drains of the transistors and all the caps are connected to the thick copper ribbons which are connected to the transfer loop. The sources of the transistors are connected on the top side of the board by heavy green wires to the negative supply point. The thick center conductor is the positive rail. So all of the PS-Transistor-cap-loop circuitry is heavy and can carry lots of amps. I'd make this whole circuit as tight and heavy as possible. The fact that the transistors are in TO220 packs makes it difficult though. I'd like to find TO247 or TO3P packs that would work as well or better. Might try these IRFP350s just to see.

Yes, the circuit needs some kind of slap to wake it up. If you just ramp up the power slowly it will look like a direct short circuit and stay that way until it opens from the heat, so you need to turn it on with a relay or switch, with the full supply voltage. I imagine that any little asymmetry will wake it up and once it starts, it's feedback city.

[TinselKoala]

The more I think about this, the more astounded I am.

What if you got a letter in your mailbox and it said the following things:

I know where you live.
I have your photograph, and I know how old you are.
I know where you went to school and I have your phone number.
I know who you live with, too.
And I am planning to do my damnedest to damage your reputation and destroy your good name
as soon as I am able to.

What if?
And what if you knew that the person who sent you that letter had a history of mental illness? What then?

Would you be taking steps to assure your own safety? Would you be contacting authorities in the locale where the letter originated? Relatives of the sender, business and personal associates of the sender? Just what is the appropriate action that one should take, when on the receiving end of such a threatening, frightening missive from a patently mentally unstable individual?