Magnet Myths and Misconceptions

[bboj]

Well, thanks.  I'd love to see your Dirod, they are rare as hen's teeth. I think I've only seen videos of two or three others on YT.  Yes, AD Moore's book inspired my electrostatic explorations and I also got a lot from Richard Ford's "Homemade Lightning" book. I built my Dirod in 1999. Later on I got a lot of inspiration from the work of Oleg Jefimenko.

Here's my Dirod in action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxEpSX2Hd54
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqf3bUL4YqE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpemKuf6X_c
And a little VDG machine and a calibrated ES voltmeter:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eogpGHFgV6E

So, some discussion questions for the audience: Is there current flowing in the above demonstration? If so, in which direction?
There are no magnets anywhere in the Dirod or the ppb oscillator or other demo devices shown. How does the system work? Is there a difference between the electricity in the spark at the end of the demos, and the electricity I might have gotten from a power supply or battery to charge up the capacitor bank? Where did the _voltage_ come from? Are the bead chain links charged, or not?

Well this is electrostatic induction. So in the ball we have movement of charges or not.
The ball is an AC current.

[Dave45]

A possible secondary experiment would be to apply enough current to heat the iron wire pretty good, then freeze the wire with freeze spray while removing the current. 

off that topic, I had an idea to wind a copper wire around a plastic toroid, 4in dia, 1/2in thick, 1/2in deep.  1 layer. Then make a rotor with all magnets N pointing out. just used 2 mags in the test.  It was a slap together thing, a bit off balance in every way, but just tried. When I applied current to the coil, sometimes the rotor turned CW, sometimes CCW.  The idea was to have the mags close to the inside part of the coil and have the N poles of the mags ride the field spin around those inner windings.  As in a DC motor without pole switching. I chose to use a non magnetic core so as not to have it absorb the field away from the mags.  But a core may help, havnt gotten there yet. Busy with life. Try to get to some experiments here n there. Just throwing it out there.


Mags

Hey Mags
Was it direct current or were you pulsing the coil.

Iv been thinking about the way a motor works
A current carrying wire is pushed out of the magnetic field, if the current runs one way its expelled in one direction, change direction of the current and the wire is expelled in the other direction.

I wonder if a pancake coil is sandwiched between two toroid speaker magnets and a current is pulsed into the center of the coil will the magnet add energy to the electrons as they are pushed out, and will there be any bemf.

Instead of trying to collect more electrons from the ambient can we add energy to the electrons we already have.
Its just something Iv been wanting to try.

electron acceleration?
So many idea's so little time.
I know what you mean by work and family, I need to spend more time on both.

dave

[Dave45]

Here's my Dirod in action

Awesome build

[tinman]

You can have cold-field emission if the voltage is high enough, you can have emission from hot surfaces that is greater than the cold-field emission for the same voltage, and you can use materials from which it is easy to knock off electrons, and then you have the best of both worlds. You can get electron emission in greater quantity and at lower temperatures if you use a hot, thoriated cathode material.

And so it is in the magnetron of the simple microwave oven.

[tinman]

So we have a wire conected across a battery. What is the polarity of the magnetic field produced around the wire ?. Dose it change from one end to the other-from positive side of the battery to the negative side. Or do we have a monopole field?. If a magnetic field is built around the wire,what is going on inside the battery as far as a magnetic field is concerned?. Would we have one field being formed around the outer steel casing of the battery(normally the negative),and the opposite field polarity on the carbon inner rod of the battery(normally the positive)?.