Talking about phase...

[gn0stik]

Bob, My question is about your 90 degree biasing winding.

I can "see" the rest of how your coil is constructed if not connected in my mind, but this bit is a bit shady.

Do you mean that it is circumferentially wound around the outside of the torus? As in SM's collector, only more turns, and around the outside of the secondary?

This is the image I have in my head based on your description.

On another note, I agree with you that it is understandable why SM gets frustrated by know it alls, and newbies who think they are on track, but are actually just distractions. Or worse yet, people who don't get basic clues in spite of their proclaimed experience. I understand that you have probably had to deal with a number of these types over the years of your research career. It's one of the things that makes communicating via forums difficult. Threads are easily sidetracked by these types, and they are usually relentless posters. The quiet few knowlegable ones, that are not attention whores are usually the productive few. There are a few noisy yet productive types as well... They are typically the eccentric, too-smart-for-your-own-good types. But are exceptions to the rule generally.

You mentioned however that you have given "less" information, and others have been able to replicate.

The information you gave them was winding, connection, and tuning info, which was all pretty specific.

There are a lot of pretty sharp guys here, and in their defense, the information you gave out was pretty specific info. Whereas SM's info has been easily interpreted a number of ways. You, coming from a background with a device that operates very similarly to his, see everything plain as day. You were already wearing "TPU tinted glasses" so to speak. The rest of the dedicated few here have spent thousands in personal funds in order to find out if "this interpretation" or "that interpretation" has been right. There are simply too many variables to explore. And we can have one or two, or even a dozen variables exactly right, but if one is off, we have to scrap that model and move on, never knowing we had it mostly right.

See the problem? You yourself said that without knowing the connection details and winding specifics, and driving specifics, it would be very difficult to even accidentally come across the desired effects.

So, that is what we have been doing. Me, for two years now. Most of us have "TPU Graveyards" that we keep in case something proves to be promising, and we discover that at one point in the past we happened to have more things right than wrong.

Even though, I understand SM's frustration, and I would be too. I think I would be more frustrated with my limitations of info sharing, than I would be with my students. And I also think  I would have a tendency to understand their frustrations as well. It's a two way street.

I feel bad for SM really, his health problems, his gag order, his aching desire to get this info out. I can't imagine living that way. It must be impossible to simply enjoy life with these thorns in his side.

At any rate, it's been good reading all of your posts and your experiences with this tech. Hope to keep you here for more of the fun.

[Grumpy]

I realize that you asked Bob, but I'd like to go ahead and add some comments toward your questions - maybe get some other people interested in this thread.

I have wound the bias coil (solenoid style) on a thin form (rolled plastic sheet) that fits over the ring so as to make it removable for changes and such.  By having this coil over the entire ring, the magnetic field inside the coil is applying a directional vector to the field of the ring.  Imagine the ring itself being stretched by pulling at it's center (even though there is really nothing in the center - imagine space stretching) - that is the effect of the bias coil.  Imagine the pulled space with a twist in it and you have an image of the vortex.

(hmm - that image gives me an idea...)

The info on this thread so far was enough for me to make the ring. 

Connections? 

Connect as required to make a rotating field - this varies depending on whether you are using pulses or full-wave signals.  With four windings at 90 degrees, you cross the connections of the opposing coils and each pair of opposing coils are fed a signal that is 90 degrees out of phase from the other one.  Which one leads/lags determines the rotation direction.  The coils will be 180 degrees out of phase with their opposing partners do to the crossed connections.  With pulses, you just hit them sequentially and tune phase as required to sweeten the field.  Just like stepper motors work.

Standing waves (magnetic) should be visible with ferrofluid or magnetic viewing film - assuming these materials do not vary the field so much that they alter the field and cause the pattern to collapse. 

[gn0stik]

Well, I haven't comitted to building just yet, as I'm not in a position to commit to anything, with my move and all still in the works. However, if/when I do build, I would do it with the three coils 120 degrees each, and pulse with very short duty cycle (just enough to load the capacitance in the fets), and use some very sturdy drivers and with nice specs in order to get as sharp a rise and fall time as possible.

I probably wouldn't even try sines, and four "controls", as he noted that adding the fourth one doesn't seem to add anything spectacular to the mix. Besides,  I only have three F sources unless I build another one myself. Which, If I ever wanted this thing to run itself independent of lab equipment, I would have to eventually anyway. 

Oh and I forgot to ask bob... On your toroidal units, output is via the all encompassing secondary is that correct? Primaries are beneath that, and are fed signals. Then we have the biasing winding.

Thanks again.... Rich

[Grumpy]

three signals?

-----------------

EDIT: Bob did mention FET's.

Digital devices like shift registers, Johnson registers, and various others will produce very clean, sharp signals and only require a clock signal, yet they can drive several poles - 3 to 16 is easily done with one chip.  Then you use a delay line (they are on chips these days) or and RC phase shift combo to adjust the phase of each pole to get the honey out of the pot. 

Many ways to pull the voltage higher if desired.

Primaries are outside the secondary.

The trick is not in forcing power out, but in allowing it to force itself out.  Only a small signal is required to start and then it builds up - related to the frequency applied (the clock) to all of the poles - just like a motor.

Visuallize the arrangement of the primaries - see that there are two magnetic loops formed - see that they are rotating out of phase, but at the same rate - and then Whoa! - you get a standing wave pattern when everything is just right. Of course, this is just my interpretation and I have not verified it yet.

Here:  This will give you an idea - not exactly like this but similar concept.

http://scitation.aip.org/phf/gallery/2003-lorenz.jsp

[gn0stik]

I'll take your word for it, I was just going by bob's posts. However you seem to know more about it than I do.

I'll read up, but I don't understand why bob would say those things in his posts here if he didn't mean it. I just read them today, it's still pretty fresh. I'm pretty sure he specifically mentioned fets and drivers. Which, you are correct, require a bit more power to run. But I might have gotten context wrong or something.

I'll read through all the material I can get ahold of before commenting further.

I don't want to make unfounded assumptions.

Rich