SSTC battle continues! Discussion
Edited/Updated: October 20, 2004
Date : Thu, 12 Aug 2004 11:45:19 -0600. Subject : SSTC battle continues!
Original poster: "Kreso Bukvic"
This Richies design SSTC is really cool. The mosfets just refuse to DIE ;-).
Longest run was about 3 minutes. There was no heating in the mosfets. Only the
primary got HOT and secondary too.
Sparks are ~8 cm long at half rectified and no toroid.
IS there a way to improve the spark length more?
I doubt removing primary turns would works since primary gets HOT?
Any comments? Best regards, Krešo Bukvi
Date : Thu, 12 Aug 2004 16:59:01 -0600. Subject : RE: SSTC battle continues!
Original poster: "McCauley, Daniel H"
SSTC battle continues? 8cm ? ? A joke perhaps?
My DRSSTC I puts out over 200cm.
Steve Ward's puts out over 300cm.
Jimmy Hynes puts out over 200cm.
Again, 8cm? The battle continues ? ? ?
Am I missing something?
Date : Fri, 13 Aug 2004 12:03:52 -0600. Subject : RE: SSTC battle continues!
Original poster: "Steve Conner"
>He's talking about battles with the driver
Yes, it can be a battle just getting a SSTC to work and stay working for more
than 10 seconds. All those problems multiply as the coil gets bigger and more
powerful.
But knowledge of practical EE matters like layout, shielding and grounding can
help you a lot. These are far more important than they were in spark-gap
coiling- it takes a lot less interference to destabilise a self-resonant
controller than to burn out an NST :(
In practice, it's probably a good idea to build your SSTC controller, and plan
the wires that connect it to power supplies, H-bridge, ground etc, with the same
attention to shielding and grounding as a computer CPU box or a
high-sensitivity radio receiver. Radio techniques are quite appropriate, as the
idea in a driver is to let the power supply and feedback signal into the box,
and let the gate drive out, while keeping all other conducted/radiated
interference out.
Possibly the worst offender is ground loops that include your SSTC driver
circuit board. These can pick up magnetic field from the primary/secondary coils
as well as the large dI/dt caused by an arc to ground.
Another bad source of interference is the dV/dt caused by an arc to ground-as
the toroid capacitance is suddenly discharged to ground, it pulls the local RF
ground up to a remarkably high voltage. This effect is discussed in
textbooks on commercial lightning protection. It can cause electrostatic
coupling of hash into your control circuits, and even cause the RF "ground" to
arc over to your control circuits which are hooked to a different (AC line)
ground.
Steve C.
best SSTC spark so far: 185cm
Death toll: 9 small IGBTs, 2 fast recovery diodes, 4 MOSFETs, 6 UCC3732x driver
chips, a pile of 555/74HCxx/LM339/2N3904/etc, a heap of fuses, and one 240V 40W
filament bulb burnt out by ground strike current.
Date : Fri, 13 Aug 2004 12:03:59 -0600. Subject : RE: SSTC battle continues!
Original poster: "Steve Conner"
>He's talking about battles with the driver
Yes, it can be a battle just getting a SSTC to work and stay working for more
than 10 seconds. All those problems multiply as the coil gets bigger and more
powerful.
But knowledge of practical EE matters like layout, shielding and grounding can
help you a lot. These are far more important than they were in spark-gap
coiling- it takes a lot less interference to destabilise a self-resonant
controller than to burn out an NST :(
In practice, it's probably a good idea to build your SSTC controller, and plan
the wires that connect it to power supplies, H-bridge, ground etc, with the same
attention to shielding and grounding as a computer CPU box or a
high-sensitivity radio receiver. Radio techniques are quite appropriate, as the
idea in a driver is to let the power supply and feedback signal into the box,
and let the gate drive out, while keeping all other conducted/radiated
interference out.
Possibly the worst offender is ground loops that include your SSTC driver
circuit board. These can pick up magnetic field from the primary/secondary coils
as well as the large dI/dt caused by an arc to ground.
Another bad source of interference is the dV/dt caused by an arc to ground-as
the toroid capacitance is suddenly discharged to ground, it pulls the local RF
ground up to a remarkably high voltage. This effect is discussed in
textbooks on commercial lightning protection. It can cause electrostatic
coupling of hash into your control circuits, and even cause the RF "ground" to
arc over to your control circuits which are hooked to a different (AC line)
ground.
Steve C.
best SSTC spark so far: 185cm
Death toll: 9 small IGBTs, 2 fast recovery diodes, 4 MOSFETs, 6 UCC3732x
driver chips, a pile of 555/74HCxx/LM339/2N3904/etc, a heap of fuses, and
one 240V 40W filament bulb burnt out by ground strike current.
Date : Fri, 13 Aug 2004 17:25:22 -0600. Subject : Re: SSTC battle continues!
Original poster: "Dr. Resonance"
We are presently up to 290 cm ( 9.5 ft. ) on 5.5 kVA SSTC. There was a
national press release on our "Tesla rifle" through the Associated Press a
few weeks ago. We are working with Pete Bitar's Extreme Alternate Defense
Systems on this project. With solid state technology it's easy to break the
old rule for classic TCs of 1 kVA input per foot of spark output.
Our second project is a Kinetic Resonance Energy Weapon (KREW for short)
that hopefully will be ready for a demo at our Open House on Sept. 4th.
Dr. Resonance
Date : Fri, 13 Aug 2004 20:30:45 -0600. Subject : Re: SSTC battle continues!
Original poster: "Steven Ward"
<srward16@hotmail.com>
Wait a sec... WHO built this SSTC??? And if so, could i see some more
details on it? And how many IGBTs have you gone through so far? Though
5.5kva still isnt all that efficient yet... mine was doing 11' with maybe
4kw. What im most curious about, since i have a weak connection back to
Pete through some other people, and Pete contacted me about helping him
with some project (i turned it down), is if they are just using my exact
design (because the person i know has been asking for schematics and help
building it, and he just happens to work for Pete too).
And you have seen this SSTC in person right D.C.?? Steve.
Date : Fri, 13 Aug 2004 20:31:03 -0600. Subject : Re: SSTC battle continues!
Original poster: "Eastern Voltage Research Corporation"
<dhmccauley@easternvoltageresearch.com>
Do you have a scan or a link to this "Tesla Rifle" SSTC ?
Also, is that 5.5kVA number correct - seems like quite a bit of power to get
only 9.5 feet of arc? And any details on the topology you are using?
Pictures?
>With solid state technology it's easy to break the
> old rule for classic TCs of 1 kVA input per foot of spark output.
I don't know. My classic TC's break that rule all the time. Even my small
minicoil running at 200 Watts breaks the one foot mark.
> We are presently up to 290 cm ( 9.5 ft. ) on 5.5 kVA SSTC. There was a
> national press release on our "Tesla rifle" through the Associated Press a
> few weeks ago.
Date : Sat, 14 Aug 2004 08:40:43 -0600. Subject : Re: SSTC battle continues!
Original poster: "John"
<fireba8104@yahoo.com>
Is this "tesla rifle" anything like the Lod tasergun?
<http://www.geocities.com/fireba8104/Temppicture/tasergun.bmp>http://www.geocities.com/fireba8104/Temppicture/tasergun.bmp
Cheers, John.
Tesla list
<tesla@pupman.com> wrote:
Original poster: "Eastern Voltage Research Corporation"
Do you have a scan or a link to this "Tesla Rifle" SSTC ?
Also, is that 5.5kVA number correct - seems like quite a bit of power to get
only 9.5 feet of arc? And any details on the topology you are using? Pictures?
>With solid state technology it's easy to break the old rule for classic TCs of
1 kVA input per foot of spark output.
I don't know. My classic TC's break that rule all the time. Even my small
minicoil running at 200 Watts breaks the one foot mark.
> We are presently up to 290 cm ( 9.5 ft. ) on 5.5 kVA SSTC. There was a
> national press release on our "Tesla rifle" through the Associated Press a few
weeks ago.
Date : Sat, 14 Aug 2004 08:41:19 -0600. Subject : Re: SSTC battle continues!
Original poster: "Eastern Voltage Research Corporation"
<dhmccauley@easternvoltageresearch.com>
Told ya. Should have patented that design while you could. Looks like DC will
now use this design for his new commercial designs and possible patent it
himself. ;)
I am very curious to learn exact details as well
Date : Sat, 14 Aug 2004 08:41:53 -0600. Subject : RE: SSTC battle continues!
Original poster: "David Trimmell"
<humanb@chaoticuniverse.com>
I agree that this is all vary good practice Steve, but if your driver has proper
RF by passing and a solid single point RF ground that avoids "ground loops" then
really there is no need to go into the HFRF style shielding hassles. I have run
my protoboard driver within a foot of my 6" coil with out any issues, but I must
note that I am only getting 27" max sparks out of my half-bridge (190VDC). Even
so, proto boards are not great in RF service, but work well enough. I am looking
forward to trying Dan's new driver board and finally making a full-bridge.
Regards, David Trimmell.
Date : Sat, 14 Aug 2004 20:13:19 -0600. Subject : Re: SSTC battle continues!
Original poster: "Dr. Resonance"
<resonance@jvlnet.com>
The DOD got involved, and now it all became classified. The circuit is so
unique that they have applied for a patent on it. All I can say is that it
is different from your circuit --- it was developed by a consulting
physicist/EE from Calif. He works on it from afar.
I have seen the photographs and I will see the actual unit operate on Sept.
25th when we demonstrate the Tesla Rifle and our KREW (Kinetic Resonance
Energy Weapon) to the DOD on that date.
It works and is now delivery 10 ft long sparks --- in pulse mode it can
produce a 10 ft. long spark at under 1 kVA input power. Dr. Resonance.
Date : Sat, 14 Aug 2004 20:13:44 -0600. Subject : Re: SSTC battle continues!
Original poster: "Dr. Resonance"
<resonance@jvlnet.com>
I'm not applying for the patent, nor is RRC. Peter's group in Indiana is.
Dr. Resonance.
Date : Sun, 15 Aug 2004 09:41:42 -0600. Subject : Re: SSTC battle continues!
Original poster: "Jim Mitchell"
<electrontube@sbcglobal.net>
That sounds quite amazing and I'm really wondering if the circuit wasn't
"influenced" by all the work that has been done with SSTCs and higher power /
longer arcs in the past year. Can you tell us if it is a "dual resonant" system
or similar? When was it developed/completed, if you do know?
Tesla list
<tesla@pupman.com> wrote:
Original poster: "Dr. Resonance"
The DOD got involved, and now it all became classified. The circuit is so unique
that they have applied for a patent on it. All I can say is that it is different
from your circuit --- it was developed by a consulting physicist/EE from Calif.
He works on it from afar.
I have seen the photographs and I will see the actual unit operate on Sept. 25th
when we demonstrate the Tesla Rifle and our KREW (Kinetic Resonance Energy
Weapon) to the DOD on that date.
It works and is now delivery 10 ft long sparks --- in pulse mode it can produce
a 10 ft. long spark at under 1 kVA input power. Dr. Resonance.
Date : Mon, 16 Aug 2004 20:39:29 -0600. Subject : RE: SSTC battle continues!
Original poster: "David Trimmell"
<humanb@chaoticuniverse.com>
Good research Steve, looks to me like more wasted tax dollars. But one of the
real realities of public domain science is that anyone can do with it what they
will. Regards, David Trimmell.
-----Original Message-----
From: Tesla list [mailto:tesla@pupman.com]
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2004 11:48 AM
To: tesla@pupman.com
Subject: RE: SSTC battle continues!
Original poster: "Steve Conner"
<steve.conner@optosci.com>
>HAHAHAHA!!! If i know as much as i *think* i do, this this is all a bunch
of...
I certainly hope that Pete Bitar is just another "Death Ray Matthews". It
would be a shame to see technology that we developed for fun getting turned into
weapons.
>From a technical point of view, we can imagine that such a weapon would be hard
to use without giving the firer every bit as much of a "non-lethal jolt" as the
victim. It might work if the firer wore a conductive suit or had grounded studs
on his boots, but somehow it all seems a bit Hmmmmmm.
Here's what Google turned up:
"Pete Bitar, president of Xtreme Alternative Defense Systems, looks over a
demonstration unit of a directed-energy weapon." The picture shows a SSTC
streamer to air about 12" long. Certainly not 10'.
http://www-cgi.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/08/02/directedenergyweapons.ap/
More info on the "StunStrike" system
http://www.insideindianabusiness.com/newsitem.asp?id=10773
A Museum Of Hoaxes entry
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/weblog/comments/1166/
New Scientist article
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996014
And the website of the man himself
http://www.xtremeads.com/ ,
Steve C.
