Today’s 3-phase power grid uses 3 or 4 wires to transmit electrical energy. This article describes 4 innovative methods, some over 100 years old, which use only a single wire to transmit the same amount of power or more, without a return wire! These methods hold the promise to drastically reduce costs and lower line […]
My previous writings have laid the foundation needed to understand this article, in which I will give a brief overview of how the current power grid evolved, and how Tesla planned to radically change this. Evolution of electric power transmission In the beginning there was direct current, or DC. However, there was not one single […]
The first time I ever heard about a Tesla Coil, was actually while playing the video game Red Alert during my teenage years. In the game, the coil was a powerful weapon which shot massive bolts of lightning at the enemy. Shooting big sparks is actually the main association people have with the Tesla Coil, […]
After more than a year of research and development, I am excited to finally share my Tesla Hairpin replication and experimental results! I share things that worked, and things that didn’t work, as well as why. This article also contains a detailed parts list, so you can easily replicate my setup and experiments. This article […]
Many of the famous experiments Nikola Tesla performed involved high frequency alternating- or impulse currents. At these high frequencies, something interesting happens: these rapidly vibrating currents pass with great difficulty through a seemingly low resistance conductor. This effect is caused by impedance, or the opposition of a conductor to the flow of alternating current. This […]
In his autobiography, Nikola Tesla called the Magnifying Transmitter (TMT) his “best invention” , but it is also one of his most complex and misunderstood inventions. I decided that the only way to truly understand the TMT, was to retrace all the steps that led up to this invention, and the Hairpin circuit, which is […]
While reading up on Nikola Tesla‘s Hairpin circuit, I constantly came across people saying that Tesla’s circuit was identical to Lecher Lines, invented by the Austrian physicist Ernst Lecher around 1890, which was an apparatus used to measure the wavelength of high frequency electric waves by creating standing waves on two parallel wires, and then measuring […]
In a previous post I performed a detailed literature review on the various types of spark gaps Tesla employed in his experiments. My motivation for that research was that I am trying to replicate Tesla’s stout copper bars, or ‘hairpin’, circuit, and I wanted to figure out which type of spark gap he was most […]
Spark gaps play a central role in many of Nikola Tesla’s devices, most prominently in the circuits powering his famous Tesla Coils. In its simplest form, a spark gap is nothing more than two electrodes with some space in between through which an electric spark passes when the voltage in a circuit reaches a high […]