[NewCandle] projects galore

[Nick Reiter]

Hello all,

Thought I would stick my head in between peep
inflations and snow shoveling to share a bit of an
update on a couple of projects.

I think when I last wrote in, I had pretty much seen
negative results with a number of tests of
“casimatter” agitation and formation vs. weight
changes in flasks with aluminum microspheres and
ethanol as a vehicle.  I tried a couple more rounds of
that, looking for the more traditional milligram
weight transients I had seen years past with agitated
powders.  Not very much performance there either,
essentially all null for cautious purposes.

Shortly before I made a trip to Cali a couple of weeks
ago to look at a sputter coater, I DID haul out onto
the plate again an effect I hadn’t played with or
written about since about 2001.  Some of you who were
on Vort at the time may remember it – this was the
effect that appeared to be a net force evolved on a
Peltier thermoelectric chip which was thermally
shunted with an external sheath or wrap.  I found my
box of old Peltiers – or what was left of them – in my
storage bay.

My first step was some introspection asking myself,
“why did I put that project on hiatus?”  I realized
after reviewing my notes that the primary reason was
that I had been unable to scale the force effect up
past the goal I had set – 100 milligrams for a modest
sized Peltier, and I had become enamored at the time
with the agitated powder and chiral crystal weight
transients.  I dug deeper.  It dawned on me that the
Peltier force effect, while fussy for measuring due to
“heat, air, and balance pan crap”, once placed into a
configuration that worked, WAS pretty much 100%
reproducible on demand, and was not of the “oh, today
I don’t think I’ll occur” variety like the powder
transients.

I found my bookmark, and have been working on this
again since.  Some highlights:

•	I designed a little rig wherein the Peltier chip in
a foil wrap – the essential “force module” was
cemented into a plastic dish on supports, and then the
weight change effect was verified both without and
with a thermally insulating bath of diffusion pump
oil.  The conformal thermal isolation of the oil bath
did not diminish the force effect.
•	The force effect seems to be proportional to current
applied as opposed to power applied, for a given chip.
•	A good thermal shunting wrap is a simple strip of
aluminum foil, wrapped around the Peltier using heat
sink compound schmear on each turn, for about 10 to 20
turns worth.  Copper foil envelopes like I used before
are not needed.
•	I re-verified that the effect is not a torque or
reaction force of lead wires with the geomagnetic
field, by placing a shunting resistor in lieu of the
chip – the force effect disappears.
•	Smaller chips seem to be more efficient than larger
area or heavier ones.  I found one little darling that
was giving me a nice 5mg force effect in either sign,
at about 1.25A, about 8W.

So this is now getting interesting again.

I’ve continued also to play with the Thomas Oscillator
driven LEDs, four banks worth.  The primary focus
there has been to define that the system as I am using
it, does appear to have two essential “antenna” points
that depending on external connections there, can
produce high efficiency of coupling and the peculiar
“pseudo OU” effect with simultaneous metering of
battery input and LED DC output sides.  What I call
“Antenna A” is a connection to the V+ to the
oscillator.  This seems to be an RF antenna – a
connection to the plate, so to speak.  Antenna B is
stranger – this is more like a capacitive device
coupling mode attached to the anode side of the AV
plug, which for all four LED strings is jumpered
common.

The interaction between Antenna A and Antenna B is
critical.  But for the life of me, I still haven’t
figured out what the hell it is doing.  I’ve tried
putting some of Sam Faile’s extended non-inductive
coil arrays on A, and some large area capacitance or
even foil lined cavities on B.  Criss crossed wires,
loosely coupled pieces of foil and screen.  Sometimes
I’ve gotten bizarre numbers that give the impression
of COP 1.62.  At other couplings, the % eff seems more
real-world, and is anywhere between 45% and 95%.

I am a bit dodgy these days – Jones, did you mention
what your electrical engineer colleague found when he
tried to characterize those circuits you were working
with?  I’m sure I asked that question earlier this
year.  Just don’t remember the reply.

And I’m STILL chewing on why a long string of LEDs
draws greater power and runs at higher current when
the LED colors are arranged in ascending order of
energy with respect to the cathode 

(-)RRRRRRRRYYYYYYYOOOOOOOGGGGGGGGBBBBBBBBBVVVVVVVV(+)

Scramble colors or run em the other way, and there is
about a 2 to 3% drop in current, suggesting a change
in impedence or dynamic resistance with band gap or
energy direction.

Life is never dull


Happy Equinoxes and Hambunnies.

n


The Holy Grail 'neath ancient Roslin waits.
The blade and chalice guarding o'er Her gates. 
Adorned in the masters' loving art, She lies;
She rests at last beneath the starry skies.


      ____________________________________________________________________________________
Be a better friend, newshound, and 
know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile.  Try it now.  http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ