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| In the eighth grade I learned that 800v at 1 amp
does not feel too good. I nearly lost three fingers and the
doctor said I was lucky I didn't experience cardiac arrest.
That said, if you don't know what you are doing, don't do it, you
can kill yourself. I am now affectionately referred to as
'Safety Man' by my wife. Keep fire extinguishers and other
safety items nearby. I love experimenting, and one of
the best sources for electronic experiments is Nuts
and Volts magazine. Another interesting supply of
experiments is Information
Unlimited. I do most of my testing, repair and experiments
using my trusty old HP 180A Dual Trace o'scope. I desperately
want to upgrade her, but she works and does about 85% of the stuff I
need a scope for. I really like those hand held Fluke
scopes, but I ain't rich.... I use both digital and analog
multi-meters from Radio Shack
and again I wish I could buy the Fluke
meters. I just noticed Radio
Shack now carries Fluke, wow,
Tandy is really
starting to improve. Speaking of which, said company started
me in electronics with their electronic lab kits. They are
still available and are a great gift for kids and help spark an
imagination. I hope when I have kids they prefer these to
mindless video games. I recently bought a Parallax
BASIC Stamp. You can create all kinds of nifty things with a
Stamp like motion control devices to data recording instruments and
you program it using Parallax's
BASIC. My greatest interest lies in Electromagnet Rail Gun
technology. Accelerating objects to bullet-like velocities
without the use of an explosive is just cool beyond words.
Here is a cool site with the basics: horehound.infostry.com/rail.html.
If that is too complicated for a weekend project, try a potato
gun! I have not had much success with my
electromagnetic rail gun, so I tried building a coil gun which uses
lower voltages and a completely different design principle. I
was able to shoot a paper clip about 3 feet, not very
impressive. I am also interested in free energy
machines. In the 80's I remember reading about Newman's
Free Energy Machine and more recently his second
version. Now I am not saying I believe in that stuff, I
just find it fascinating. There have been stories that are
somewhat more believable about using very tall antennas and
grounding rods and measuring a potential difference between
the two of a few millivolts. I've never done this, but it
sounds plausible. Back in high school I did some research on
RF motors. These are essentially tuned antenna systems that
rectify RF energy into a usable form. My engine could barely
rotate a piece of paper so it certainly isn't the energy source of
the future, but it is 'free energy'. My goal was to power a
clock. Imagine a clock that never needed batteries! At
that time I heard the military was conducting similar research using
a microwave transmitter to power UAV's
over the battle field. The UAV
was of rotating wing design and had thousands of diodes on its
underside that were precisely tuned to the wavelength of the
transmitted microwave. The diodes would rectify the
electromagnetic wave and energize an electric engine powering the
rotor blades. Since I have not seen such a UAV,
I assume they had the same success I did. Either that or it is
ultra top secret (if that's the case, remember you heard it here
first). |
HP
180A (Yes, she works!)
Parallax Stamp
Does anyone know how these work?
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