I find this solenoid to be intensely interesting. It has a number of unique properties:
- The coil wire is made from dissimilar metals so that the voltage is internally produced in the coil.
- The voltage available at the terminals is low, 0.78 V, according to normal galvanic batteries.
- The current flow is relatively low from the primary windings, T1 (inner-copper) to T2 (outer-iron), and T3 (inner-iron) to T4 (outer-copper) may only give you a few hundred milliamps of current flow.
- The primary output of the system is the electromagnetic field it produces, not the power at the battery terminals.
Essentially, the claim is that this is a self-powered galvanic solenoid.
There are a few more interesting aspects as well:
- Due to the winding technique, the full length of one wire is in parallel with the other length, so this has internal capacitance/power factor correction as per (https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/0b/3c/ab/eb51aebe935f8c/US512340.pdf).
- The voltage measured from wire to wire at any point of the copper wire to any point of the iron wire will be 0.78 V.
- The voltage measured will be at peak the instant the terminals are connected.
- The current flow will be at peak the instant the terminals are connected.
- The voltage and current flow will decrease until an equilibrium is reached with the galvanic reaction rate.
So here's the part where I think things get murky, and understanding the device becomes complicated because the temptation is to view the device as a battery and not a self-powered solenoid when it is primarily a self-powered solenoid and I would like input from other professionals:
The coil-battery is wound to be ultra-high inductance, 1000+ Henries, and this was how Nathan was able to pioneer ground transmission radio.
By controlling the current flow from the battery terminals, an extremely powerful electromagnetic field can be produced. Due to the nature of the galvanic reaction along the entire length of wire and the internal capacitance, the coil, even though the terminal voltage is low, is responsive enough to be used for long-distance electromagnetic audio transmission.
He would control the current flow caused by the galvanic reaction to impose a modulated flow out of the terminals and create a modulated electromagnetic field of high strength.
The hard part is this:
The coil, if powered normally and not through the galvanic reaction along the length of wire, would have an extremely high reluctance due to having 1000s of henries of inductance; however, this coil is self-powered and highly responsive.
To me, this would indicate that there should be both a "real voltage" and an "apparent voltage" on the coil. The real voltage would be the voltage provided at the terminals by the galvanic reaction, and the apparent voltage would be dependent on the switching speed applied to the terminals.
The apparent voltage would be equal to the real voltage when the current is being drawn as DC. When the current is being drawn as AC, the apparent voltage would need to be calculated based on the current flow, inductive reluctance, and internal resistance of the wires.
Nathan claimed that you could step down this apparent voltage, in turn increasing the available current flow. "Free-energy" types think this is doing all kinds of "woo-woo magic". I'm obsessed with the refrigeration cycle, which has nothing to do with free energy. In the refrigeration cycle, you do X joules of work on the pump, and the pump relocates COP * X joules of heat energy.
I think it's possible that this phenomenon can be applied to other things, and that this solenoid-battery may be such an arrangement.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
- Might this be a clever solution to producing more powerful batteries?
This is not "free-energy"; I am not proposing this is free energy. The galvanic reactions will wear out, and the battery will break and cease operation within a matter of months to years post-construction. By no means do I think that this can make infinite energy or harvest any type of woo-woo magic.
