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Re: Cameron Cauterodyne



Ross W. Overstreet wrote:

>Apparently a Cauterodyne is the 30's or 40's equivalent of the little
>electric scalpel or "bovie" that docs use today.

Yes.  Actually until recently (1980s) many surgical bovies still used 
the spark gap circuit...

As you have noted, the spark gap vs Tube (Continuous wave) produce 
differing surgical effects.  Some consoles allow for the independent 
adjustment and mixing of the two signals for the desired cutting/coag 
action.

My employer used to make these things in the dark ages, from 1930s up to 
the 70s I think...  We used steaks as test fixtures!

>To get to the point, after disassembling the unit from the case and
>cleaning it, I found that it contains a tube RF circuit on the right
>side and a baby tesla coil on the left side.  The tube doesn't drive 
>the coil either, they appear to be completely separate circuits.  I 

True.  There will be a spark gap ckt, and a tube ckt which are not 
inter-related (extept that the outputs will be superimposed on some 
models)

>The tube is a JAN 801A.  It's circuit seems to be composed of an air

We had a custom set of tubes mfgs for our unit!  My employer used to 
wind their own HV transformers, make their own spark gaps and build 
their own HV caps!  Crazy! :)  Those were the days - too bad I didn't 
work here then...

>plate capacitor the size of a deck of cards, a beer can sized 
>inductor, several caps and a ceramic resistor.  It will not arc, but 
will 

Feedback/intensity control of our tube osc was performed by some sort of 
grid feebkacb device, which was composed of two nested coils.  One could 
be physically rotated with the other, thus changing the feedback level 
or something..

>cut 3/8" deep grooves in a weenie if you place it on the ground pad 
>and plug the "scalpel" into the tube output plug.  There is a "Tube 
>Cutting Control" knob that adjust a variable air capacitor.  There is 
>also a "Tube Coagulation Control" knob that somehow adjust tube 
>output power.  In summary, the output plugs on the tube side are 
>labeled "Ground", "Cutting", and "Coagulation".

Hmm.  Sounds like your osc was labeled for both cutting and coag.  This 
is not how ours worked.

>The TC is a series of 3 coils, all helically wound on separate tubes
>that fit inside of each other.  The secondary is 3" high and about .9"

Weird.  Never seen anything like that (with 3 nested coils).

>in diameter.  The wire dia is about .010" magnet wire.  The high 
>voltage end of the secondary goes to some plug labeled 
>"Desiccation High", then through a resistor to "Desiccation Low".  
>The primary is about 1.25" in dia and 1.25" long.  Looks like it may 

>be insulated with some sort of fiber, cotton maybe???  The primary is 
>connected to a "MicaMold Capacitor" with the following ratings : 
>V.EFF 3000, Amps 3, MFD .005, 300KC.  Then it goes to the spark 
>gap and transformer. On top of the primary is a 3rd coil.  It consist 
of 
>6 turns of heavy wire and goes to 2 plugs labeled "Bipolar Spark 
>Gap".    It has a knob labeled "Spark Gap Control" that adjust the 
>length of a spark gap.

I don't recall how the tesla coil power was controlled on our units.  We 
did have a self-adjusting multi-point tungsten spark gap.  Each time the 
unit was turned on - a mechanical device would reset the gap lengths to 
some preset spacing.  This would account for erosion of the tips...

>The TC will produce nice corona about .125" long from the end of 
>the scalpel in air, or will arc about .5" to the ground pad.  The

Oh, you could use this as a TIG welding arc stabilider with minor 
modifications!  Thats how I got in to tesla coiling...

-Bill

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