Re: Old VTTC Schematics

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: "Dr. John W. Gudenas" <comsciprof@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Frank
An interesting question!
When in elementary school (late 1950's) I recall searching many
public libraries and university libraries in the Chicago area for
different coil designs.
All I found were the typical variations of spark gap oscillators
until Science Experimenter published several VTTC designs starting in
the late 1950's through the 1960's.
One might say this started the electronic experimenter era of the
VTTC. However, I suspect that commercial as well as research versions
of the VTTC existed much earlier and likely surrounded induction
heating applications and early particle accelerators. I also suspect
that if you do locate these schematics they won't look much different
than the current triode plate tuned oscillator, but you won't really
know unless you look. When on staff at Argonne I saw elaborate
designs and schematics of high frequency air core devices with
multiple pan-cake coils in SF6 containers used to produce high
potentials for particle injectors or for old spark chambers. These
were "one of a kind" devices and certainly not made in the 1940's.

I have a collection of old Science Experimenter, Radio & TV
Experimenter and other magazines that have many different VTTC plans,
Van de Graaff generators, Whimshurst machines etc. Quite frankly
there is little to be learned from them other than a historical
perspective. I am considering cleaning out my closet and putting the
whole lot on eBay for the magazine ephemera collector. If anyone is
interested, drop me an email off list.
Good luck hunting.
John

John W. Gudenas, Ph.D.
Professor of Computer Science

On Feb 5, 2007, at 10:31 PM, Tesla list wrote:

> Original poster: Frank <fxrays@xxxxxxxxxx>
>
> Does anyone have any schematics for VTTC's from the 20's to the 40's?
> Thanks, Frank