Woodpecker, proof of concept

Bruce__H

I have never measured gamma emission directly from the Woodpecker-analogue or its components, but I previously found that the general area where testing was performed seemed to show a higher gamma radiation level, even taking into account that the Geiger counter itself was also showing (= had accumulated) an elevated signal.

I don't know how I could separate dust particles that are radioactive from radon/thoron progeny from those that could be radioactive from EVO/hydrogen clusters/etc. There's a speculative small possibility that the latter could easily go through materials and therefore that an air flow over a counter that is inside a large plastic case would still show a substantially unchanged signal, but the confirmation would be from gamma spectrometry.

In case of radon, convection currents or changes in seepage through the wall due to environmental temperature changes could possibly explain the previously observed daily periodic signal, or why opening the window (which I typically did during those tests which were kind of hazardous) often seemed to be followed by a slight decrease in Geiger counts. At that time I never observed values into the high-100, or 200-300 counts per minute, however.

Wyttenbach

The testing room is not in a basement, but in a room of the first floor (upstairs) of a detached house. After turning off the fans both the bag and the geiger counter eventually returned to the usual background level after the usual period of time.

Testing (and ongoing measurements) was previously performed in front of a thick load-bearing wall.

Short update. I continued testing with slightly different recipes (mainly checking out the addition of hydrocarbons and pencil graphite/carbon dust, but still with steel/copper electrodes) but with the Geiger counter behind a partially sealed 0.8mm-thick-wall copper tube to prevent most of the external possibly radon-rich atmosphere to affect the counter by sticking to its high voltage parts. According to past informal reports, placing the counter inside a tube like this could also have increased the radiation count from anomalous strange radiation, in case any would be emitted from the experiment.

What I obtained is instead that daily variations and air flow-induced variations have been almost completely eliminated and throughout days of intermittent experimentation nothing clearly attributable to the spark discharges could be observed.

Some videos:

At this point I'm not sure how/if I should continue. A yet unexplored possibility could be using pure graphite electrodes or filling the jar with significant amounts of pure graphite dust instead of just some pencil graphite, which is far from pure. (I tried lignite charcoal, but it quickly made it unreliable and kind of oily/tarry).

There are arguments that the voltage could have bern too low, which I certainly agree (this was after all originally meant to be a "proof of concept" and not a true replication), although the idea was that much higher transient voltages should have been produced upon contact separation at high current. An issue with this high current/low voltage (up to 40A peak at 12VDC) is that much heat is wasted on heating the coil and wires. At Parkhomov's 100VAC input (source) a peak current of about 6A could be enough to obtain similar results and waste less energy outside the jar.

100V with DC would be impractical so I have wondered if an inexpensive setup could be made with an SCR dimmer, a bridge rectifier and a capacitor to smooth the output. However, while it would not be overly expensive to arrange, the main problem is that so far I have been handling these experiments kind of casually and this would require much more care and attention to avoid getting electrocuted.

Link to CircuitJS simulation

Then, radiation detection could be important too. Potentially I might doing it wrong, and I've only attempted Zhigalov-Parkhomov's DVD-R testing in the initial phases a few weeks ago.

At the moment the cell has been dismantled and most parts cleaned. I can post some of the uninteresting observations made during the past couple weeks, from my notes, if requested.

Robert Horst

I think the closed Cu tube showed that the source was due to radioactive particles the air.

Wyttenbach

Unfortunately I don't have immediate access to a smoke detector as a low-energy gamma source. I would have to purchase one, and the commonly available cheap ones seem to be of the photoelectric type (no radioactive materials).

I have 1 Kg canister of KOH and 1 Kg canister of K2CO3, which can work as improvised 1.45 MeV gamma sources (not low-energy).

The copper tube is actually 0.65 mm thick, from more accurate measurements I've just done with a vernier caliper.

EDIT: in any case, the Cu pipe did not make a significant difference to the background signal at that location.

Today I happened to find a depleted zinc-carbon AAA battery around and thought it would be interesting to try placing the internal carbon rod on my Woodpecker analogue. After an initial run where it did not work very well due to carbon-MnO debris I thought wouldn't harm, I cleared the anode tip from such residues and the electrode turned out to be working great.

Despite the much lower current involved still at 12V input (subjective assessment from the lack of coil heating compared to past testing; the clamp meter was out of battery juice), water appeared to heat up much quicker. Sparks have been much brighter than in any other previous testing with these experiments. Sure enough, carbon arcs were used as lighting in the 1800s for a reason.

At some point I started over using clean demineralized water free of previous debris and of electrolyte residues from the battery rod, but it did not seem to show very extensive sparking anymore. After adding some previously made 1ml 1M KOH it appeared to work as it did earlier, although spark temperature became colder (yellower). However this could have been visual coincidence from the increase of impurities in the water refracting light.

• 0:00 Started with clean water I
• 2:30 Started with clean water II (some ions dissolved in water)
• 2:49 Added 1ml 1M KOH (video is initially blurry)
• 3:29 More testing with the same diluted KOH solution

Unfortunately there's no indication yet from Geiger data that this is producing some sort of signal. Without some sort of cover at the moment there's also a risk that the air flow could cause a false signal. Still, the changes have been encouraging and I probably should have thought about simply using a carbon/graphite anode tip earlier. I can't imagine what would happen with a significantly higher voltage/current besides that I will probably need a welding mask.

Curbina

I have read some of his recent papers from his Researchgate account. One main condition as far as I understand is that the spark be rather energetic (voltage or voltage-current combination). The contact discharges in my case likely aren't that much energetic, but they surely look bright.

The brighter sparks compared to metal electrode tip in my case I would have attributed them to the fact that under ordinary conditions carbon doesn't melt but sublimates, and does it at 3642 °C, though.

I do observe a significantly higher water temperature than before but I wonder if it's due to the higher resistivity of the anode tip, which would mean that a greater portion of the applied power would heat it up. On the other hand this would also mean that the overall applied power would be lower. I haven't performed measurements on this regard, and my current probe at the moment isn't working. The coil does heat significantly less than before (when it was reaching 40A peak) and in principle I could run the cell (with air cooling) almost indefinitely—just not unattended for safety reasons and only until the carbon tip wears out.

* * *

Some observations from other experimental runs, before I forget:

• From audio analysis the sparks appear to be occurring at a rate of about 750 Hz, which is significantly higher than with the previous steel anode tip and a higher current of 100–150 Hz.
  • Electromagnetic attraction still occurring from the coil, but at a lower intensity
• Typically the closer the water gets to boiling temperature, the more the sparks turn red and dimmer
  • As this happens more and more carbon particles become suspended, so it's not clear if it's just due to optical absorption
  • I think this is also related with water conduction making it more difficult for sparks to occur at the 12V base voltage used.
• However, during a later run, keeping the anode upright or rotating it manually appeared to clear the water and make sparks brighter and whiter
  • Either this or something changed in the conditions of the cell
  • Near boiling temperature it still seemed more difficult to get a wider plasma, but sparks were still bright white
  • This happened after I refilled the cell with a large amount of tap water, making the water level higher, so it might or might not be related

Curbina

I was aware from mainstream sources that H₂ and CO (i.e. Syngas) would be generated with low-voltage carbon arcs in water (a process also used to produce so-called high-surface "carbon onions"), not that the overall efficiency would be higher than 1.

https://www.researchgate.net/p…an_arc_discharge_in_water

In my case (and I guess to some extent in the Naudin BingoFuel replication, which I wasn't aware of, and is indeed quite similar to what I have been trying to do in these latest tests) metal and alkali impurities are also present on purpose, though.

But most importantly I use a coil to increase peak voltages in the discharge area upon contact separation–although the actual effect or magnitude is not clear. If one trusts Zhigalov–Parkhomov's claims, at higher voltages even stranger effects should occur.

* * *

On a related note, I've just replaced the batteries to my clamp meter and done a short test with the carbon anode tip. It is measuring 14-16A in DC mode and about 5-6A in True RMS AC mode.

The DC current readings seem way off. At 12A indicated and the sparks occurring at a rate of about 125 Hz on average, the coil would previously heat up rather quickly.

Curbina

For all intents and purposes, if in the process electronic orbitals shrink into tighter, stable states with the production of excess energy relatively to the applied input energy, that would still be a new, previously not considered energy source, even if not "overunity" (i.e. generating energy from nothing).

I have just measured the DC resistance of the coil+electrodes with the worn carbon tip, and it's 1.1 Ohm. The coil alone has a 0.3 Ohm resistance, while that of the metal electrodes without the carbon tip is in practice negligible. Although these measurements are not very accurate they allow to easily make calculations according to Ohm's law. It's clear that despite the overall lower current and circuit power, power to the electrodes is significantly higher. This would explain the higher water heating observed.

Link to CircuitJS simulation and screenshot below:

EDIT: this will have been probably obvious to electric engineers, but here are a couple related links:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_power_transfer_theorem
• https://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/dccircuits/dcp_9.html

* * *

EDIT 2: by the way, yesterday evening I replaced most of the water in the solution with fresh tap water without removing the carbon dust, and I couldn't quite get the same bright sparks anymore. The carbon particles would make them dim and red-looking as soon as they became suspended in the solution. Today I verified the same phenomenon even after refilling with more tap water and decreasing water conductivity. After finally adding 1 ml of 1M KOH solution I could obtain again bright white-yellow sparks even through the dust. I think it has a real positive effect at least in limited amounts.

However, with distilled water I get blue-white sparks, which I'm assuming are hotter.

Alan Smith

Boiling is very easily achieved right now, but when that happens a few things take place:

• The carbon particles produced become agitated and suspended by the boiling, making it very difficult to tell what's going on besides acoustically. The solution becomes completely black and very little light can be seen filtering out.
• Near boiling temperature the electrical conductivity of the solution increases and electrolysis does too. This would produce H2-O2 bubbles (in addition to CO and CO2 from the carbon arcs) which to some extent will leave the cell, in some other get adsorbed in the porous carbon-metal particles produced, and in another keep the water gasified / oxygenated.

EDIT: I made a very short test to show how the particles become suspended after a cold start. Near boiling or after stirring the jar, the solution becomes much more opaque.

The jar in this test had a cap on the top which immobilized the anode and made it perform suboptimally, by the way,

Today I summarily cleaned the jar and electrodes and started a new run with low amounts of demineralized water, allowing water to evaporate until the carbon anode tip (from a depleted zinc-carbon battery) got too worn to continue. At the end of the test the steel portion of the anode were making contact with the copper cathode, and that's where I stopped it.

The DC resistance of the electrodes and coil was measured to be about 1.1 Ohm, with supply voltage still in the 11.8-12.0V range.

I think the sparks got less easily occurred, dimmer and more on the yellow-orange side when the water started approaching boiling temperature. It got darker probably from dissolved iron ions and carbon particles from the anode tip. At some point, around minute 10:00, I started assisting the process by manually rotating it to an orientation that seemed more favorable to the spark discharge process.

Afterwards, after adjusting electrode tip length one last time following the previous run, I made another run until the previously used water (filled with anode electrode impurities) evaporated completely. The brightest sparks occurred from the moist carbon tip when water evaporated almost completely or completely.

Along the way I manually adjusted the positioning of the anode either for avoiding the steel parts to touch the cathode or optimize spark generation.

Now I'm out of carbon tips, but I should have a few proper graphite electrodes in a few days. Still, I don't think significant results will occur until I will be able to use a significantly higher voltage. However I'm not really geared / prepared for that. I'd need a new coil too.

So far I haven't observed a direct effect of the experimentation on Geiger counter readings. Since I put the counter outside the Cu tube it is now showing daily swings, so discerning a real signal from the background is made even more difficult.

* * *

EDIT: for what it's worth, As a quick test I added trace amounts of 1M KOH solution close to anode contact point with the copper cathode, to finish it off. In some instances it showed quite bright results that I'm not sure would have been accomplished just with the carbon tip alone.

Spark generated from the carbon tip were clearly different from those occurring from the steel anode parts.

A photo of the now unusable tip. It's not visible here, but it's cracked in half.