Spark-Gap Oscillator: Tesla was central in establishing the 60 cycle alternating current power system still in use today. Yet he suspected that the more striking phenomena resided in the higher frequencies of electric vibration. To reach these heights, he first tried dynamos spun at higher speeds and having a greater number of poles than any that had existed before. One having as an armature a flat, radially grooved copper disk achieved 30,000 cycles, but Tesla wanted to go into the millions of cycles. It occurred to him that this vibratory capability was to be found in the capacitor. With a capacitor circuit, the spark-gap oscillator, he did indeed achieve the higher frequencies, and he did so by non mechanical means. The circuit was promising enough for him to patent it as A Method of and Apparatus for Electrical Conversion and Distribution, for Tesla saw in it the possibility of a whole new system of electric lighting by means of high frequencies. Though it was quickly succeeded by the Tesla coil and is not numbered among the more famous of the lost inventions, the spark-gap oscillator is pivotal for Tesla as the invention that launched him into his career in high frequencies.
Posted on: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 01:29:23 +0000
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