Kali_ma_Amar

Also not clear if gnd must be connected to the wfc cell between choke 2 and secondary coil.

According to Don, it was isolated in the original. I personally would guess, that there had to be a reason for this.


Yes, the measuring with the scope is quite tricky, as the capacities involved are that small, that you immediately change the circuit by attaching your probe. Then you surely also additionally chnage the circuit by grounding it, with scope earth. Therefore I personally usually make differential measurements to an isolated external ground.
To have the scope ungrounded from mains and still then attach the "ground" lead to the VIC can be a big mistake if you're measuring high frequency high voltage circuits. It could damage your scope, for the ground connection is not made for high dU/dt ratios.

Yeah, I know, we all progress. I just sometimes want to be sure. I beg for pardon for that. As for me, I'm not up to date about your story, so it's sometimes hard to tell when I'm reading in older posts, if the things in there are still valid or not. Therefore I better ask twice, to get the newest update. 
Edit: I just discovered, that when I visit this site by an anonymizer proxy, then I can see Don's pics at the beginning of this thread. This is really strange. Something has to block the reception of these pics from here directly?!? And it's only Dons pics. All other pics from the beginning I can see...Really strange...
These pics now make quite a lot of things clearer, and would have spared quite some questions if I could've seen them before. Sorry Don, for asking that much.

Thanks for the pic. And sorry, if I am at times a bit pushing. But it seems, like you sometimes do make statements, which you correct later, So I just really wanna go sure. I know, it quickly happens, that one has wrote something, that wasn't as it was actually meant.
For example, you said in the beginning of this thread:

The resistors were all tied together as one.They seemed to be across the feedback winding.

Now, you state that the resistors were across the primary.
Or about the freewheeling diode:

I had the same results as you with the diode across the primary coil,so I took it out as well.I'm not sure if there was one in Stans setup.

Now you state, there was one in Stans setup.


Probably you went again to see Stans stuff after these statements. But I think you will now understand why I'm asking these questions, as I just want to be sure. As even slight differences in the actual circuit can make huge differences in it's operation.



I know, I'm complicating things sometimes.
So I will try it again with the resistors. As easy as possible.
If the current is so low in the primary, that the voltage drop over the resistors is smaller than the diode voltage, it does make sense to have the resistors there, as by that you assure that you take less energy out of the oscillating circuit than just with the diode alone. The principle is simple. The lower the reverse voltage drop, the less energy you take out of the resonant circuit during pulse off. The best would be a short circuit over the primary during primary off.
So if he actually really had both (a diode and the resistor) in parallel, then it certainly is not in a flyback mode. As the diode would prevent any flyback effect. And the resistor(s) would then only make sense, if the current in the primary due to the resonance in the VIC is small.
And if you have both diodes in the primary driver circuit, you will obviously not have any problems with the transistor voltage, as the freewheeling diode protects it during pulse off, and the series diode protects it during pulse on, and at the same time this also prevents any big power loss in the resonance circuit. The freewheeling diode (with the resistor(s)) make sure, there's no big loss during pulse off, and the series diode makes sure there's no  big loss during pulse on.

Yes, the newer ones I can see. This is the patent circuit.
So you are saying, that the original 5-VIC-coil, you looked at, had actually really 3 220Ohm resistors in parallel with the diode and additionally a freewheeling diode (an additional 1N4005 diode in parallel to the primary)? Am I correct?


The funny thing is, that a 1N4005 is actually extremely slow (it's made for use in mains frequency designs). So it would start to really switch long after any flyback pulse would have been made...

I already used this in the past, cause i wanted to assure that the pulse didn't come back in the mosfet.... Kali this resistors automatically cancel the chance of it being driven in the kick back or flyback mode, one of the reasons is that it would consume the discharge pulse... Other reason is that the core must be free to oscillate.

The problem is it would only "consume" an amount of the discharge pulse at a time. Let's say, e.g. the primary had 1 Amp flowing when it is switched off. The one Amp "wants" to continue to flow. Therefore the voltage immediately rises until one amp can flow through the resistors. This would mean, that the reverse voltage would then rise to 80 volts (1A*(70+10)Ohm). And these 80 volts are then again stepped up, by the usual Step-up ratio. This is, how a flyback works. Usually you don't take just a resistor for this, but rather a resistor and a capacitance (to get a nice smooth waveform). But principally it remains the same.
And as strange as it may seem. As you also indicated: With these resistors you take out much much more energy out of the core as if you would by taking a freewheeling diode. For with the diode, you would always only have the diode voltage drop (e.g. 1.2V). So if 1Amp wants to flow, it would just dissipate (1.2V*1A+10Ohm*1A^2=11.2Watts) instead of the resistors ((70+10)Ohm*1A^2=80Watts)...
But by introducing the resistors you would exactly get, what a flyback is for, you would get a short high reverse voltage spike. The only limiting question would be  how much current flowed in the primary, when it becomes turned off. If this current is so low, that the return voltage spike is neglectable, then you are right, then it would just dissipate the remaining energy. But unfortunately it would also take energy out of the resonance circuit. But if the current is really low, it would even take less energy out of the oscillator than with the diode.
The calculation is quite easy. For 70 Ohms, it would start to act like a flyback when the current in the primary gets higher than 150mA (12V/(70+10)Ohm).

In Stans circuit,there is a 5 amp 1000 volt diode between the TIP120 and the primary coil.The way you keep explaining your ideas,sounds like your putting the TIP120 after the primary coil.That diode protects the TIP120 from high voltage back emf as I see it.

I actually always thought, there must be a series diode, but I rather talked about the freewheeling diode. This diode in series, IMHO doesn't (just) protect the TIP, but rather protects the resonant circuit from the primary, so that the primary doesn't take a lot of power out of the resonant circuit. The internal reverse diode of the TIP would otherwise clamp the reverse primary voltage to 12volts. If anything is resonating above that, it would take energy out of the oscillator.

If the TIP wouldn't have a reverse diode, or if the reverse diode amperage is too high, or if the diode is too slow, the TIP would need protection by the diode. Unfortunately in the datasheet I have about it, these values are not indicated.


But why did he use there a 1000volts diode, but just a 600v diode in the VIC-circuit??? Seems quite strange to me...
One guess could be, that he needed a diode for higher currents in the VIC. For when the surge would come, for a short moment quite a current would probably flow for a short time. This would again match Stans notes on Graneaux' experiments (high current density for a short time is needed, followed by a reverse voltage).

Stan also put a diode across the inputs to the primary.From ground to positive.

I'm not quite sure what you mean here. By across the primary, and from ground to positive (as one side of the primary isn't connected to ground). Do you mean a freewheeling diode? But then the resistors would make absolutely no sense...

Kali, Don did those tests on his own coil, not Stans.

lol, yeah, I know. But we were mainly talking about the resistors in Stans original VIC.


Additional thought: As two coils are opposing and have the same size, you could as well say, that you can take both of them away. Then you would just have one coil in a flyback circuit, which should do the same. So why are the 2 additional coils there? Everything can resonate. And as I have seen, from my experiments, the coils are able to resonate some AC through the WFC. So it would be now, like having some AC resonating though your WFC with some unipolar bangs everytime, the primary switches off. But as I said, this could only be, if the primary transistor could withstand more voltage...This really puzzles me...And it would also not really match the descriptions given by Stan...

The primary coil was measured with the resistors removed.All coils were measured unconnected from the rest.

Wow, didn't think that you were that invasive during your "visit", to even take things apart. But if I would have had the possibility, I would've certainly done the same.
I really think it is quite strange to wire resistors in parallel (at least at 12volts, this means a loss of 2watts, so no wonder he used bigger resistors here). This would only beware the coil from heat, if the current through the transistor is limited. But this doesn't really make sense, due to several reasons. First, you could have just fed the transistor with another base current, to get less current through the primary. Second, as the resistance of the primary is that low, compared to the resistors, still almost all the current would flow through the primary.
IMHO it only does make one sense. As I already stated before, it would be like a replacement for the freewheeling diode. But these resistors would (instead of the diode) allow quite a voltage to develop across the primary (but on the other hand they would also limit the maximum voltage, compared to nothing in parallel). So the circuit would act like a flyback. All in all, this wouldn't astonish me, if we look at how the VIC was made. But what puzzles me, is that the TIP120 can only withstand 60 volts.
If we look at how he wired the VIC, then it actually is rather a flyback circuit. Why? The secondary has only half the voltage of the 2 chokes in series. So the diode would be blocking, while the primary is on. When the primary is off, the diode would be conducting, as the 2 chokes have double the voltage than the secondary. So it would make sense, to have the primary in a flyback manner. But the TIP120 is only for 60volts, which is really not much for a primary flyback voltage (only 4 times voltage step-up would be possible, to a total of 4x5=20 step-up ratio from 12volts). And without any additional circuitry to help the TIP, it would live very dangerously (especially in a resonance condition).
Sure if you do it like that you could have higher voltages than you PIV diode rating. But only in one way. Which means, the resonating voltage in the other direction would always have to be smaller. For this, the flyback energy surge has to go somewhere. The best candidate for this: The WFC.
So it could maybe really be like this: The coils resonating, and every half wave, quite a surge is going through the circuit (when the primary is off). The good thing is, during this surge, the voltage could go as high as you like, the diode PIV isn't relevant here, as the diode is conducting. But two things would limit your maximum attainable voltage: First, the resistance of your circuit (the higher the resistance, the higher the voltage) and second, the primary transistor. If there would have been a different transistor, I would say, everything matches. But 60volts!?!
If you do not protect the transistor with an additional circuitry (like the freewheeling diode), then this simply means, that the reverse voltage on your coils is not allowed to go beyond (60-12)volts*5=240volts, which is really not much...So I'm puzzled???

All of my voltage measurements were taken at resonance.

As I said, at resonance you certainly get a completely different picture and aren't anymore only limited by the step-up ratio, but get an extension by the q-factor.


Edit:
@Don: You're sure the 57KHz is the basic resonance frequency of your coil, and not some harmonic? For actually. Under no load condition, in resonance, already with a step up of 1:10, you should get mucha higher voltage than just 10 times more. How are you driving your circuit? With a FET? Do you have the additional series diode?

Really across it??? So how did you measure the primary resistance, if there were resistors in parallel? For that you would have needed to open the circuit. Or did you calculate it? Or how did you do that?


If you get a higher voltage, than your step-up ratio, then you're either using it on a resonance, or you get a surge from the stray-inductance, or you are using it as a flyback. What does your scope say, when you just put a rectangular waveform on your primary and no load on the secondary? It should output also a rectangular waveform with exactly the step-up ratio. Maybe in the beginning of the rectangular you see a short spike (stray inductance) with some ringing afterwards.  OK, maybe Stan used these switching surges, who knows...


Really? You have a 600PIV diode which withstands 2kv. I'm quite impressed. The only reason for this I could image is the very low energy oscillating, so that the diode capacity can handle this, but then the diode would be quite useless...

The charging choke 56 in series with the diode assure that the voltage is not limited to 60v... actually if you think about actually one of the chokes is subtracting the field... So he basically is applying 20v + 20 of the choke in series with the diode, than the other tube is receiving 20v max also per pulse.

I see it simply like that. You have three coils on a core, all the same. Two of them are opposing each other. So the final relevant voltage for your diode is the voltage of one coil. And this voltage cannot exceed 600volts. And as all your coils are on the same core, each coil is limited to these 600volts. Not one coil can go higher. For if it would go higher, it would act like a primary for the other coils, which would then also get a that high voltage, as all have the same amounts of turns.
There's a massive difference happening if you put all coils on the same core, than if you have them separately. You just cannot separate their fields.
This is the reason, why I first thought the SS wire is needed. For it would allow the coils to have more unshared field lines...

But as we see from the 5-VIC-coil, this is obviously not needed. This VIC worked, and it worked just with all coils copper and on the same core...
IMHO there would be only two configurations, which would allow it otherwise. One would be, if the core goes into saturation. Then the coils would become independent of each other, and the voltage could go high, without affecting the diode.
The other would be, if one coil has massively more resistance than the others. This coil would have more "internal" voltage drop than the others. So the there would have to be two opposing coils and one coil with more internal resistance. Then you could go higher with the voltage of the opposing coils, without affecting the diode.

During the resonance energy will be accumulated in the vic, i can tell you maybe more than 1000 times more energy

I don't think this is a realistic Q value for this kind of circuit with a core. The core losses are IMHO just too high. Just look at the datasheet of any core and at it's indicated core losses. And you also have to remember the distributed capacity of a coil. This is far bigger than 50pF. This is why Tesla used to wire his magnifier coils with big distances between each winding (although this reduces the L). For, as he said, otherwise the capacity is just becoming too big, to get a high Q.
At least one thing is for sure: The coils in the 5-coil-VIC, that Stan used, certainly had quite a high distributed capacity, as they were "normally" wound with 3000 turns. I would say, that this capacity strongly dominates the resonance circuit. And also my experiments actually tend to show, that these are the important capacities...

Thank you very very much. Again!
As from the picture and your dimensions I would have guessed, one coil was about 1 inch long and 7/8 inch thick, with an inner thickness of 1/2 inch. Seems, like they were actually a bit bigger.
You said:

Each leg was @ 2 1/2 inches long

So you didn't mean the complete inner leg (where the coils go on) of both u cores together with this value?
But 600 turns for the primary? If I look at the picture it's hard to believe, there are that many turns on that (well if it's bigger, that aren't that many layers anymore, makes sense).  Thank you again. It certainly makes sense, that the pickup has about the same Nr of turns as the primary. So as I understood you, the pickup was just one coil, not 2, like in the patent circuit. OK, that's not an important fact, I know...
So the Primary to Sec/Choke coil ratio was only about 1:5.

Were the resistors really across the primary or rather in series, which would make sense for a current restriction while driving. If they were across, they would have been rather an exchange for the freewheeling diode, which wouldn't make much sense.


But for me it's still very interesting, that all the coils had the same number of turns. Up until know, I always thought the secondary needs more turns. If it doesn't, the circuit has to work differently than I thought at first.


BTW: Am I the only one which cannot see any of Dons pics at the beginning of this thread?

Then you get something different from resonance, or the only possibility is if it was very very high frequency to be able to explore this kind of capacitances. I'm pretty sure it wont work if you don't use the resonance.

I'm not quite sure, what you wanna say here. Sure it's a resonance condition. You can easily see it by varying the frequency. But it's just a capacitively fed resonance, if you just connect one end.
But to be honest. If you think about it. The 2 circuits are not that far apart from each other in relation to what happens on the WFC. Both of them let resonate some AC current through the WFC, and both of them apply some DC remainings. Although the "same polarity circuit" would surely push more DC current through it, if not limited by a resistance.
Except. If the "same polarity circuit" would actually work, like I thought it would at first sight. Namely, that really both chokes resonate. That it is actually more a single resonating bottom fed coil, but just wired with 2 wires. The endresult would be that it should act like a Dr Stiffler circuit. Namely positive current always flows mainly in from one electrode and then gets discharged through the other electrode. But I'm not sure if this is really the case. For if you take directly a Stiffler circuit at a few Kilovolts you don't see anything unusual happen.
Actually I quite neglected my work lately. So work has piled. So I will have to stop experimenting for a few days...


@Don:
I'm personally still do not understand why you still test other variations of the circuit, if you actually saw, how Stans circuit was exactly wired. Then I personally would only do tests on exactly this circuit, as long as it needs, 'til I get a result...But maybe that's just me??? I don't know.

It's just a small bowl with 2 SS plates. I don't think there will be any such temperature changes.


@Sebosfato:
I already thought the same, that then, it could make sense, that only one coil is resistive. But I would have gone for the other one. For then, the DC charge from the secondary would fully drop across the lower choke, which would charge the resonant capacity. On the other hand, having a big resistance in a resonating circuit is not what you wanna have...
I made a few tests, back now, with the same polarity to the cell.
In this setup the voltage can already get higher than the input voltage (which is not the case, for the other configuration, which is limited by the input voltage). Here I get about +-50volt swings with an input of 10volts.
The problem with this setup is the strong DC current while the input voltage is coming in.
It is logical, that if you put a resistance in between the diode and the first choke, all the voltage will drop across it. Therefore there's almost no more voltage resonating on the coils. It just obviously lowers your current. Also if you have a high resistance in the upper part, then the circuit is hindered in feeding additionally your resonating capacity, therefore you won't get high resonating voltages anymore.
But it's interesting, that if you put a resistance in between  your neg input and the second coil, it will obviously again drop your DC current but it will not influence much your resonating voltage. If you go to the extreme, then you simply disconnect the second choke coil here (resistance infinity) and it will still resonate like a charm, but as no DC current can't flow anymore it needs almost no more current. Why is this possible?
The coil itself has a capacity to the environment, as the WFC has. Therefore the charge is always going from the WFC to the coil and vice versa. Without having the coil connected on the other side.
I would call this a top fed Tesla-coil  , in relation to the usually known bottom fed Tesla-coil. For in this example you feed the top, when the input voltage is coming in.

So the current induced in the chokes do counter the current from the secondary?

This only looks like that on the first sight. But you have to remember the parasitic capacities. Therefore the current of the chokes can flow, no matter what the secondary does. The secondary can only help the resonant circuit, namely if its voltage is higher than the resonant voltage. Therefore it is so important, that the secondary will output a + on the diode side, when the resonant circuit will also have a + there. Then the secondary can charge the cap even more. If you would do it the other way round, you couldn't do that and would even discharge the resonant circuit.  Therefore in this arrangement both of their flow will add (into the parasitic capacity) and not subtract. And due to the subtraction of voltages (not current), there won't be a big "resistive" current flow through the WFC, which would only waste power and then counteract the current flow as you indicated. Hmm, doesn't make really sense, does it? Well, let's try it later. I go back experimenting...

Kali, how did you obtain your SS wire? Can you miss some?

Actually I got my wire, quite some time ago, from a guy from Canada, back in the overunity forum. He called himself Dankie. Why do you need some? It's actually pretty expensive. I paid several hundred dollars...
For the normal WFC circuit it is obviously not needed...


Edit:
So back from some more testing, with a bit more input voltage.  This time I used a separate core with a step up of 1:40 from 12V, which means about 500 volts on the coils.
Now I realized something, that I already saw before at 10volts, but was not certain what it was. Now, I realized what it was:
During the process the resonant frequency really changes all the time. Sometimes it does make some real jumps. At first I just observed, that the current sometimes just makes jumps. I had no idea why. This current jumping was even more extreme with the 500volts at the coils. But then I realized why the current jumps up and down: The resonant frequency changes and therefore the current goes up. Even at 500volts at the coils I can get to 0.xmA readings if the frequency is hit, but this is quite difficult doing manually, what I am still doing, as I still have this crude 8xA setup and don't use yet my special controller.


I also discovered another thing:
The gating does decrease the needed amperage extremely, and far beyond any logic. Just introducing some off gating reduced the needed current much more, than would be logical just by pure mathematics. E.g. if I have 6on and 2 off gating, it needs about 50times less current than the case, when I have no gating?!?
Does your circuit also behave like that Don?

It really does make sense now.
Especially interesting are Stans highlightings and notes on the Graneau experiments. There it was noted, that the current density was the all important factor if a bang shall occur. Not the voltage and not the overall current. Only the current density. But how can you get a high current density on the WFC, without having to apply a high voltage at the same time, which will simply arc over and bang (like in the Graneau experiments). As I now measured, it is obvious. You actually really are able to have exactly this situation. No voltage on the coils, but all the current flowing through the WFC. Surely, if the current is high and the WFC capacitance discharged, I would certainly guess that you would then see the voltage drop according to the resistance.
I will make a scope shot, to show this effect!


And here it is (fresh from my "Amp Inhibiting Circuit" on my WFC with tap water):
(http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/690/coilvoltagevswfccurrent.gif)
The yellow one is the voltage of a coil, the blue is the current through the WFC. I had to add quite a resistance in the circuit to measure it (shunt), this distorted a bit the current waveform. But the effect is still clearly visible. When the coil voltage is highest (yellow), the current through the WFC is zero (blue). When the coil voltage is zero (yellow), the current through the WFC is at it's max (blue)

Thank you very very very much!!!!
Although I already guessed that answer!
Actually I would have bet my left arm and right leg, that you would answer that!
You're obviously no electrical engineer (no offense), just like Stan you did make the same mistake! Stan also indicated the orientation wrong in this picture. For in this picture the two choke coils do not have the same orientation as the secondary! Why? Because they are on the other side of the core and therefore have the magnetic field going in the opposite direction!
Here again the pic, but this time with the orientation points as in the original patent (I erased them in the pic before, not to influence you):

(http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/3761/patviccircuitcorrecteds.jpg)
Here you can see, that Stan made exactly the same mistake, namely he put the orientation points on the choke coils in the wrong direction. I added in red the correct orientation points according to the picture.

I thought the same. If the chokes do have different polarities to the cell, this wiring is the only one which does make sense. Now I'm happy.
Again: Thank you very very very much, really!


So actually it is now obvious that the VIC is really just an extension of the early "8XA circuit". For if you don't wire the coils as in the 8xA pic, but the other way around (like I did and as above in the patent circuit) you will have exactly this situation like in the VIC. And just the choke coils alone ("Amp Inhibiting circuit") already resonate wonderfully, and surely inhibit any current except for oscillation losses.
So Stans problem after the 8XA was to get higher input voltages, as the 8XA is limited in the oscillation voltage by the input voltage. So it seems like he first used a separate forward converter for the step up (as indicated in the patent with a small toroid core). But this still limits the voltage by the input voltage (just stepped up).Surely you could let the forward converter resonate to get higher voltages, but it would be very difficult to adjust the resonance frequency of the forward converter with that of the choke coils. But if you mount them on the same core, then the voltage can increase and increase (limited by your Q-factor) and you only have to hit one resonance frequency.


BTW: I just measured the "Amp Inhibiting circuit" through, while resonating on the WFC. An it's really like in every RLC. You see the wonderful 90° shift of voltage vs. current. When the voltage on the coils is high, no current is flowing through the WFC. When the voltage is zero, most current is flowing through the WFC.

This 3-23 vic, apparently uses 25 mA out of resonance, and then drops down to 1-2 mA, so not much power being sent through the core. Voltage is unknown, but from the control patent, a guess might be around 650 volts, with mentions of 2000 volts and 5000 volts...

One thing is for sure, if you look at the 5-coil-vic picture. It certainly didn't develop a very high voltage. I would say, at most about 2-3kV (which would match the values indicated in the patent for this kind of WFC). Why? If you look at the connectors to the cell on the right side, you see that the isolation plastic distance washers are not very thick. If a higher voltage would develop, there would be a spark to the casing. You would also get heavy corona discharges at higher voltages with these connectors. This is very different from the connectors of his 6-1 coil. There he really used High-Voltage connectors. And as far as i understood, these coils actually were meant to get in the xxkV regions.


This is actually IMHO quite interesting. As I have mentioned before, according to the Tay-Hee Han patent, you need at least an E-field of 20kv/mm for water to split just due to the E-field, and it is not possible to develop such a high e-field without having an isolator in between, because the water would arc through already before that. Therefore I personally think his effect is not really splitting the water molecules directly by an e-field, but rather separating the already available ions with an E-field and letting them again neutralize each other, whereas some will then build H2 and O2 instead of again H20. This would still be IMHO the only solution which would actually explain where the overunity splitting energy is coming from.
For ripping apart water directly just by an e-field is not an overunity reaction. Why? Because due to the splitting action, your e-field of the capacitor would loose energy. This is called losses in the dielectric of a capacitor.
So my all time changing guess would be, that you really go to the point where you just would get a water arc. But due to the very small energy in the oscillator, the arc cannot really develop, but just the pre-arc-situation, where the ions get heavily separated. Then  you immediately have to stop the oscillator (gating off), for otherwise you would again pump energy in it, and as soon as the ions didn't had time to neutralize, the ion conduction channel would still be there, and then you would get an arc, which would waste your energy just in heat. But just another lame hypotheses... I know...I should really stop with that and continue experimenting...

BIG SMILE!



If the 8xA is connected as I think, then the "Amp inhibiting effect" is very strong. 10 volts as circuit input voltage, the coils resonating at +/- 5 volts (not much I know, but limited by the input voltage), but now ask me, what the measured DC input current was after the diode...5uA??!!??yes 5 Microampères not Milliampères. As soon as my usual meter just displayed 0.0mA I looked for my special one which measures only from 0 to 100uA. And then I adjusted the frequency until I just got down to 5uA. Then my idea was immediately:
There must be some AC capacitively fed in over the diode, otherwise I just cannot explain this. I mounted a shunt resistor in between. First very low ohmic...nothing...then I increased until I could see some very short millivolt peaks with a 1kOhm shunt. And the measured voltage and the picture actually shows no capacitive feed. It also shows such a low DC current and no AC!!??!!



I've already seen a lot, but from a pure electrical engineer point of view, I just cannot explain this!!??!! What's going on. I just cannot believe, that the losses in the core are that small (but it's the only explanation), so what's going on? But still the bigger question I have is: What the he** is actually resonating here???
Actually I'm currently really speechless and this doesn't happen often to me

@Dynodon:
Actually, if, as you said, the chokes are connected with different potential to the cell, there is IMHO only one possible way of wiring. You said, all coils do have the same orientation. But I'm not sure, if we mean the same. Here an example from a patent:
(http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/3482/patviccircuitwobsmall.jpg)
Is this the way, the 5-VIC-Coil was  wired? As you can see all coils are wound counter-clockwise. And are then connected "in series". Now the question to Don (and only to him): According to your understanding, are the coils in the pic all connected with the same orientation or not?
I would be really grateful for an answer. As the correct wiring is certainly the most important factor, for a replication.
Additional question: The side, where the diode was, was connected to which tube of the WFC. The outer or the inner? Could you see that on the originals?


Edit:
Addtion: I always see new pics pop up every now and then. Don't you wanna make a DVD with all the pics you made of Stans stuff together with the videos made (in good quality) and sell it? I for sure would  buy it.

I just realized, that I shouldn't have posted this pic in here. It now gets way too offtopic. Sorry for that.
Just in short. To answer the questions, so that discussions about the VIC can continue.
For big projects I also use the cortex chips (LPCs). But this application needs no CPU power, but a good interface chip (which can drive I/Os). For these I always take the AVRs.  To interact with the menu (change values, select mode, etc.), there's an analog joystick soldered on the board.
@Webmug: Why do you wanna change to a transistor design? This application is THE application for FETs (hard switching on and off). Doesn't make absolutely no sense to me, to use transistors. Surely in Stans time, good PowerFETs were not yet available. I just used a good PowerFET together with the usual circuitry (IXDD414 for driving, Z-Diode at the gate and Transil-Diode over the FET, and surely the diode in series with the FET (as in Stans circuit) not to limit resonance). If you work with a low 12V voltage like Stan, then IMHO a transistor would just be a waste of additional energy compared to a good FET. Unfortunately the series-diode is also a big waste but I wouldn't know how to do it otherwise.

For the feedback and scanner I'm using also Stan his PLL circuit.

Why that? If you have a uC, the uC can easily do the PLL stuff. The frequencies used here are so low , that a uC has surely no problems with that. And you can lock-in much faster in SW. For higher frequencies (>50-100KHz) like used in the SSTCs, the usual PLL circuit, as Stan used is needed, but at <50KHz I would surely just do it in SW.

Back to the VIC. On saturday I replicated the 8xA circuit (I finally found my SCRs ). But the results I got puzzle me even more...I really think understanding the functioning of the 8xA circuit, what the coils really exactly do here and how they interact with the SCR and the pulsing, is one major key in understanding the whole VIC.