Think you have seen a big capacitor before?

[torquil]

Take a look at Marconi's capacitor building:

http://www.ieee.ca/millennium/radio/radio_clifdenconstruction.gif

thousands of steel plates hanging from floor to ceiling, which filled the wings of the building, and this room was subsequently called the "condenser building" (see Fig. 3). The power supply was a 15 kV DC generator (three 5 kV generators in series) driven by a steam engine. Note the power source was DC. Standby batteries (6000, 2 volt, 30 AH batteries in series) at both stations may well have been the largest battery the world has ever seen. The heart of his Clifden/Marconi Towers stations was a whirling five foot spark discharge disk, with studs on its perimeter. Each time a stud passed between two electrodes, a 15 kV spark jumped the gaps. The regular spark rate was about 350 sparks/sec. The awesome size of the station and the din of the transmitter must have been something to behold. The power consumed by these stations was in the range of 100 to 300 kW, and the spark was a display of raw power. It is said that the awesome din of the transmitter could be heard several kilometres away.From here: http://www.ieee.ca/millennium/radio/radio_differences.html

[guitarcapo]

So basically it was this huge spark-making machine?

What a waste of energy.

[torquil]

What a waste of energy.

Well, it would certainly be if it were constructed today...

[TweeDLX]

I think it says something about the man's vision. Imagine designing a transmitter that huge!

[SatelliteAmps]

So basically it was this huge spark-making machine?

What a waste of energy.

No, basically is was the power supply for a massive radio transmitter. The spark gap was part of the condenser for the supply. Not just a giant waste of energy.


Cool picture and story.

[Prairie Dawg]

Spark gap transmitters (very dirty) and arc transmitters (a little better) were all they had before the advent of the vacuum tube-except for the Alexanderson alternator-the first continuous wave device, one of which was in service at Grimeton in Sweden until 1996. It is powered up once a year for a few minutes on July 1 of each year.

There were quenched gap and rotary gap transmitters but they were all pretty nasty stuff, requiring huge amounts of power to put down small signals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexanderson_alternator

[digiTED]

Fascinating topic, thanks!

Awesome project from a time when technology = optimism. Plus, the thing's very green by our standards: it was steam powered!

[dbeeman]

I don't know.. Looks like it would be a bit stiff an over filtered

[Old Tele man]

...just imagine the "arc" you'd get when you "discharged" that bank of capacitors before working on them!









...ZAP!

[torquil]

I wonder if those plates would attract a lot of dielectric dust?