Flame makes open tubes oscillate.

YouTube via nylesteiner. Yes, that Nyle Steiner.
"A propane torch inside the end of a tube can make it oscillate.
See also my website at http://www.sparkbangbuzz.com for more interesting experiments and details."
Also see the Zinc Negative Resistance Sound Synthesizer

Flame Triode With Gain And Intriguing Flame Phenomenon.

YouTube via nylesteiner.

The application of what is described begins at 1:34.

"More info is available at http://www.sparkbangbuzz.com

If a cathode is chemically treated with a common household chemical and put into an alcohol flame, electrons can flow to a positive anode that is placed inside of the flame. This creates a diode rectifier.

What is very intriguing though, is that electrons can still flow to the anode even when it is well outside of the flame.

A grid placed within this space between the flame and anode can control the amount of current flow. This creates a triode with gain with similarities to a vacuum tube triode."

Copper and Steel Thermocouple

YouTube Uploaded by nylesteiner on Jun 22, 2011

"A thermocouple made from ordinary copper and steel wire can generate enough current to deflect a compass needle.

Compensating for the earth's magnetic field can make the compass sensitive enough to deflect when the thermocouple is heated with my fingers.

Sparkbangbuzz.com"

Flame Triode Amplifier and Oscillator, more experiments.

YouTube via nylesteiner | September 30, 2010

"More info is available at http://www.sparkbangbuzz.com

The performance of the flame triode has been greatly improved by two factors: 1 assisting the filament heat by running AC current through it and 2 using 300 VDC plate voltage instead of 200 VDC. 300 volts was not available when the first flame triode video was made. It now is capable of driving a pair of 8 ohm headphones at a reasonable level.

This video shows the flame triode being used to drive a pair of 8 ohm headphones from a very high impedance (10 megohm) input. Even though a high to lo impedance output transformer is used, amplification is necessary in order to drive the headphones at the higher level heard in the video.

This video also shows the flame triode used as an audio oscillator using transformer feedback. A high impedance transformer is necessary so one was made by putting two "voice coil to grid" transformers back to back.

I am using a simple propane, no air mixture, flame. The flame source is an orafice from an old propane barbecue cooker. I used it because it was handy.

Played and recorded m'own music."

Copper Oxide Thermoelectric Generator Can Light LED

YouTube Uploaded by nylesteiner on Jul 19, 2011
Curios if those are the new Steiner Synthasystem modules in the background.
"A simple copper oxide thermoelectric generator can generate hundreds of millivolts. Sixteen of them in series can generate enough voltage to light an LED.

See more information at http://www.sparkbangbuzz.com

What is happening? I have spent my entire life reading whatever technical books and articles I could find and can recall seeing only one book that says anything about this device. It would be safe to say however, that an explanation could be found in the institutionalized literature. Not being presently affiliated with any institutions, I do not have ready access to most of their literature which makes the cost of reading it prohibitive. So, I will offer my own take on what is happening.

A thermocouple is generally thought of as being a junction between two dissimilar metals but it might be better to say that it is a junction between two dissimilar conductors. Touching the two oxidized wires together forms a junction of copper oxide to copper oxide. This is not where the action is. The copper oxide on both wires should be thought of as one solid conductor between the two copper wires - a very short one at that. This can now be seen as the classic two thermocouples back to back circuit. We have a copper - copper oxide junction on the hot wire and an opposing copper oxide - copper junction on the cold wire. With this in mind it is now easy to view this device as being a normal thermistor circuit.

It is easy to wonder how this device could work at all because of the copper oxide, that is between the two wires, being almost an insulator. Copper oxide however, also acts like a thermistor with a very high negative temperature coefficient. Even the "cold" wire still gets hot enough that the resistance of the copper oxide drops relatively to a very low value - enabling current to flow.

I must give credit to an older book "Simple Scientific Experiments" by Aurel de Ratti as being the one and only book I have ever seen that makes the reader aware of this copper oxide thermoelectric generator. This book also contains other fascinating stuff. It is reprinted and sold by Lindsay Publications Inc."

Nyle Steiner singing-water-stream

YouTube via nylesteiner | July 09, 2010

"A smooth thin water stream from a faucet will oscillate when a straight edge is put into it. This oscillation can be heard by coupling it electrically, optically or acoustically."

Zinc 80 Meter CW Transmitter, Actual Sound Heard From Various Distances.

YouTube via nylesteiner. yes that Nyle Steiner. follow-up to these posts.
"More info is available at http://www.sparkbangbuzz.com

This is an update to the previous video "Zinc Negative Resistance 80 Meter CW Transmitter". In the previous video, the sound of the transmitter at 5 miles was simulated. This update plays the actual sound of the transmitter as recorded on video from various distances up to 5 miles.

K7NS builds a very simple 80 meter cw qrp transmitter made out of a homemade zinc negative resistance diode. This simple radio transmitter is made without using any vacuum tubes or transistors, and it's ultra low power of 100 microwatts can be easily heard 5 miles away.

Thanks to W9RAN for his contribution of using a quarts crystal in place of an LC circuit."

Flame Controlled Synthesizer Lowpass Filter by Nyle Steiner

YouTube Uploaded by nylesteiner on Aug 3, 2011

"See more interesting stuff t sparkbangbuzz.com

This lowpass filter is just like a normal synthesizer lowpass VCF but the cutoff frequency is controlled by the variable resistance of copper oxide when heated by a flame

I built the filter this way just to see how good it would sound when controlled with a flame and copper oxide resistors. The copper oxide resistors are just pieces of ordinary copper wire that had been previously oxidized in a propane flame.

The resonance is difficult to control precisely because of unequal heating and cooling of the two oxidized copper wires.

Another way of doing the same thing would be to just use one flame controlled copper oxide resistance to vary a dc voltage into the VC input of a normal VCF."

Zinc Negative Resistance Sound Synthesizer

YouTube via nylesteiner
"More info is available at http://www.sparkbangbuzz.com

An electronic sound composition is made entirely of sounds produced using zinc negetive resistance audio oscillator circuits. No vacuum tubes or transistors were used to generate the sounds.

Several tracks of the zinc oscillator sounds were recorded one at a time. Some of the sounds were enhanced with the addition of reverb.

The morse code parts were sent in real time by manually keying a J-38 straight key. Yes, I can send that fast with a straight key by using a somewhat unusual technique that I developed."

Homemade Cathode Ray Tube Oscilloscope by Nyle Steiner

YouTube via nylesteiner. Nyle Steiner, of steiner-parker/synthacon fame.
Via Seth Nemec of bananalogue.com.