Re: "lightning machine" at Chicago's Museum of Science & Industry? (fwd)

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Original poster: Steven Roys <sroys@xxxxxxxxxx>



---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 11:03:35 -0600
From: Dr. Resonance <resonance@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: High Voltage list <hvlist@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: "lightning machine" at Chicago's Museum of Science & Industry?
    (fwd)



It was not a Cockroft-Walton circuit. It was a classic Marx impulse 
generator.  I repaired it for them several times.  The original design used 
HV resistors that were too small and they kept frying.  The generator was 
quickly and quitely removed from service when someone discovered the caps 
were filled with PCBs.  It was a 1,000,000 Volt Marx generator.

Dr. Resonance


> Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2006 13:24:14 -0600
> From: Gomez Addams <gomez@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: High Voltage list <hvlist@xxxxxxxxxx>, Tesla list <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: "lightning machine" at Chicago's Museum of Science & Industry?
>
> This may have been asked on one of these lists before.  I may have
> even asked it myself a few years ago, because it's something I've
> been interested in for a long time, but if I ever did get an answer
> here, I didn't put it where I could find it again.  If I'm repeating
> myself, I apologize for my absent-mindedness.
>
> By the way, this isn't really Tesla coil related, but it's close
> enough it ought to interest many on the TC list, and I figure someone
> else my age or older may know about it.
>
> So: in the 1970s, the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry had
> something which my high school science teacher called a "Lightning
> Machine".  We took a field trip there (from Peoria) but to my dismay,
> they had shut it down only a few months before our visit.  According
> to the guide I talked to, they had found a hole in the ground cable
> which lead down from the second floor and into an elaborate ground
> system in the basement, and for that and other reasons (perhaps it
> had other problems) the powers that be had elected to not resume
> operating it.