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Re: "lightning machine" at Chicago's Museum of Science & Industry? (fwd)
Original poster: Steven Roys <sroys@xxxxxxxxxx>
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2006 14:20:38 -0600
From: Dr. Resonance <resonance@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: High Voltage list <hvlist@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: "lightning machine" at Chicago's Museum of Science & Industry?
(fwd)
No, two different machines. The Chitown Marx was only 12 feet tall with 1e6
output.
The large GE machines were each 50 feet tall -- one a plus 5 mev and one at
minus 5 mev for 10 mev discharge between them --- and they were incredibly
loud!! My grandfather actually saw them fire in 1939 --- he said they were
monsters!!
Dr. Resonance
> Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 16:37:44 -0400
> From: David Speck <Dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: High Voltage list <hvlist@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Re: "lightning machine" at Chicago's Museum of Science &
> Industry?
> (fwd)
>
> Doc,
>
> By any chance was this the machine that had been featured at the GE
> Pavilion of the 1939 NY World's Fair? The vintage and capabilities of
> the machine sound similar to what I've heard about the NYWF display.
>
> GE had both a Marx Generator and a multiple megavolt 3 phase flaming arc
> display at that fair. The transformers of the continuous display were
> dispersed, some being used for test stands in Pittsfield, MA. I never
> heard what happened to the Marx display.
>
> Dave
>
> High Voltage list wrote:
>> 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.
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
>