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Re: Things to do with TC

Tesla List wrote:
Dave,

If you increase the power level, its possible to get streamers coming off 
the top of the bulb as though the glass was not even there. However, if 
you hit too high a power level, the dielectric loss heating softens the 
glass and "punches-through", letting air into the bulb. It sometimes 
cracks the glass around the hole. 

I found that a Philips 60 W bulb (locally at Home Depot) looks much 
better that the equivalent ones from GE (True Value). I suspect either 
the fill gas mixture or the degree of evacuation is different. The corona 
discharge in the GE 60 Watter tends to be whitish, while the Philips 
bulbs show pretty pink and violet highlights. At higher power levels on 
the 10" coil, I've gotten external streamers of > 4 feet "through" the 
glass for a few seconds - but you have to control the power and let the 
glass cool down after a few seconds so that it doesn't break the glass.

Another interesting experiment involves putting the same 60W bulb in 
series with the base of the secondary coil and RF ground. The pulses of 
current coming out of the secondary have no problem brilliantly lighting 
the bulb. However, when I increased the power too much, I burned out the 
filament. However, the bulb STILL lit brightly due to the arc between the 
support electrode and the open filament. After a few seconds, it began to 
melt the support electrode. 

When I tried the same thing with a clear-glass 300 Watt bulb, it didn't 
light. The 300 watter DOES have pretty corona when used on the top toroid 
however... 


Safe coilin' to ya!


-- Bert --

> 


> >From huffman-at-d0tokensun.fnal.govTue Jul 16 22:07:59 1996
> Date: Tue, 16 Jul 96 08:45:44 CDT
> From: Dave Huffman <huffman-at-d0tokensun.fnal.gov>
> To: tesla-at-poodle.pupman-dot-com
> Cc: huffman-at-fnal.gov
> Subject: Things to do with TC
> 
> Hi Group,
> I don't know if this is well known but Tesla did lots of
> experiments tring to make light using TCs and high freq.
> alternators. One interesting demo can be done with a large
> clear incandescent bulb, one of thus 60W 6" globe bulbs.
> Place the bulb on the toroid so the base touches and apply
> small amounts of RF. On my small coil <500W I use only one
> spark gap and variac less than 50%. By playing with the setting
> I can get various plasma/arc streams within the bulb.
> Dave Huffman