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Re: Ball Lightning.



Tesla List wrote:
> 
> > Subject: Ball Lightning.
> 
> >From gowin-at-epic-1.nwscc.sea06.navy.milFri Nov  1 21:49:48 1996
> Date: Fri, 01 Nov 1996 10:42:11 -0500
> From: Dan Gowin <gowin-at-epic-1.nwscc.sea06.navy.mil>
> To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
> Subject: Re: Ball Lightning.
> 
> Tesla List wrote:
> >
> > >From jpbazemo-at-ouray.cudenver.eduThu Oct 31 22:50:32 1996
> > Date: Thu, 31 Oct 1996 22:48:29 -0700 (MST)
> > From: "J. Bazemore" <jpbazemo-at-ouray.cudenver.edu>
> > To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
> > Subject: Ball Lightning.
> >
> > Has anyone here created ball lightning?
> >
> > If so, can you do so again, and reliably?
> >
> > Thanks for your reply.
> 
> By Accident,
>         My largest coils secondary is wound on a 4.5" PVC pipe sealed
> in Polyurethane. Originally I built two for redundency, so both
> have the same characteristics. I once attached my backup secondaries
> base to the top of my main secondary just to try and grasp the idea
> of a magnafier. Well, the sparks from the backup coils discharge
> terminal
> where pretty wimpy.
>         Suddenly, during the experiment, the alligator clip
> attached to the base of the backup coil exploded. And the result was
> about 5-6 golf ball sized fire things danced around on my concrete
> floor for maybe 20 seconds. A word of caution though, I may be
> exaggerating
> as to the size and duration of the event because it scared the hell out
> of me, but the phenomena is real enough. Why it occured is a mystery to
> me.
>         I don't think I'll try using a magnifier again until I understand
> the concept thoroughly.
> 
> D. Gowin

Dan,

Veeerrrry Interesting...!
Could you tell what actually failed around the alligator clip? Some
inexpensive ones merely clamp the wire-lead to the clip and use a
cheapie version of an insulation displacement connection which typically
has high resistance and a poor connection. Could you tell if this was
the point of failure or did the alligator clip's connection to the
secondary base wire fail? If the latter, what type of wire insulation
are you using on your secondaries? Was there any evidence of residue on
the floor where the balls extinguished, was there any sound associated
with them either during their movement or when they extinguished, and
what was their color? Any idea what power level you were running at?

I've had a poor base connection fail during high power operation on a
10" 2-coil system - the resulting arc was brilliant, hot blue-white,
much like a welders' arc. If you had a poor connection, which then
started arcing, you may have seen oxidizing metal or plastic fragments
that may have also had a very high electrical charge. 

Sounds like something to try again - as long as you're not getting any
flashovers on your driving coil, you shouldn't do any damage to your
system...
Thanks for sharing your experience with us!

Safe possible ball lighnin' generation to ya!

-- Bert --