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Re: lightning balls




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T>I'm not an expert coiler or anything, but have done a decent amount of
T>research even though I have yet to complete my first TC.  I was just
T>wondering if those comercial lightning things (you know the glass ball
T>with lightning inside) have any relation to Tesla Coils??

T>just curious,

T>Matt Curtis
T>curtisma-at-umich.edu

        University of Mich.? (...-at-umich.edu).  Well hi, neighbor!

        The product I believe you are describing is called a Plasma
        Globe.

        They require high-frequency, high-voltage current for oper-
        ation.   Such of course is the very stuff of Tesla coiling.

        Howsoforeverbethatasitmay -- the power supply for plasma
        globes is comprised of a solid-state oscillator driving a
        resonant transformer with a ferrite core.  This is virtually
        identical to the high-voltage power supply in CRT-based tv's
        and video/computer monitors.

        The extent to which such power supplies can be considered
        Tesla coils is debatable.   And such debate has been known to
        to provoke flame wars, if not fist-fights.

                                - - - - - - -

        No less an august personage than Dr. Tesla himself described
        what are tantamount to plasma globes in many of his writings.
        So he can be justly called the inventor of same.

        HosoforeverbyTHATasitmay -- Dr. Tesla's focus was quite
        different.  Rather than a plaything for Radio-Shack shoppers
        Dr. Tesla appears to have been seeking a device for general
        purpose illumination - a sort of Tesla-coil-driven light bulb.
        Ergo - his plasma globes were constructed somewhat differently
        than the modern incarnation.  Nonetheless, his were comprised
        of an evacuated globe, a central electrode, and Tesla current
        for power.

                                  Shedding some en-LIGHT-enment,

                                  Robert Michaels -
                                  Tough Enough to Live in Detroit, USA

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