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RE: Vacuum Cleaner Motor Cooled Spark Gaps (Gary Lau)



>Original Poster: Adam <psycho-at-tradewind-dot-net> 
>
>I've got some questions for anyone whose built a Gary Lau-style vacuum
>cleaner motor-cooled spark gap.
>
>Has anyone ever tried it with brass knobs in a configuration similar to
>that of an air blast gap?  The two gaps seem very similar to me.
>
>Also, from the pictures on Gary Lau's web site, the vacuum appears to be
>sucking air through the channel.  This makes sense:  it's a vacuum
>cleaner motor.
>So, the question is:
>Do you guys use any kind of filtering to prevent bad things from being
>sucked into the motor?  After all, that's what vacuum cleaner bags are
>for, right?

Unless you've got a swarm of locusts hovering around your coil, I don't
think there's a problem with stuff being sucked through the gap,
particularly on a single, wide (0.36") gap.  And even if you did have
such a swarm, wouldn't that be the mother of all bug zappers??!!

On the serious side, there may be (at least) one down side to the way I
configured it.  Spark gaps quench the best under high gas pressures.
Under low pressures, gases are more easily ionized.  I suspect that the
air in the arc channel of my gap is at a reduced pressure.  If the
plumbing of my vacuum motor would have supported it, I would have
preferred to blow through my gaps.

Regards, Gary Lau
Waltham, MA USA