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Unusual Plasma effects (fwd)
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 1999 20:40:28 EDT
From: Grayson B Dietrich <electrofire-at-juno-dot-com>
To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: Unusual Plasma effects
I was trying out a new plasma globe today, powering it with a flyback
driven by 2 2n3055 transistors, in that most common configuration of a
push-pull oscillator. At first nothing unexpected happened, the purple
streamers danced as I thought they should, but as I slowly decreased the
voltage (increased the frequency?) I was startled by something.
After the discharge had deminished to just the top half of the 3/8" ball
terminal glowing, with a tiny pin point jet of plasma, I decreased the
voltage still more, and the tiny jet sprung into a long strand, about 3
to 4" long. Here the kicker: it terminated in the open air (vacuum), as
if there were a secong terminal. AND it seemed to like to travel in
nearly a sraight line. When I held the glass chamber upright, with the HV
terminal coming down from above, the discharge was straitest, and about
3" long. When I rotated it sideways, without moving my hand's positions,
the discharge grew in length to 4", and seemed a little less stable. The
posistioning and activity of the peculiar streamer seemed nearly
unaffected by the place ment of my hands or any other grounded object.
The chamber is made from a large, perhaps 2 or 3 gallong, glass jug. The
vacuum attachment and HV connection enter through a modified cork
stopper. The stopper has been coated in silicone rubber to get rid of its
inherently leaky nature, and the silicone was built up around the HV
conductor and vacuum attachment pipe.
Could this possibly have something to do with a resonace between the
pressure and size of the chamber, and the frequency of the HV? If it
does, then might'nt it be possible to drive the globe, using the special
frquency it responds best to, and get spectacular results?
Oh, yeah. If I decreased the input voltage any more, the discharge would
double in length for a fraction of a second, and the the only visible
discharges were occasional, very pale, long white flashing streamers.
These were a lot like the "Phantom Streamers" discussed a little while
back on the list. (I started that one too :-)
The electrophile,
Grayson Dietrich
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