Sparks through an inductance: Jacob's ladder?

• To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
• Subject: Sparks through an inductance: Jacob's ladder?
• From: "Marco Denicolai" <Marco.Denicolai-at-tellabs.fi> (by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>)
• Date: Mon, 27 Dec 1999 06:17:17 -0700
• Approved: twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net
• Delivered-To: fixup-tesla-at-pupman-dot-com-at-fixme

Hello.

By the way, while I was shorting my SMPS, I noticed that:

- shorting it through a 1 m long piece of wire I got a solid and loud BANG
- shorting it though a 20-30 m long piece of wire I got a loud BUZZING spark,
that could be extended (once begun) in length up to 10-15 cm! It was a real
Jacob's ladder what I had there, the spark rising up slowly (better to say it
was a FLAME). It was like the flame you get by shorting a NST, but only much
much longer.

Recall that my SMPS was, of course, all the time trying to recharge the
capacitor, even during the spark time. My top voltage was set to about 7 kV.

This maybe suggest that those interested in building a nice Jacob's ladder may
reach a better result by adding series inductance (to add to the
transformer own
inductance). I had plenty of voltage and current, but it was only the series
inductance that made the flame effect appear.

Regards

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