Re: Sparkles in the arcs

["Malcolm Watts" <M.J.Watts-at-massey.ac.nz> (by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>)]

Hi Ross,

On 28 Aug 00, at 0:50, Tesla list wrote:

> Original poster: "Ross Overstreet" <ross-o-at-mindspring-dot-com> 
> 
> Hi,
> I was playing around with building fires on top of my toroid this weekend
> when I stumbled across an interesting effect.  Burning cardboard apparently
> liberates lots of carbon particles that make bright sparkles in the brush
> discharge of a TC running at low power levels.  My photo didn't turn out too
> well, but you can get a rough idea of what I was seeing in the top photo on
> my "arc pictures" page.
> http://users.better-dot-org/roverstreet/Arc_pics/arcpics.html
> 
> I bet the effect would be really spectacular if you get a lot more carbon
> (or whatever made the sparkles) into the air around the toroid.  To repeat
> this, all you have to do is light the cardboard and place it on the edge of
> the toroid.  Once it develops a small burned spot it will act as a corona
> point.  It works best on the leeward side of the toroid.  Don't burn the
> house (or woods) down.

Believe it or not, this is one of the ways the Corums claim to 
have made ball lighning. I tried this with charcoal a couple 
of times and also got a similar result (no bl I'm sorry to 
say).

Regards,
Malcolm