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Re: Hydrogen gap

> In many of the discussions I have seen on hydrogen gaps, they use the
> alcohol vapor to actually make the hydrogen on the fly (by dissociation).
> The idea being that you put some alcohol in the bottom of the chamber, heat
> it up until the vapor has displaced all the air, then seal the chamber.
>
> This is described in some detail in Fruengel's book..

    My original idea was to use the alchohol to both cool the electrodes and
produce the hydrogen, and I may still do this--however there are some
complications as the alchohol from the gaps would be flowing fairly
quickly, and
I would like it to be a "closed" system, that couldn't be affected by air from
the outside, etc.  There might be a way to perforate the bottom surfaces of
each
gap so the alchohol would drip slowly onto the surface of the gap below it--but
this is also difficult to control.


"Hello,
First off I would like to know why, of all things
would you use hydrogen.  This tends to explode when it
comes in contact with sparks. ----
"Hydrogen, Alcohol, heat, sparks, electricity
Boy, doesn't this sound like a recipe for a bomb."

    Early hydrogen-"quenched" Poulsen Arc transmitters
were just as dangerous, and they were presumably built by amateurs
judging from the 1932 construction guide that I have.  I'm aware of the
explosion risk and I intend to take the necessary precautions to keep air
out of

the enclosure.  My main problem is still whether the alchohol will conduct the
1.4 kv -at- 400ma that each gap will "see".  I'm worried that conductive ions from
the copper pipe might make their way into the alchohol, eventually causing, in
short, a fireball.  I may have to coat the inside of the copper pipes with some
insulating compound, like epoxy.

"From what I have read about Poulsen arc oscillators, if you don't use very
strong magnets to quench the arc, or arcs in your case, you will not be able
to get oscillations much above the audio range.  I think it will be quite an
engineering feat to design a magnet which will provide the proper magnetic
field for all of your gaps.  Possibly you should start with just one gap to
experiment with, then try adding more.  But it sounds fascinating - keep us
posted!"

   From what I've heard, Neodymium magnets produce 13-14 K gauss at short
range,
which is in the right ballpark for this gap.  On the other hand, I may not need
them, as the Telefunken Poulsen setup used multiple gaps without magnets, and
worked fine.  Thanks for all your comments.

        --Mike


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