Re: Strange shock (fwd)

["John Williams" <jwilliams-at-edm-dot-net> (by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>)]

I have noticed that too.  Very likely it is a electrophorus effect or a
variant of it.

Now that I think of it I ran across an acount on a web site some years
back of a tesla coil that was large, ten feet tall or some such, and the
account the builder gave on his site was interesing.

He said that the static charge on the secondary would rise to a point,
while the coil was in operation, that a piece of tissue flung at the
secondary would be drawn to it and then ejected as though it had
been tossed toward a Van DeGraff generator.

He also had time exposure photos that apparently showed a blue glow
about the base of the secondary.  This was not the usual effect
you get when the primary is to close and breakdown is threatening.
It looked more like ionized air flowing down and over the
base mount in a sheet, like a fluid.  Hard to beat for a really strange
tesla coil picture.

Now I wish I hadn't lost track of the url...

	John


>Original poster: "Area31 Research Facility" <rwstephens-at-hurontario-dot-net>
>
>All,
>
>The weirdest thing I think about this effect that many of us have at some time
>been painfully aware of is that the surface of the coating which holds the
>charge seems to resist being discharged.  You can go over it several times
>with
>a conductive grounding wand that has connection to the wire composing the
>resonator winding, and each time get a renewed snapping discharge from the
>same
>area.  So....is it possible that some electret phenomenon is occurring in the
>plastic film insulation overcoating our resonators?  Is it possible that some
>characteristic of the charging waveform, possibly the short duty cycle and the
>very high peak voltage, that a threshold is being achieved which causes some
>unusual molecular alignment in the insulation which is the basis for an
>electret phenomenon to occur?
>
>I'm not a physicist, I've never even played one on TV, but some of you are, or
>might have.  Comments?
>
>Robert W. Stephens
>Director
>AREA31 Research Facility
><http://www.area31-dot-org>www.area31-dot-org