Re: Strange shock (fwd)

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

Hi Rob, all,

On 15 Jul 00, at 22:11, Tesla list wrote:

> 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

Interesting idea. It certainly does resist discharging as if 
the charge is embedded in the dielectric. Shocks are also 
quite painful. It doesn't take much varnish on the coil for 
effect to be noticeable either. Next time I run the coil at 
night I'll suffer the pain and see what is visible after the 
coil has been switched off.

Regards,
Malcolm
<snip>