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RE: heater on toroid / alternative
Hello,
I doubt that Americium will be very effective, as it is a Alpha emitter
and not nearly enough activity (curies) to produce much air ionization. We
are talking about several feet of spark, so perhaps a 400 curie Cesium 137
source (commonly used to calibrate radiation detection instrumentation)
would have some effect? I wouldn't get to close though :-)
Regards,
David Trimmell
On Wed, 22 Mar 2000, Tesla List wrote:
> Original Poster: "Dale Hall" <Dale.Hall-at-trw-dot-com>
>
> Alternative to heat: (used in such things as EGG igniter switches)
> Could try a piece of Americium (radioactive, from an old smoke detector) ?
> should pre-ionize a spot on the toroid without a projection, encouraging
> breakout
> on an oversize toroid (else there is little need to concentrate discharge)
> Old smoke detectors had up to 1000 uCuries ! so handle with care.
> Dale
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tesla List [mailto:tesla-at-pupman-dot-com]
> Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 11:02 AM
> To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
> Subject: heater on toroid
>
>
> Original Poster: "Jan Florian Wagner" <jwagner-at-cc.hut.fi>
>
> Hi,
>
> just some weirdo idea here... what would happen if one placed a
> powerful heater - maybe some coiled up wire shortening a strong battery -
> on the topload? I'm not thinking about the heat (i.e. not a candle), but
> the glowing metal that releases electrons into the surroundings before
> having streamers breaking out. (some sort of pre-ionization before the
> breakout voltage in the field distribution around the heater is reached)
>
> I've only a small coil and it would crash below my car battery, and
> having wires extend to the toroid from elsewhere wouldn't be nice either,
> so I can't try it myself, though I'd like to.
>
> Would there be any observable/theoretic benefits or neat effects? Or no
> effect at all? At least blue haze around the heater?
>
> just being curious...
>
> --
> *************************************************
> Jan Florian Wagner
> http://www.hut.fi/~jwagner
>
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