Re: Safety gap electrodes

["Stephen Carpenter" <sjc-at-xxxxxxxxxxxx> (by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-xxxxxxxxxx>)]

On Wed, Nov 01, 2000 at 12:26:31PM -0700, Tesla list may have written:
> Original poster: "Gregory Hunter" <ghunter31014-at-yahoo-dot-com> 
> 
> Forgive me for breaking into the middle of a thread,
> but has anyone ever tried using a jacob's ladder for a
> safety gap?  Seems like it would be naturally
> self-quenching, and all you'd need is a couple of
> stiff solid copper wires or perhaps a couple of scraps
> of Cu tube.

Now that you mention it - when I was building my coil several years ago -
I got a book from Lindsay's Publications - I forget the name um "The Tesla
Coil Handbook" or some such (I have it at home)

As I remember - the safety gaps in the book were basically exactly 
that - They were smaller though - the rising portion was very short - maybe
a couple of inches.

It kind of makes sense - a jacobs ladder can hold an arc going for several 
seconds - even a small one could do a second. Thats way too long I would
think. 

When I get home later on - I will see if that book has any notes on that
design. I never used saftey gaps in that coil - sigh course I also burned
out my transformer using that coil too (spark gap was adjustable - wanted to
see how far I could open it up and next thing I knew it just stopped 
running)

-Steve
-- 
Q:      How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?
A:      Only one, but it takes a long time, and the light bulb has
        to really want to change.