Re: water spark gaps

["Jochen Kronjaeger" <Kronjaeg-at-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> (by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-xxxxxxxxxx>)]

> 	Has anyone ever experimented with water spark gaps?  If so, did you run
> into any big problems? 

I tried this recently, though not systematically. I simply submerged my
multiple copper tube gap in a bucket of tap water. This turned out to
be far too conductive, i.e. shortet my OBITs without charging the cap.

Deionized water will be better, but considering the small gap distances I
doubt it will work well. Also, the water will propably degrade rapidly.

I experienced another strange problem when drawing an arc between a copper
electrode and a water surface. Sometimes, there was something like a small
explosion, not really violent, but quite a shock. This might be due to
electrolysis (hydrogen+oxygen production), but I somewhat doubt this as
there was no reason for hydrogen to accumulate. Anyway, let this be a
warning that unexpected and possibly dangerous effects might occur with
under water gaps.

  Jochen

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  Jochen Kronjaeger                     Kronjaeg-at-stud-mailer.uni-marburg.de 
                                                                           
  The High Voltage Page  http://www.mathematik.uni-marburg.de/~kronjaeg/hv/  
    info, plans, photos of home-built HV-sources, sparks, HV-experiments    
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