Re: water spark gaps

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

Hi all,

 I have to concur here.  This phenonemon is known as "exploding
water", something else to do with those big 'ole pulse caps you
have hangin' around for your cancrushers! ;)  The pressure
generated is truly insane, and potentially dangerous.  The more
joules, the worse it gets.  An 11kj discharge into 10cc of water
was *quite* impressive, and blasted the aluminum tube it was in
apart.

  But as for the spark-gap worthiness of it..I dunno...I'd imagine
the water would ionize pretty quick and become useless as an
insulator (like air in a static gap).
  But how about HV oil?  Might that work better?  Hmmm...Sparkgap
under Oil...anybody tried that?
                        Just my putterin' $.02
                                                Sundog
-----Original Message-----
From: Tesla list <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Date: Wednesday, November 29, 2000 9:17 PM
Subject: Re: water spark gaps


>Original poster: "$" <Steve-at-g8cyerichmond.freeserve.co.uk>
>
>Some years ago I experimented with discharging caps through water
spark
>gaps. I stopped for eone reason only, it is extremely dangerous!!.
The short
>puls at high energy simply converts water to high high pressure
steam (i'm
>talking about steam at 100s of degrees C.
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Tesla list <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
>To: <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
>Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2000 3:01 PM
>Subject: Re: water spark gaps
>
>
>> Original poster: "Jochen Kronjaeger"
<Kronjaeg-at-Stud-Mailer.Uni-Marburg.DE>
>>
>>
>> > 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 r
apidly.
>>
>> 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
>>
>>  ---------------------------------------------------------------
----------
>--
>>   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
>>  ---------------------------------------------------------------
----------
>--
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
>