Static collection off of a tesla coil.

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Garry Freemyer by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <garry-at-ndfc-dot-com>

I know a lot of us have experienced the phenomena of being shocked by static
build up off a tesla coil.

I had an idea for a kind of static collector. Air would flow into the bottom
of a secondary, and instead of having a toroid on top, the air enters a
plastic pipe at the upper end that has a metal globe on the end to collect
the static charge much like a Van-De-Graaf generator collects the charge off
a moving belt.

I don't think it would be as spectacular as the output from the coil itself,
but it would be an interesting experiment and maybe a mini-TC could be used
to generate a charge that could be collected and stored.

I had the idea of using a kind of charged ion generator made of a needle
pointing to the center of a loop where the needle would be connected to the
negative side of a DC HV supply and the loop to a positive side. The
apparatus generated quite a bit of a gust for a half inch loop, and I was
able to collect a charge on the sphere. The ion generator isn't my idea but
an old friends. Unfortunately, it appears that the charge is bled off far
quicker than the little 2kv 5ma laser power supply could charge it. I got
these tiny microscopic sparks that were barely seen. I might try some more.

Garry Freemyer - N6RQS