Re: Sword-like VTTC spark pix at my website

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

Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <FutureT-at-aol-dot-com>

In a message dated 2/7/01 1:43:33 PM Eastern Standard Time, tesla-at-pupman-dot-com 
writes:

> >  Is this correct, and if so can the effect
>  >  be duplicated with a "conventional" coil.  If I place a breakout point 
on
>  >  the top of my small coil with a spherical topload, I get something 
> similar,
>  >  but the arc usually branches a few times and waves around.  I estimate 
> the
>  >  breakrate of my static gap to be about 400.  Thanks for sharing that 
with
>  >  the group.
>  

Hans,

A coiler named John Kent has built a spark gap coil which ran at a moderate
bps, and gave a most unusual straight-ish spark from the top of 
a sherical top load.  This spark, which was similar to my sword like
VTTC spark, actually rotated like a corkscrew or vortex.  He called this type
of spark a "sprite".  I've never heard of this type of spark from anyone
else.  It was a rather remarkable thing to see.  As the coil ran, this
condition would occasionally disappear, and a normal type of spark
would form.  Then at some point, one could see the corkscrew effect
starting to form again.  It was very interesting, and it would be 
interesting to experiment with such effects.   I realize that spherical
toploads often form a straight spark, but this was somewhat different
than other cases I've seen.

JOhn Freau