Re: Sword-like VTTC spark pix at my website

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

Original poster: "Edward Wingate by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <ewing7-at-rochester.rr-dot-com>

Tesla list wrote:
> 
> Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>"
<Fucian-at-aol-dot-com>
> 
> In a message dated 2/7/01 8:15:35 PM Eastern Standard Time, tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
> writes:
> 
> << 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

John,

One of my early rotary gap/toroid equipped tabletop coils exhibited this
property at a certain gap speed. The "vortex" would walk around the top
perimeter of the toroid for long periods of time with the proper gap
speed. Since I was looking for maximum spark length, I didn't find the
effect particularly endearing and would adjust the gap speed up or down
to eliminate it. It should be noted that John is using DC to drive the
tank circuit.

Ed Wingate RATCB