NorCal Teslathon -- Interesting Devices and Effects

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

Original poster: "Greg Leyh by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <lod-at-pacbell-dot-net>

The NorCal teslathon at the Naval Shipyard, other than having a wide
range of coils in attendance, featured a number of interesting circuits
and innovations.  

The first that caught my eye was Kennan Herrick's vertical plasma tube,
which could produce a continuous chain of plasma balls in neon, with a
controllable drift velocity.  I'm still not sure how it works.  He also
showed his 48-MOSFET solid-state pulsed discharge (not CW) coil -- an
impressive engineering feat.

Kevin Ottalini brought a couple of extreme-ratio HV multiplier systems. 
THe first one, a miniature potted circuit, ran off of 4 AA cells and
produced a snappy igniter-grade 3/8" spark.  The other, an HF multiplier
feeding a Marx bank, ran off 4 C cells and produced 14" DC arcs!

Someone (sorry, I never found out who) brought a museum-grade Wimshurst
Machine as well, beautifully executed out of stainless, brass and
plexiglass.

Paul Butterfield brought his Dial-A-Spark system, whereby the entire
primary rotates against a copper rolling contact, enabling the primary
tap point to be adjusted while the coil is running.  This coil    
(http://hot-streamer-dot-com/temp/NCATeslathon/Big1.jpg) probably gets the
award for 'most extreme topload'.  He also brought the 'Thundermonica',
an ultra-low inertia rotary gap driven from a fast servo amp and
controlled by an organ keyboard.

For some daytime fun, Mark Pauline brought the 'Pitching Machine' by,
(http://hot-streamer-dot-com/temp/NCATeslathon/Splinter1.jpg) which uses a
455 Olds Toronado drive train to spin up two counter-rotating semi-truck
tires to 200 mph, then rapid-fires a load of 2x4's.

Kelek's coil (http://hot-streamer-dot-com/temp/NCATeslathon/Girl2.jpg) might
have broken the record for Spark Length vs. Input Power...  6 foot arcs
with _no_ power applied!  It turns out that her coil's resonant freq is
very close to mine, and was able to pick up enough E-field to throw some
decent arcs from where it was standing.  A 'safed coil' that throws
arcs... yet another coiling safety issue?  ^_^
-- 


-GL
www.lod-dot-org