Re: Not a mercury interrupter! (but this is!)

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

Original poster: "Antonio Carlos M. de Queiroz by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <acmq-at-compuland-dot-com.br>

Tesla list wrote:
> 
> Original poster: "Terry Fritz" <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>

> Many thanks for the clarification!  I looked at the interrupter patents
> Dave Thomson mentioned and it was apparent that the machine in the picture
> was something else.  I wonder if anyone in modern days has tried Mercury
> interrupters?  Obviously, there is a great safety concern even if Tesla did
> escape mercury poisoning himself.  However, I "think" the Colorado Springs
> and New York project were both based on mercury interrupters.

This is an old mercury interrupter:
http://www.coe.ufrj.br/~acmq/tesla/rotarysw.jpg
I didn't open it yet to see what exactly is inside.
It has a motor above and a sealed enclosure below with a pool of
mercury.
The motor turns a part that produces two jets of mercury, that
touch fixed terminals. The enclosure was filled with lighting gas 
(without air, of course) during operation.

Antonio Carlos M. de Queiroz