Re: Mineral oil in australia??

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

Original poster: "Peter Terren by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <pterren-at-iinet-dot-net.au>

Sheik, See comments below from a fellow Oz coiler.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
To: <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Sent: Friday, April 11, 2003 10:19 PM
Subject: Mineral oil in australia??


 > Original poster: "Sheik by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>"
<seb-at-ihug-dot-com.au>
 >
 > Hello, I have had lots of trouble finding mineral oil in australia =
 > (brisbane). The best i could do was 20L of transformer oil for $80AU =
 > from Shell oils, however this is way too pricey for my budget. Only form =
 > of mineral oil I can find is baby oil, which has aloe vera, scents, and =
 > other water-laden stuff in it. Plus a 250ml bottle is like $4Au. Any =
 > idea if i can use car transmission oil or something else? Or where I =
 > might find mineral oil in decent quantaties?
 >
      Transformer oil works well and is of low flammability and low viscosity
and is designed for the job. Before I knew this, I made a flat plate
capacitor which took perhaps 10 - 20 h to make and filled it with motor oil.
Big mistake. The result (in the transparent case) was a bright yellow
arcing/corona around all the plates which was both beautiful and horrible to
watch. Interestingly it only did this in a Tesla setup while the spark gap
was running and not with 12 kV alone and really impressed me that Tesla use
is tough on capacitors.  You could try Ampol/Caltex which was slightly
cheaper at about $70 and share with a fellow coiler. Details in my web site
http://members.iinet-dot-net.au/~pterren/ . Maybe contact other coilers in your
area.  I think Greg Peters is in Brisbane
http://www.geocities-dot-com/gregjpeters/ and gets 12 feet sparks at 10kW.

Peter