Re: Saltwater ballast

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

Original poster: "Christoph Bohr by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <cb-at-luebke-lands.de>

I did that some years ago, but wouldn't do it again for several reasons:

1st: The combination of saltwater and electricity is quite dangerous as you
can imagine, one must have a very good container with some isolated handles
to move the electrodes and that prevents the saltwater from spilling around

2nd: you can't use a sealed container because of  the gases that develop,
that means there will allways be a chance of spilling some water and by that
getting in contact with the AC line

3rd: the gases are mainly oxigen and hydrogen in the best ( or worst )
mixing ratio ( 1:2 ) known as detonating gas, thats very likely to explode
if any arcing occours.

4th: from the salt in the water ( NACL ) you will get chlorine which is not
only noxious but will cause metal parts to corrode very fast.

5th: for TC use: this is a pure resitive ballast, which means you will waste
a lot of power and loose secondary voltage, it might only work well in a
combination with some kind of inductive ballasting.....

I have to admit, this saltwater thing really seemed to be undestroyable, but
for the above reasons I wouldn't recommend it.


Christoph

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
To: <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Sent: Sunday, May 04, 2003 4:22 AM
Subject: Saltwater ballast


 > Original poster: "Richard W. by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>"
<potluck-at-xmission-dot-com>
 >
 > Hi List,
 >
 > I don't know the feasability for TC work but I've used saltwater for
 > ballasting though it was a long time ago.
 >
 > The project was an arc lamp using the carbon rods salvaged from old size D
 > batteries. These rods were about 1/4" diameter and about 2 1/2" long. The
 > ballast was a pyrex casserole dish about a foot long, 10" wide and 2
inches
 > deep. This was filled with saltwater. Two electrodes, strips of 1/8"
 > aluminum plate, submerged at each end formed the ballast then wired in
 > series with the carbon rods to a 120vac outlet.
 >
 > The rods were struck together to start a small arc. Then the aluminum
 > electrodes were moved closer together, the rods separated further apart to
 > draw a larger arc. This was done in steps. With a 30 amp fuse (yeah, it
was
 > a while ago) I was able to get the rods almost an inch apart developing a
 > huge arc. After a few minutes the water would actually begin to steam but
 > the fuse remained intact unless I tried moving the electrodes too close to
 > each other.
 >
 > Like I said, I don't know if this has any value to TC ballasting but it
did
 > work for me for that particular project.
 >
 > Rick W.
 > Salt Lake
 >
 >
 >
 >