Re: Tesla Coil Experiments

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: Ed Phillips <evp@xxxxxxxxxxx>

"tesla@xxxxxxxxxx writes:
Good morning,
    Several years ago, I bought a 3 inch by 6 foot clear acrylic tube. I
sealed one end with a flat piece of acrylic and put brass acorn nuts on
both sides of the flat piece ( electrically connected). On the other end
of
this pipe, I put another piece of flat acrylic with a 1/4 inch I.D.
copper
pipe glued thru a hole in this piece. In other words, I can attach a
vacuum
pump to the copper pipe and evacuate the tube. I had spoken to someone
about making a "lightning tube" using this tube, but have since lost the
email. I seem to remember him telling me to evacuate the tube and then
back
fill with neon or other gas and seal the tube. When supported near my
TC,
it would supposedly conduct thru the gas and show "lightning". Am I on
the
right path??? Can someone steer me in the right direction on this
project??? Maybe off-list since this might be a little off-topic ??? I'm
just looking for some interesting things to do with my TC.

Thanx
George Stein
Bedford, Va."

	The "rumor I hear" (from plasma globe circles) is to backfill with
helium. Neon or argon could be used too. I would suspect that one could
simply close off the top of the tube, inject the helium through a tube
at the bottom, and let it displace the air.  I don't know whether
there's enough helium in the "helium" one can buy to fill party baloons,
but might be worth an experiment as it's not too expensive.

Ed