RE: High Voltage Experiments

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: William Beaty <billb@xxxxxxxxxx>

On Tue, 21 Jun 2005, Tesla list wrote:

>   All have given me static shocks after they have been turned off.

YOW!  Zapped myself.

If TC secondaries can give DC shocks, and if it works when we rub the TC
with cloth, etc., why doesn't this work with PCB rubbed with fur?  I took
a piece of single-side glass/epoxy PCB, grounded the metal side, then
rubbed the plastic side on hair.  Nuthin.  No big e-fields, no NE-2
flickers.  Apparently the hair/epoxy pair doesn't separate much charge.

Next, I sprayed the epoxy side with a negative ion generator needle array.
Sure enough, when I then dragged an NE-2 across the plastic it flickered.
So next I sprayed more negative charge on the plastic, disconnected
ground, then lifted the board and *dropped* it onto my hand, plastic side
down (in other words, I let go of the metal before touching the plastic.)
My hand now supplies one capacitor plate.  Then I let the metal edge of
the board touch my forearm.  SNAP.  Coooooool!  It's an "electrophorus"
with human capacitor plate, just like the very first Leyden jar.

I'll have to try this with other materials.  Maybe a PE or teflon sheet
with aluminum foil cemented to one side would give me painful zaps after
rubbing it with hair.   Or use sheet metal with rubber glove stretched
across one surface.

So why doesn't this happen all the time with beverage bottles?  If you
accidentally rub a plastic bottle on a wool blanket or jacket, then firml
grasp the bottle and touch the liquid to your lips, shouldn't you get a
wallop?  Maybe cold drinks always create condensation which shorts out the
excess charge faster than fur creates it.  (So try it with warm liquid.)
Or maybe we'd have to ground the liquid contents while rubbing the bottle
with fur, and if the liquid is electrically floating, potentials are
somewhat equal, so no zaps?


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William J. Beaty                            SCIENCE HOBBYIST website
billb at amasci com                         http://amasci.com
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