Original poster: Jim Lux <jimlux@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> At 11:23 PM 11/27/2005, you wrote:
Original poster: "JT Bowles" <jasotb@xxxxxxxxxxx>Amperage determines how far an arc may be drawn. Cannot it be true that at 20KV, one inch may be stretched to 10 feet? (perhaps if the amperage is INCREDIBLY HIGH, millions of amps)Thank you mike- 20Kv is a common measurement
I don't think you could stretch a 20kV source quite that far.. with a lot of current behind it, perhaps a few feet.
here's a picture of big Jacob's ladder at the Deutsches Museum http://www.luxfamily.com/travel/austria/images/dm2.jpgI think it's 60kV. The squares in the mesh are probably 2" or 3", for scale, but they're a lot closer to the camera. The distance at the top of the horn gap is around 50-60 cm, as I recall, maybe a bit bigger. That's a many hundred kVA transformer driving it, by the way.