Re: Ball Lightning from high-amp discharge

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: William Beaty <billb@xxxxxxxxxx>

On Sun, 14 Jan 2007, Tesla list wrote:

> Original poster: "M G" <gt4awd@xxxxxxxxx>
> Hi all, I remember seeing pictures on a website that seemed to
> show a tesla coil creating ball lightning from the topload as it ran.

That might be the Corum and Corum paper in both TCBA news and in
Proceedings of the 1990 International Tesla Symposium.  Here's a copy.

http://home.dmv.com/~tbastian/ball.htm

Also another old page (but photos are lost)
http://web.archive.org/web/20000616235344/http://www.interprise2000.com/image_gallery_frame.htm



> These photographs looked amazing, but I can't seem to find them
> agian. If anyone knows the website that has these photographs
> please share the link.
> This happens as a result of the coil running very high amperage or
> is there more involved to create ball lightning using a tesla coil?

Corum and Corum used two coils at different frequencies, letting streamers
strike between them.   This gives results similar to shorting two
large capacitors together at different voltages: a big bang as the
voltages equalize.   Rather than building two coils, you might get the
same results if you let the streamers from one coil strike the terminals
of an energy-discharge capacitor bank at high DC voltage.  I hear that
several people have tried such things.   But it seems that some sort of
contamination is needed (either carbon or very thin vaporized wire) before
any glowing blobs are created.



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William J. Beaty                            SCIENCE HOBBYIST website
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