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Re: [TCML] Jacob's Ladder
On 2/1/11 9:35 AM, Scott Bogard wrote:
Hi David,
It is the current that nearly solely determines the range an arc
can be stretched, so I imagine there will be no improvement at all
upgrading to a 15kV NST. You can add another 9kV in parallel, and it
will make your arc stretch much longer, but also puts you deeper into
"lethal" territory (most likely not, but there is always a chance.)
DO NOT USE DC!!!!! If you touch a wire it will latch onto you and you
will die an agonizing death. Ac will let go in one 60th of a second
and muscle contractions will pull you off of the wire, substantially
safer.
Not entirely accurate, but, in general, you shouldn't be touching either.
If you want to do something cool and new, I would suggest
building a glass enclosure and filling it with with an argon gas/air
mixture, with the right concentrations you can make cool colors, get a
much longer spark, but still have it keep it's Jacob's ladder
characteristics. Not to mention a glass tube will support a helix
shaped ladder quite nicely. Food for thought.
You can do spirals quite nicely in air as long as you have something to
hold the top of the ladder still.
For fun, put things in between the electrodes (but not touching) that
have been dipped in suitable salts (strontium and barium compounds are
nice). A tennis ball works nicely, although the smell of burning wool
(the fuzz) is kind of disgusting. A cork works too.
The sparks will go around the surface, and be strongly colored by the salts.
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