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RE: [TCML] Jacob's Ladder

Thank you all for your suggestions.

I'm considering the glass enclosure with argon gas.  As I've never worked
with glass enclosures or argon before, I have a couple of questions:

1.	What length of arc should I expect?
2.	Does anyone have a basic design for this?
3.	Do I need to "de-gas" the glass before filling with argon?
4.	Where do I get argon?

Thanks,

David

-----Original Message-----
From: jimlux [mailto:jimlux@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: February-01-11 2:37 PM
To: Tesla Coil Mailing List
Subject: 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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