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Re: [TCML] Jacob's Ladder



jimlux wrote:
On 2/7/11 7:07 AM, Bert Hickman wrote:
David Steinberg wrote:
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?
The breakdown and reignition voltage of argon is considerably lower than
air, and an argon arc will typically be ~5X the length of an arc in air
under identical conditions.


that much longer?

I never seem to get that... twice is the best I've been able to do.
Maybe it's convection/electrode shape/heating dependent? I haven't tried
a jacob's ladder in argon, just a drawn arc between two hemispheres or
conical points.
You may be correct. The Ayrton arc equation predicts a 2-3X enhancement 
based upon expected voltage drop across the arc for low-current DC arcs 
(and likely for 60 Hz as well). The actual degree of enhancement 
undoubtedly depends on the electrode materials, configuration, shape, 
etc. My 5X estimate came from my notes from many years back, based upon 
a communication with a CA coiler. The initial breakdown voltage for 
argon is about 15% that of air (i.e., a spark in argon will jump about 
6X as long as in air) but it must be relatively pure argon  (i.e., much 
less than 1% O2).
The enhancement effect is apparently greater at higher frequencies. For 
example, Bill Beaty reported that a 1" long air TC discharge became one 
foot long white, snake-like discharges in argon. He also warns against 
using argon-CO2 mix, since CO2 apparently poisons the mix. See:
http://amasci.com/tesla/heli1.html

This suggests that powering the argon ladder from an electronic NST or other HF source may provide better performance than a 60 Hz NST.
Bert
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