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Local breakdown of the coating?
Ed
Paul B. Thompson wrote:
I bought an assortment of objects to try as top loads on my small,
tabletop coils. One is a oblate doorknob. It looks like brushed
stainless steel, but it might be brushed aluminum. The knob does not
stick to a magnet. It seems to have a heavy coat of clear coat.
typical for a closet door knob.
In place, it emits the usual sort of long, tendril-like streamers. So
far, so good. Then I noticed small sparkles popping up on the knob
surface while the coil operates. These are little, bright white
pinpoints of light that pop up, sparkle a very short time, then
vanish. They reappear all over the surface of the doorknob. They're
quite different from the streamers, which are long, lavender or
purplish, and moving. I thought the sparkles might be where a streamer
was trying to get through the clear coat and failing, but examining
the knob with a magnifying glass I can't find any perforations in the
clear coat that match where the sparkles appear.
What could these be? I am using a spark gap type coil, powered by a
7.5 KV NST, my own design dry Leyden jars (2 nF), with the lower end
of the secondary joined to the lower end of a helical primary, etc.