Hi Dave,
I'm assuming that Jeff is referring to the faint, partial, purplish discharges that seem to
"connect" to the grounded object that he brings in sufficiently close proximity to the
discharge terminal, but do not result in a complete discharge via the brighter, bluish-
white sparks that we are all familiar with when he moves the grounded object in even
closer. I have noticed a similar phenomenon with my x-ray transformers (~AC output)
with a fixed gap across the HV output when I gradually ramp up their input voltage via
a variac. First, the corona "hiss" gradually gets louder as I ramp up the voltage and
"sometimes" I will get a faint "tearing cloth" sound that stands out from the background
hiss right before the gap completely breaks down to form an arc. When viewing the gap
in a dark room, I can see partial discharges that bridge the gap with this sound. However,
there seems to be a very fine balance of voltage control vs. available ions in the air gap
to reliably replicate this effect and it probably only happens <10% of the time without just
breaking down as a full flaming arc, minus this "phantom" discharge. It is really neat to see
(and hear) when I'm lucky enough to catch it, though. :^) Maybe a St. Elmo's fire effect?
Another David (Rieben)
On Wednesday, May 21, 2014 1:21 PM, David Thomson <tcbuilder@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Jeff, what are you calling "phantom streamers?" Can you provide a single
frame shot or describe the streamer?
Dave
On Tue, May 20, 2014 at 7:18 PM, jeff_behary <jeff_behary@xxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:
> 15 minute video.
>
> Phantom Streams in darkness and light, and effect…:
> http://youtu.be/R66mO7vW2eo
>
> From old discussions, finally caught on video. Barely visible but better
> than nothing :)
> Mentioned by Tesla and perfected by Kinraide in 1904 with a Tesla Coil
> that produced discharges to rival a static breeze (for
> electrotherapeutics)...
>
> Jeff
>
> Sent via the Samsung GALAXY S® 5, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone
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