Re: Sparkles in the arcs

["Ed Phillips" <evp-at-pacbell-dot-net> (by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>)]

Tesla list wrote:
> 
> Original poster: "Bert Hickman" <bert.hickman-at-aquila-dot-com>
> 
> Tesla list wrote:
> >
> > Original poster: "Ross Overstreet" <ross-o-at-mindspring-dot-com>
> >
> > Hi,
> > I was playing around with building fires on top of my toroid this weekend
> > when I stumbled across an interesting effect.  Burning cardboard apparently
> > liberates lots of carbon particles that make bright sparkles in the brush
> > discharge of a TC running at low power levels.  My photo didn't turn
out too
> > well, but you can get a rough idea of what I was seeing in the top photo on
> > my "arc pictures" page.
> > http://users.better-dot-org/roverstreet/Arc_pics/arcpics.html
> >
> > I bet the effect would be really spectacular if you get a lot more carbon
> > (or whatever made the sparkles) into the air around the toroid.  To repeat
> > this, all you have to do is light the cardboard and place it on the edge of
> > the toroid.  O

	Many years ago a friend of mine got interesting results by igniting
rubber-covered wire which was attached to the top of his coil, and then
powering up.  Can't remember what the Corums used...  By the way, a
small continer of burning turpentine atop the coil will produce more
carbon/soot particles than you can imagine!

> Ross,
> 
> VERY interesting!! These look very similar to the "ball lightning" that
> the Corums photographed off their system. Carbon particles are the
> likely cause... and there's speculation that similar particles generated
> the ball lightning that Tesla observed in his system when he had
> secondary flashovers on his systems (with carbon-producing cotton or
> gutta-percha (rubber) insulation). Do any of the sparkles last very
> long?
> 
> -- Bert --

Ed