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Re: Carnegie Science Center

>Anyone of you experienced coilers ever get to Pittsburgh?

>On the 4th floor of the Carnegie Science Center they have a ~10'
>coil built in 1911 by a student at Carnegie Tech (now CMU).

>I was there last week & hung around till they fired it up.

>It was pathetically out of tune.

>The "discharger" was a ~8-10" brass ball with 2 4-6" spikes on
>the opposite sides.  All it could do was throw 2-3' purple streamers.
>It's inside a big steel cage, and 8' arcs would be perfectly safe.

>It really needs some expert help.

>I know the director of the planetarium (Martin Ratcliffe), and if
>you tell him I sent you, it might help get you access.

    
       I used to volunteer at Buhl Science center when I was 12 years
old (10 years ago).  At that time, the coil was dissassembled, but the
secondary was on display in the science theater.  I had my (even
more pathetic) coil on display, and would demonstrate it and other 
interesting devices to the public.  This was an incredibly fun job at
the time -- especially for my age.  I often dreamed of seeing that coil
fired up, but had to settle for the pictures of it operating back in the
50's.  When the Buhl Science Center merged with the Carnegie (1990?)
talk began of the new science center.  With it came hope of bringing
the big coil back to life.  Most of the components were stored in the
old Kaufmann's warehouse (GE transformer, capacitor, gaps, etc).
Of  course concerns arose as to the PCB contents of the capacitor,
transformer, etc.  I REALLY wanted to assist with the restoration, but
a paying job lessened my time available to volunteer.  Some of the
original designs for the Carnegie Science Center featured a massive
glass pyramid that was to be incorporated on the side of the building
most visible to the city.  It was proposed that the coil be installed inside
this pyramid.  For those who have been to Pittsburgh before, imagine
driving out of the Fort Pitt tunnels at night, and seeing massive sparks
dancing inside of this pyramid!  Of course, like all things that have 
potential to be cool, the idea was scrapped due to budget concerns. 
In 1992, I finally got to see the old coil fired up in the exhibit called
'The Works'.  Impressive, but not what I was expecting in relation to 
it's geometry.  The coil gets put to good use in the exhibit, though.
One presentation is a 'play and forget' show that is operated off of
a multi track (48?) digital tape.  Video, lasers, fog, music, robots,
Van Degraff, and even the Tesla coil are operated from it.  At one
point in the show,  your attention is drawn to the side of the room
opposite the coil (of course it is dark in the room), and ZAP! the
coil springs to life.  I really loved staffing this show, as the crowd
jumped EVERY time that coil was fired!!  
   On the performance aspect, I actually believe they detuned it somewhat
for the new exhibit.  Don't hold me to this, but the pictures I have
seen from the 50's show some massive streamers being generated.
Perhaps they were concerned with all of the equipment in the room??
Cage or not...  the exhibit cost was deep in the 6 figures, if not more!
    I really wish I could have been more involved with the restoration;
I would have so much more information to give!  Not to mention an
entry on my resume' that would look much better than what I was
doing at the time instead!! 
   ____________________________________________
  /  George Dodworth                                         /.
 /    gpd104-at-psu.edu   FC3S    A4000T/040    /<
/     >tHE bONG<  http://146.186.200.42     /{
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