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Donner und Blitzen
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From: Antonio Carlos M. de Queiroz [SMTP:acmq-at-compuland-dot-com.br]
Sent: Monday, February 23, 1998 12:46 AM
To: Tesla List
Subject: Re: Donner und Blitzen
L.Robertson wrote:
> Why not put a jolly big pulse discharge capacitor
> between the bottom of the secondary and ground.
> Charge it up to many tens of kV, then crank up the
> coil as usual. Any ionization path to ground ought
> to benefit from the energy stored in the big cap.
A very interesting experiment.
> Initial low power testing with six inches of spark,
> but no charge on the big cap revealed an interesting
> phenomenon. If the toroid was shorted to ground, nothing
> happened. When no spark was present, again nada.
> When spark was present though, a slow but steady charge
> built up on the Aerovox. 20 seconds of spark would
> produce about 5000 volts of DC on the capacitor.
Positive or negative 5000 V? Breakout potential is somewhat
different for positive and negative potentials, with one polarity
breaking out of conductors more easily (the negative, I think).
This causes some rectification to occur when sparks flow from
the coil terminal to ground, leaving a DC charge in your capacitor.
Or so I think.
Antonio Carlos M. de Queiroz
http://www.coe.ufrj.br/~acmq