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Fun with CD's (and argon)
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From: Mike Harrison [SMTP:wwl-at-netcomuk.co.uk]
Sent: Monday, March 09, 1998 6:27 AM
To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: Fun with CD's (and argon)
I Just found a neat trick you can do with a small coil (12" spark)-
Take a microwaved CD-ROM (and we DO all know what CDs do in
microwaves, DONT't we?!), and prop it up so it stands on edge on top
of the toroid, with a ground 'target' arranged so the discharge will
hit the top edge of the CD.
When you fire up, the whole disc surface lights up with thousands of
tiny arcs across the disc (like a very frantic version of one of those
plasma disc lamps), and gradually all the metallization comes off &
the arcs get fewer and bigger, until you're left with an almost
completely clear disc. CD-R's give a nice blue/green tinge through
the dye layer, and lots of gold flakes fluttering around!
On a big coil, several CDs going at once would probably look pretty
cool - maybe a long string of them tied edge-to edge?
I was also playing around with a can of welding argon, using 3mm
yellow plastic pneumatics tubing - it looks real pretty when the argon
in a foot or two of tube lights up! It seems to work better under
pressure. Must get me some other colours - poor man's neon sign,
anyone!
____ ____
_/ L_/ Mike Harrison / White Wing Logic / wwl-at-netcomuk.co.uk _/ L_/
_/ W_/ Hardware & Software design / PCB Design / Consultancy _/ W_/
/_W_/ Industrial / Computer Peripherals / Hazardous Area /_W_/