Re: Conductive paint

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <Tesla729-at-cs-dot-com>

In a message dated 1/6/01 11:19:28 AM Pacific Standard Time, tesla-at-pupman-dot-com 
writes:

<< "Christopher Telford by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" 
<christophertelford-at-yahoo-dot-com>
 
 Hello Chuck, 
 
 I experimented a bit with conductive paint. I found
 that it works well for about 10 secs, then starts to
 burn off. Maybe you wouldn't have problems with this
 if u used better stuff than i did. I was using cheap
 spray on stuff. >>

Hi Chris, Chuck, all,
I recall some 20-odd years ago when I was in high school when
I built a Van de Graf generator that I used a 12" dia globe light
fixture covered inside and out with aluminized silver paint for the
charge collector. Anyway, I ran into this same problem with this
paint with the relatively weak 8" to 10" electrostatic discharges 
that it produced. Also, after the paint started burning away, it would
laeve isolated patches of conductive paint on the inside and outside
of the globe and when I picked it up to move it, it would act like a 
capacitor and shock my hand, as it would serve as the conductive 
"bridge" between the isolated concuctive areas. I can tell you that
this aproach would be useless as an option for a Tesla discharge
terminal, as the power level of Tesla discharges are much greater
and more continuous than those of electrostatic generators. 10 sec-
onds sounds about right for the life of this type of terminal in Tesla 
service :^)

My $.02,
David Rieben