Re: Fun with Argon

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: "john cooper" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

In a pure argon atmosphere the arcs will travel at least 5x their normal 
length and appear much, much hotter than 'normal'.  Also, they may approach 
8x their normal (atmospheric gases) length.  I've around 4 or 5 years of 
experience in this area (see the bi-polar coil page on my web).

Here's an idea for some potentially great photos, fill large balloons with 
argon, attach them above the coil and while it's running, with cameras at 
the ready, puncture the balloons (many ways to do this), argon is heavier 
than our atmosphere and it will drift down into the discharge area, you 
could also spray that area directly with a bottle of argon, don't worry, 
nothing will blow, and the arcs going into the hose up into the bottle is 
of no consequence..........Send me copies.  I'll be doing this experiment 
fairly soon.  The only problem is that our atmosphere is around 78% 
nitrogen, which inhibits arcing (which is why I use it to blast spark gaps 
on some of my designs), so a fairly large quantity of argon needs to be 
discharged into the arcing area.  But who knows?  That's the fun of an 
experiment.

And from what little that I know, you do directly smell the ozone (which is 
damaging to the lungs, and Tesla wanted to open "Ozone Parlours", go 
figure).  There are other breakdown products but that 'sweet' smell is you 
nose directly identifying ozone.


Cheers,

John F. Cooper
Irvine, CA
www.Tesla-Coil.com
www.FrankensteinsLab.com


>>
>>Does a tesla coil need air to discharge?  I also thought of filling the
>>case with argon or some inert gas.  I also thought that this might
>>affect the amount of sparks produced because it probably wouldn't
>>be as conductive.
>
>The arcs will be about 5X longer in argon!!  Nitrogen would be the best
>choice there I think.  But just air should be fine.  The problem with the
>fancy gasses is that they all do odd things to the spark behavior.  Arcs
>travel about 5X longer in argon.
>
>Cheers,
>
>         Terry
>