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- To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
- Subject: RE: lightning balls
- From: robert.michaels-at-online.sme-dot-org (Robert Michaels)
- Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 17:53:42 GMT
- Organization: Society of Manufacturing Engineers
T>I'm not an expert coiler or anything, but have done a decent amount of T>research even though I have yet to complete my first TC. I was just T>wondering if those comercial lightning things (you know the glass ball T>with lightning inside) have any relation to Tesla Coils?? T>just curious, T>Matt Curtis T>curtisma-at-umich.edu University of Mich.? (...-at-umich.edu). Well hi, neighbor! The product I believe you are describing is called a Plasma Globe. They require high-frequency, high-voltage current for oper- ation. Such of course is the very stuff of Tesla coiling. Howsoforeverbethatasitmay -- the power supply for plasma globes is comprised of a solid-state oscillator driving a resonant transformer with a ferrite core. This is virtually identical to the high-voltage power supply in CRT-based tv's and video/computer monitors. The extent to which such power supplies can be considered Tesla coils is debatable. And such debate has been known to to provoke flame wars, if not fist-fights. - - - - - - - No less an august personage than Dr. Tesla himself described what are tantamount to plasma globes in many of his writings. So he can be justly called the inventor of same. HosoforeverbyTHATasitmay -- Dr. Tesla's focus was quite different. Rather than a plaything for Radio-Shack shoppers Dr. Tesla appears to have been seeking a device for general purpose illumination - a sort of Tesla-coil-driven light bulb. Ergo - his plasma globes were constructed somewhat differently than the modern incarnation. Nonetheless, his were comprised of an evacuated globe, a central electrode, and Tesla current for power. Shedding some en-LIGHT-enment, Robert Michaels - Tough Enough to Live in Detroit, USA
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