[TCML] flourescent light trick

[Chris Swinson]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "William Beaty" <billb at eskimo.com>
To: "Tesla Coil Mailing List" <tesla at pupman.com>
Sent: Sunday, November 18, 2007 7:06 AM
Subject: Re: [TCML] flourescent light trick


> On Wed, 14 Nov 2007, Chris Swinson wrote:
>
>> One thing I noticed with flu-tubes, that if you walk away from the coil
>> slowly, it goes dim, but just before it goes out totally the light
>> alternates inside the tube, such as 1" on, 1" off.. all the way up the
>> tube..
>
> That's called "positive column striations," and fluorescent tubes always
> have them all the time... but usually they're vibrating back and forth too
> fast to notice.   If you have a straight piece of clear neon sign tube,
> and sweep it rapidly back and forth while lit, then you can see the moving
> patterns.  They're also called "jellybeans" by neon sign makers.  With
> just the right gas mixture and high-freq power supply you can create
> stable ones in a neon sign, so the sign is made of "dotted lines."
>
> I wonder if sparks at one ATM also have them.   If the blotches are moving
> around fast, we might never realize that they exist.   (View sparks with a
> spinning mirror and look for swerving stripy patterns.)


Hi Bill,

So I am not going mad after all!

BTW, I keep trying to email you though never get a reply, wondering if my 
mails are getting junked for some reason ?

Chris