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Re: Ball Lightning.
Tesla List wrote:
>
> > > Subject: Ball Lightning.
> > Subject: Re: Ball Lightning.
> > > Subject: Ball Lightning.
>
> >From bert.hickman-at-aquila-dot-comSun Nov 3 21:58:03 1996
> Date: Sat, 02 Nov 1996 07:09:02 -0800
> From: Bert Hickman <bert.hickman-at-aquila-dot-com>
> To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
> Subject: Re: Ball Lightning.
>
> Tesla List wrote:
> >
> > > Subject: Ball Lightning.
> >
> > >From gowin-at-epic-1.nwscc.sea06.navy.milFri Nov 1 21:49:48 1996
> > Date: Fri, 01 Nov 1996 10:42:11 -0500
> > From: Dan Gowin <gowin-at-epic-1.nwscc.sea06.navy.mil>
> > To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
> > Subject: Re: Ball Lightning.
> >
> > Tesla List wrote:
> > >
> > > >From jpbazemo-at-ouray.cudenver.eduThu Oct 31 22:50:32 1996
> > > Date: Thu, 31 Oct 1996 22:48:29 -0700 (MST)
> > > From: "J. Bazemore" <jpbazemo-at-ouray.cudenver.edu>
> > > To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
> > > Subject: Ball Lightning.
> > >
> > > Has anyone here created ball lightning?
> > >
> > > If so, can you do so again, and reliably?
> > >
> > > Thanks for your reply.
> >
> > By Accident,
> > My largest coils secondary is wound on a 4.5" PVC pipe sealed
> > in Polyurethane. Originally I built two for redundency, so both
> > have the same characteristics. I once attached my backup secondaries
> > base to the top of my main secondary just to try and grasp the idea
> > of a magnafier. Well, the sparks from the backup coils discharge
> > terminal
> > where pretty wimpy.
> > Suddenly, during the experiment, the alligator clip
> > attached to the base of the backup coil exploded. And the result was
> > about 5-6 golf ball sized fire things danced around on my concrete
> > floor for maybe 20 seconds. A word of caution though, I may be
> > exaggerating
> > as to the size and duration of the event because it scared the hell out
> > of me, but the phenomena is real enough. Why it occured is a mystery to
> > me.
> > I don't think I'll try using a magnifier again until I understand
> > the concept thoroughly.
> >
> > D. Gowin
>
> Dan,
>
> Veeerrrry Interesting...!
> Could you tell what actually failed around the alligator clip? Some
> inexpensive ones merely clamp the wire-lead to the clip and use a
> cheapie version of an insulation displacement connection which typically
> has high resistance and a poor connection. Could you tell if this was
> the point of failure or did the alligator clip's connection to the
> secondary base wire fail? If the latter, what type of wire insulation
> are you using on your secondaries? Was there any evidence of residue on
> the floor where the balls extinguished, was there any sound associated
> with them either during their movement or when they extinguished, and
> what was their color? Any idea what power level you were running at?
>
> I've had a poor base connection fail during high power operation on a
> 10" 2-coil system - the resulting arc was brilliant, hot blue-white,
> much like a welders' arc. If you had a poor connection, which then
> started arcing, you may have seen oxidizing metal or plastic fragments
> that may have also had a very high electrical charge.
>
> Sounds like something to try again - as long as you're not getting any
> flashovers on your driving coil, you shouldn't do any damage to your
> system...
> Thanks for sharing your experience with us!
>
> Safe possible ball lighnin' generation to ya!
>
> -- Bert --
Bert,
When I mean explode, I'm serious. The base wire of my backup
secondary coil was melted. The wire attached to the alligator clip was
soldered on and its melted. And parts of the alligator clip where
melted. The fire balls where green (I assume burning copper) and left
a white scorch mark on my concrete. I did not see a visible arc and
I don't seem to suffer alot of corona effects I've seen in other
coils.
My coils are all heavily sealed with polyurethane. Including
my primary, with the 3/8" copper having 10 coats. And is also covered
with a flat peice of plexyglass. I don't want any strikes on my
primary circuit. The fire balls sizzled like a steak and I was running
two 9KV 120 Ma neons wide open at 2KW. The secondary coils are 4.5" dia.
PVC pipe Scedule 40. With 940 approx turns of AWG 24 magnet wire for
an inductance of 19.88988 mH. I have not grid dipped the two coils
attached to each other to find my resonate freq. The magnet wire is
copper of course. And the wire attached to the two coils was a peice
of 40 KV wire from C&H supplies (steels core), with alligator clips
on both ends. I was running a .04 uF capacitor bank.
D. Gowin