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(Bizarre) Strange Spark Phenomena


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From:  Scott Stephens [SMTP:stephens-at-enteract-dot-com]
Sent:  Wednesday, February 04, 1998 12:31 AM
To:  Tesla List
Subject:  Re: (Bizarre) Strange Spark Phenomena

At 02:15 PM 2/3/98 -0600, you wrote:

>Richard, Jim, all,
>
>I don't remember if I mentioned it on this list previously, but when
>I operate my small staccato tube coil that produces the one, straight,
>swordlike stabbing spark, if I turn up the power a little higher, small
>sparks begin to appear at right angles to the main spark "trunk".  

Electron resonance would be on the order of 1GHz with a 1/4 wavelength
around 3".  At this point, I would expect the velocity of the electrons to
be the fastest at that point, and the heated ions hotest. Ion resonance
would be far lower, on the order of 1MHz.

With the extending spark increasing the capacitance of the coil, I would
expect best performance when the coil is tuned higher than resonance, so the
coil becomes dynamicaly matched to a spark.

>The small sparks are separated by a few inches and I think evenly
>spaced along the main trunk spark.  The whole thing looks like a
>utility pole with the climbing nails that stick out of it going all the
>way up to the top.  The main spark on the staccato coil is about 17"
>high and goes straight upwards.

I can see how sausage and kink instability would result in the spark
branching out around sharp bend radi, where the field become high.

>I have to take a look at the coil output to verify that these small
>right angle spark protrusions are truly spaced evenly...but if they
>are...it would suggest to me some sort of node points, maybe
>a ringing in the arc itself, or some harmonic action, etc.  Or maybe
>there's a better explanation.  Whatever it is, it's very bizarre, and
>I've never seen anything like it in other types of coils. 

This is a CW tube coil? Impulse driven coils don't have long before their
energy dissapates. On the order of 10's of microseconds, I think. Not much
time for anything interesting to happen.