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Re: A Question, Please (fwd)
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 1 May 1998 02:24:53 +0500
From: "Alfred A. Skrocki" <alfred.skrocki-at-cybernetworking-dot-com>
To: Tesla List <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Subject: Re: A Question, Please (fwd)
On Fri, 1 May 1998 11:14:53 -0400 John Heck
<jkh-at-lexis-nexis-dot-com> wrote;
> Folks,
> The other nigh my antique radio club showed a taping of a BBC TV show from
> the "Secret World of Machines" series which was about the development of
> television. As part of this show the moderator demonstrated/explained some
> electronic components. Part of this display consisted of a demonstration of
> some kind of static discharge machine which I could not identify, and which
> was not named on the show. It had a large(~24") plastic hollow sphere in which
> was a much smaller(~4") metallic ball. The ball was giving off a constant
> discharge of bluish "plasma like" streamers which seemed to originate at the
> small ball and streamed to the outer sphere. They crackled and branched and
> seemed quite "thick" and luminescant.
The device you are describing, John, is called a "Plasma Sphere" in amateur
circles and commercially was originally called "The Eye of the Storm",
Radio Shack sells small versions of these as a novelty lighting device
that can be connected to your stereo and it will change it's display in
rhytm to the music.
> The moderator said that this machine could be made from the high voltage parts
> found in most tube type TVs.
Yes, most people use a modified flyback transformer from a T.V. to generate
the High Voltage needed to drive a plasma globe or sphere. The hardest part
in making plasm spheres is evacuating the sphere to the necessary degree of
vacuum needed, but it is not an insurmountable job. Many of us have made
them. If your interested in them, I would suggest searching the High
Voltage list archives at http://anchorage.ab.umd.edu/hvlist.html . I would
also suggest joining the High Voltage list, as it is devoted to all things
High Voltage that are NOT Tesla coils! I lost my signon/off instructions
but I'm sure someone on the list will chime in with the instructions.
Sincerely
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Alfred A. Skrocki
Alfred.Skrocki.Sr-at-JUNO-dot-com
alfred.skrocki-at-cybernetworking-dot-com
Visit my Do-It-Yourself Aquarium WEB page at;
http://www.geocities-dot-com/CapeCanaveral/6251
.ooo0 0ooo.
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