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Re: [TCML] Would a Tesla coil work in a vaccum?



Speaking of vacuum and high voltage, here's something I've done with a bi-pole coil. I mention this now, because I've been meaning to ask y'all if I might be producing a bit too much x-ray radiation in the process. I've placed a glass tube across my electrodes, running them into the tube through rubber stoppers. The length of the tube allows "normal" arcing to take place. But then as I begin to draw a vacuum in the tube, the arcs smooth out into a plasma stream. With my little manual pump, I'm only able to get down to between 20 to 25 in/hg, but is this enough to cause a dangerous amount of x-rays to form? Is there some way of easily checking for x-rays? For example, would a geiger counter work, or is there another way (short of exposing sheet film to find out)? My kids are grown, and I'm sure not anticipating more at this stage of the game, but I'd like to avoid other annoying side effects like brain tumors and such.

Thanks for your input on this,

Neal.

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From: "Bert Hickman" <bert.hickman@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, April 17, 2010 2:33 PM
To: "Tesla Coil Mailing List" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [TCML] Would a Tesla coil work in a vaccum?

Hi Brian,

Assuming you were able to draw an ultra-high vacuum on the secondary, you would not see any streamers or leaders initially. If you used a breakout point to concentrate the E-field, you may generate electron field emission - electrons begin to be forcefully ejected from sharp points if the E-field becomes sufficiently high (of the order of 10 MV/cm) during negative half cycle voltage excursions. Because of the extremely high current density at field-emission points, small amounts of electrode material are usually vaporized and explosively ejected, forming a brief puff of diffuse plasma that can conduct current.

If the applied voltage is further increased and (depending upon the type


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