Ball Lightning Experiment

[AtomicTest]

Hello all. This is my first post here. I am currently taking a break on my Fusor endeavors and have now decided on some ball lightning experiments. I decided to reproduce the St. Petersburg water discharge experiment as depicted in the affixed URL address.

 

So far, I have been unsuccessful. My capacitor bank is currently at 7.9 uf with a discharge voltage of approx 9kv. I ramped up the current to almost 16uf with no change. Just a louder report. (It should be noted that the capacitance range in prior successfull tests have been from .5 to 25uf) I have even gone through a full range of brine solutions thinking that may have played a part in this. No luck.

 

Here is my question: Has anyone here been able to replicate this experiment ? If so, what was you set up ? Specifically, how is the center positive electrode constructed and placed in the brine solute ?

 

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

Here is the link:

http://www.ipp.mpg.de/ippcms/eng/presse/pi/05_06_pi.html

 

Mark

[richard]

You need a small silicon wafer. Place it between electrodes and then slowly draw them apart.

[AtomicTest]

Richard,

You are refering to a completely different experiment. The one you are refrencing has been popularized by youtube. Here is the link:

 

 

If you watch the video in the first link, it is clear the have very little in common.

 

I specifically need information related to the Russian "St Petersburg" experiment or the replication experiment done by the Max Planck Institute of Plasma Physics.

 

Mark

[Rocket Man]

look up "plasmoid" on wiki, it describes one as a magnetically self contained plasma.

the simplest one you can make is a toroid like a smoke ring.

i'd line the inside edge of a petri dish with alfoil, place a conductive spire in the exact middle, put a bit of water in it and run it like a mason plasmoid generator.

 

"powerlabs" has an experiment on water discharge, though he wasn't making plasmiods.

 

the image in your link looks thoroughly photoshopped with a flash offset top left. i didn't think water could have a green spectral emmission either. however, the shape and intensity distribution of the plasma is quite accurate to a toroidal plasmoid.

 

edit: the article stated 0.5 millifarad. 25uf is a factor of 20 too low

[richard]

Sorry but the first one looks like a total fake to me.

[Rocket Man]

the photo looks fake, but i wouldn't give up on it. they wouldn't have that eqiupment set up if they weren't doing something big. especially those caps sunk into the table, you can see the size of their bank, when they said half a millifarad, they meant it.

by the looks of the photo, the plasmoid was rotating down in the middle. (not sure if that helps)

 

a study group in St. Petersburg successfully used electric discharges above water surfaces to produce spherical luminous formations

the plasma is formed on the surface of the water, the electrodes actually protrude from the surface (i think the diagram is wrong)

if you've still got the equipment set up, try a petri dish before you fork out for a bigger bank of caps.

[nootropolis]

you know there are videos on the main page

[alan2here]

The slow motion one is more like a bunch of stills

[Rocket Man]

you know there are videos on the main page

i didn't notice.

 

that's definately a plasmoid

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasmoid

what i want to know is how much energy they burned off making it and what it consisted of. because that was REALLY congruent