Experiments with Lightning Balls and Safety

[alan2here]

I have a Lightning Ball. The next paragraph will describe it and the behavior of the lightning inside it in detail, you make find it interesting but if you don't skip it.

 

It creates purpley lightning in its center that becomes more pinky as it gets to the outside of the ball, it is not like tesla coil lightning in that it is more curvy and less angular. There are lots of strands of lightning that go from the center to the edge of the ball. The strands are attracted to myself. The strands branch at less points along there length than those of Tesla Coil videos I have seen but snake around more. The strands disperse as they reach the outside of the ball just before the edge. The ball produces flickery high frequency sound that is in the range of CRT tv's and florescent lights. Sometimes bits of the lightning especially those around the bottom flicker very quickly between two points and sometimes the strands at the top can jump backwards and forwards about 1.5x a second between two fingers\hands placed a bit of the top, sometimes the lines join together to create one that almost gets to the edge then branches at the last moment to join both hands, there is also odd effects that remind me of the unpredictable behavior iron filings sometimes take when used with magnets like a burst of individual lines around a strong point like when my whole hand is there or when two fingers bursts repel each other. Often when a hand in places at the side the lighting will strobe upwards then apear at the bottom again, it reminds me of videos of Jacobs ladders I have seen. I aslo know the ball kills electronic items that get to close to it and can cause an odd pulsating feeling on the hairs on the back of my hand but I cant always get this to work.

 

I tried putting a tiny metal object of top, a little metal screw, as soon as I took my hand away the lightning primarily ignored it which I was surprised about. I then touched it very carefully expecting it to hurt like a static shock, however it didn't. I tried a 10p followed by a pound coin. The pound coil created lighting that could jump between it and a pin about 1mm away where the pin hand a plastic bit I could safely hold, again I tried it on myself and the lighting outside the ball could jump between the coin and my finger. I then tried touching something metal and got no static shock so I tried again holding something metal and using the tiny screw and then the coin, no problems.

 

Ive come to the prahaps incorrect conclusion that it is safe to create the lightning on the outside of the ball. I'm aware of the skin effect and that playing with man made lightning can cause muscle damage that you are not aware that results in aching muscles.

 

I'm not going to try anything bigger until Ive got some feedback.

[insane_alien]

it is called a plasma ball. the 'lightning' you see is plasma. it is effectively a gaseous wire. there is a voltage on the outside(especially if you have a coin or similar on top of it) but the amperage it is capable of is absolutely tiny.

 

sine it is high frequency ac(like a tesla coil, thats what the innards essentially are) it will appear to produce a constant spark on the outside. it is anything but.

[alan2here]

The gaseous wire of plasma that came off the large collector of a spare door handle that is not correctly connected to any doors hurt when I accidentally got the back of my finger just above the nail to touch a corner of it, I was then using things that are smaller. I was hoping for large arcs to go between the ball and nearby objects and now realize that 10cm isn't going to happen if I am nearby as this was still roughly 1mm.

 

I'm thinking of a novel bugler proof system, that zaps the burglar when they try to enter the restricted zone, like get into the art gallery at night.

 

Corners\Edges of the metal items, where on your body and how sweaty you are all seem to make a difference. The fealing is so amazingly and purely unplesent, im glad most of it stayed on the other side of the glass.

 

Ive stopped now, just made a tiny black bit in the end of my finger (that oddly did not hurt at all) and decided that there was nothing else to discovered by doing this experiment as I think I now understand how the electricity will behave.

 

The ball is so good at killing electronic stuff, Ive only done this once with a calculator I didn't want anymore but it was very quick to make it produce errors and turn itself off with an odd chirpy bleep, it then took a few restarts to make it recover, which got me thinking at the time that I should keep my head away from the ball (which I have been doing). Since then I have looked more closely on a couple of occations to see things happening inside the ball.

 

The plastic the ball is made of seems to often smell of dust even though it cant possibly be dusty. Ive heard once that electric fields attract dust in a room. Which could enplane this.

[YT2095]

the arcs inside the ball are High frequency, and not a DC current. the Glass on the plasma ball acts as a dielectric and the metal on the other side works at the other plate on a capacitor.

if you cover most if it with tin foil and have a wire connected to that, you can light a cig off the arc

[alan2here]

The foil does sound like fun, if it wasn't so risky I would be doing it now.

[insane_alien]

it's not risky. just don't let anyone with a pacemaker touch it.

[alan2here]

As I said in my last post larger metal objects hurt. The small black burn is gone now, it was not there this morning.

[YT2095]

it`s a low frequency RF burn, those are mostly only surface injuries, in fact it`s used in surgery to cut and cauterise at the same time

 

you won`t get electrocuted though, not at those frequencies.

it would be a different matter if you rectified it and stored the charge in a capacitor!

[Spyman]

If it hurts, it most likely causes some harm and it's probably best to stop...

 

And, (Hehe ), be aware that YT and i_a seem to love playing around with dangerous stuff:

 

when I was working as a welder, 50v at 90A whas the setting for the wrought Iron welding trans, often you`de be leaning on the jig changing a rod over and get a shock (tickle), we used to wet our hands and see who could hold on the longest, just for a giggle, 30 seconds + was about min, some incl myself could hold on all lunch break if need be.

 

you would think that after ~100 shocks from the mains i would either learn not to touch unless i'm sure its not live or be dead.

[alan2here]

Just tried it with the foil, I get as much buildup of electricity as with a small metal tube I have, it's rather less impressive than I imagined from YT2095's description however I think he is probably right about it eventually being able to light a cigerette.

[YT2095]

I roll my own cigs, and hand rolling tobacco has a higher moisture content than these factory made dry excuses for cigs.

I can light mine within a a few seconds.

 

However that`s not saying we have the Same make/model of plasma ball either, so the power output maybe different too.

 

but yeah, a few secs and I can light a cig