Action Shots
Here are some videos and a few pictures of the coil in action.
All videos are in Xvid format with MP3 audio, so you will need the XviD Codec
to open the files.
External download links:
Windows
Linux
Mac
I chose XviD because it is open source, and provides excellent compression.
These videos were taken while I was standing on an insulator - some 1.5" pieces of wood, to be precise. I don't
believe that this is 100% necessary, but it can prevent painful sparks from punching through your shoes.
Such a spark could melt or ignite material. So an insulating platform of some sort is recommended.
And finally, a little bit about the videotaking process. I used a cheap webcam attached to an aging laptop
simply because I was nervous about the effects of the EM field on my main computer. I haven't experienced any
power anomalies at all with this coil concerning backfeed into the 120VAC mains, but I still
was wary of possible inductive damage. By my guess, a computer would probably crash if it were too
near the coil, due to glitches introduced into the RAM.
Video 1, 4.3MB. Here, I drew some arcs with
a metal bolt and a small flourescent light.
Video 2, 13.7MB. This video was
made later in the day, so it's a bit darker. The camera boosted its gain, so there is more visual
noise present. Note too the oddly colored streaks that appear when the coil is powered up. This is
interference picked up either by the camera's wiring or by the CCD itself.
Also visible here is a slight discharge from the last few turns of the secondary coil. I assume that this
means that the coil needs tuning, either in the primary coil, or else the secondary should simply
be a bit longer.
Video 3, 8.0MB. For this one, I removed the electronics
from a cheap plasma globe and set it atop the secondary's emitter. Note that the length of the sparks, as
measured from the central sphere to the end of the bolt, is longer than when they pass straight
through the air. The inert gas inside the globe ionizes more easily than air, thus producing this effect.
I cannot vouch for the safety of this - it's possible that the extra power could overheat the gas inside,
causing the globe to pop quite forcibly. If you've got a glass one, that spells high-speed-glass-shards.
That is generally a bad thing.
Video 4, 10.0MB. This one was taken
with the camera closer to the coil than it was for the previous files. When the coil is turned on,
the video freezes up completely, and only begins moving again when I draw an arc off of the secondary. After
using the flourescent tube, the video froze again, and remained that way until power was cut.
That's part of why I'd be wary about running a computer nearby this thing - just the sheer level
of interference that it sends out into the air is quite impressive. Maybe if I happen upon
a sacrificial computer in the future, I can do some testing in this respect.
Pictures:
These are screenshots from a video that, while it was comprised of 880 frames, it only had about
5 unique frames throughout the entire thing, due to lockups. The "border" visible around
each image was an aluminum-foil-covered box that I'd hoped might negate some of the EM field's effects.
Apparently, it didn't do much of anything at all.
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