Interesting, but surely if the vacuum thus created was significant your Al foil would be sucked in until no space remains between it and the glass?
Michel ----- Original Message ----- From: "William Beaty" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <vortex-l@eskimo.com> Sent: Monday, November 27, 2006 7:39 AM Subject: [Vo]: x-rays from TC capacitors?!!! > > I stumbled across an odd idea. > > If a home-built stacked-plate capacitor is operated with high-volt pulses, > then the thin air-film trapped between the foils and the dielectric sheets > will glow violet. (I verified this idea using a quickie test device made > from a thin glass bowl, foil on the bottom, and salt-water on the top. > Sure enough, under pulsed HV drive there's a purple glow shining from the > foil surface under the glass.) > > Ah, but we know that plasma leads to pumping: both from ion pump effects > where gas molecules embed into metal surfaces, and also from N2 turning > into metal nitrides, and O2 turning into metal oxides. (Plasma does > chemistry.) > > So I seal up the edges of the foil on the glass/saltwater cap, then run it > for awhile. Sure enough, the purple glow from between the foil and glass > changes color after a few minutes. Becomes greyish. Maybe even greenish. > I place it on the large ion chamber of a GM counter, but don't detect any > rise above background count. I could keep running it for lots more > minutes, but I'd burn down the contacts of my little "vacuum tester TC." > > > So... any high-voltage pulse capacitor which is sealed but which isn't > vacuum-impregnated with oil is going to have plasma-filled air films, and > the internal pressure is going to drop over time. And in theory, over > time these air layers might pump down to just below non-glowing vacuum > threshold, and then start emitting soft x-rays! > > What to do? The whole problem might be a crackpot idea, eh? It's all > speculation (except for my glass/saltwater test.) Suggestion: paint the > outside of your home-built well-sealed Tesla coil stacked-plate capacitors > with ZnS glow-in-dark paint. Run them in a darkened room separate from > the bright streamers and spark gap. Or instead make an xray alarm: a > solar cell as sensor, painted with fluorescent paint and embedded in black > epoxy or silicone. > > First one to detect a dim green glow wins a prize: slightly irradiated > gonads! > > :) > > > If the effect ever proves real, then does it mean we can replace the > vacuum tube in the dentist office with a bunch of aluminum foil layers > with spontaneously-appearing vacuum inside? (And would a cylindrically > wrapped capacitor act as a line-source of x-rays?) > > More pure speculation: if capacitors ever do emit x-rays, then it's > one more source of x-rays that Nikola with his fluorescent screens and > glass photographers plates might have stumbled upon. Yes, he probably did > find x-rays when operating his carbon button lamps. But what if he > hadn't? Imagine how confusing it might have been if he'd tracked down the > capacitor as the source of a new kind of radiation, only to later hear > from Roentgen that vacuum tubes also produce it. > > > ((((((((((((((((((((((( ( ( (o) ) ) ))))))))))))))))))))))) > William J. Beaty Research Engineer > beaty chem.washington.edu UW Chem Dept, Bagley Hall RM74 > billb eskimo.com Box 351700, Seattle, WA 98195-1700 > ph425-222-5066 http//staff.washington.edu/wbeaty/ >
