Sparks Gallery Part 1
Back in my grammar school days I saw a Jacobs Ladder, & Tesla Coil in science class, & thought, I gotta get me one of those!
Whether electrical sparks, or lightning, like fireworks, they sure look cool. My first experiments with high voltage sparks was running very high frequency audio through an audio amp to an audio transformer wired in reverse to get some pretty high voltages... Kinda a poor man's effort at something close to a Tesla coil. The spark was powerful enough to burn stuff, light nearby fluorescent tubes not even wired to it or knock you on your butt. I even liked the smell of the electrical ozone it put out.
Back in the days when USA fireworks laws were less strict, our family set off our own elaborate fireworks display every Independence day. So sparks were practically a family tradition. We never got hurt by them, but do know of & heard of plenty dumber people getting hurt. So don't play with high voltage or fireworks unless you know exactly what you're doing. With fireworks, also make sure you're legal, qualified, & out in the open. Even if you are careful, you can still accidentally set fire to yours or you neighbors house or barn.
Even when playing with the family's American Flyer train set as a kid, I liked seeing the sparks coming off the wheels when the engine ran over worn or dirty parts of the track & the electrical smell after it was running a while. I loved putting pieces of metal against a grindstone in the shed just to see all the sparks. I even had fun shuffling my feet across the carpet on dry winter days to give static electricity shocks to people. It seems we had a carpet that was exceptionally good at generating static electricity in winters.
Since then I experimented with auto ignition coils, & high voltage TV flyback transformers. By the 8th grade I made my very own Jacobs ladder with an old neon sign transformer. It scared the crap out of my friends & family.
This was in an era when we only had 4 or 5 TV channels to chose from. So we had to find other means to entertain ourselves... esp. during very bad or cold weather.
I never did get around to building or buying a Tesla coil, or a Van de Graff generator. It seems every time I had an itch to, I decided on something better to spend my time or money on. I have a couple Jacobs Ladders in my attic, & still plug one in once in a while when I go up there.
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