I want to call it a spark generator, but that doesn’t come up with what I’m looking for. I’ve seen it used twice. Once for a scince demonstration when I was in grade school and once to test a neon light tube (recently). It looks basically like an immersion blender with a point at the end that will send sparks to a ground. That seem to be high voltage (yea know for the arcing) but low amp’s as I remember the science demo guy letting people spark their hands with it. Like I said it also seems to be used to test neon lights. If you let it spark a tube and it lights up you know that tube still has vacuum and gas. Any ideas of what this would be called or where I could get one. I have another way to to make some sparks at home but it invoves shorting/arcing about 12,000 volts to ground and that seems like overkill…and I don’t want to lug a 20 pound transformer home from work, into my basemtent and hard wire it to the outlet.
Are you talking about a van de graff generator?
http://www.dacc.cc.il.us/depts/inst/sci/van-de-graff.jpg
http://www.phys.utk.edu/demoroom/EandM/VderG.htm
At work we have a cattle prod, which aside from being a useful motivational tool for keeping the junior engineers in line (don’t worry, I’m kidding), it’s great for generating a heck of a spark along the outside of a metal case. Don’t use it on a human, though. It’s strong enough to make a cow want to move, which is far more than you want to subject a human to.
I can’t think of the proper name for the tool that Joey P is describing, but I do know that it incorporates a tesla coil. The units I have seen & used run off of standard AC power, are about 2 inches in diameter and about 12 inches long.
Neon testing tools here: http://www.daconeon.com/products/testers.asp?page=6
ding ding ding, now where to get one. I didn’t see much about ordering on that page. I’ll have to see if there are any neon shops around that sell them.
Otherwise come to think of it (should’ve thought of it a long time ago, a stun gun (modified so that electricity only comes from one peg) should work as well.
Now that I think about it I’m not sure if a stun gun is legal for a civilion to have in Wisconsin. Anyone know?
Yup, stun guns illegal in WI. Any idea where to get a High Frequency Test Coil? Or something else that can make a decent sized spark.
Call the number at the bottom of that web page. If Daco doesn’t sell direct you can get the names of local dealers.