[Plasmatic MnemoHistory]

Sorry the other 2 that show actual close ups are here. And the key was a normal one thank God.







[img=http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/1741/rhondapic2098lj9.th.jpg]
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"Logic is the art of non-contradictory identification"....Ayn Rand

[Enan Gamre]

Your images look very impressive, thanks. They look quite much like really taken in space.

You actually posted only two pictures, I think? Just copy the whole code for each image from the imageshack's box into a post:

[Steve Smith]

Zane,

Looks like your ideas are spurring others into these investigations -- way to go.

The differences between electrostatic and electrodynamic discharge is evident, here. Your video display experiment is electrostatic, whereas the experiment conducted by Plasmatic is electrodynamic, since the plates in an ionic wind generator are actively charged.

In your experiment, have you considered chilling the surface of the display screen before you initiate the spark? It would be interesting to see what happens when there's a layer of carbon dioxide frost on top of the fiberglas powder. Varying the thickness of the frost and combining it with water ice "snow" could be illuminating.

Also, seeing the results when the surface is in a vacuum would be interesting.

Regarding the ionic wind experiment -- I would try other materials and vary the number of arcs before the pictures are taken.

1. Finely powdered iron oxide as a conductive material.

2. Calcium carbonate as a dialectric insulator -- maybe the talcum powder is sufficient, but I believe they put other materials in the commercial product, so it isn't pure.

3. A combination of the two -- both mixed together and separately. Perhaps a layer of iron oxide, then a layer of calcium carbonate, then a layer of iron oxide.

4. Single spark both materials, separately and in combination, then shoot the picture.

I'm sure there are other aspects of this that could be investigated. I look forward to seeing the results of further experiments.

Steve

[Plasmatic MnemoHistory]

Absolutely ,I want to try it in a vaccum,but how??? Also I agree I plan to try alot more things .I will take progressive pic,and document the process so as to be as helpful empirically as possible.
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"Logic is the art of non-contradictory identification"....Ayn Rand

[mgmirkin]

Just figured I might point toward this resource, as it's "similar" insofar as some of the objects created... In this case it's via static electricity in a flow of sand. Interestingly, several of the videos show craters and rilles forming IN THE FLOW, dynamically, while the sand is moving. I'm asuming by similar processes to those in the CRT experiments (granted somewhat different conditions). Though I don't know whether this would classify under "static" or "dynamic" charge interactions. Just similar results. IE, we know it's charged because the experimenters say so. But we also see dynamic crater formation, rilles, and "spikes" or "razorbacks" along the edges of the flow. Quite interesting...

http://sol.rutgers.edu/~lamarc/Razorbacks/

Cheers,
~Michael

[lk]

[Plasmatic MnemoHistory]

Yes you can see the discharges through the grill on the side of the machine.The pics dont do the symmetry of the excavation justice they look like perfect circles with ring like raised material surrounding them.Ive taken some more photos but it takes forever to upload so ill have to go to a higher speed connection to upload hem.I did a before and after this time!
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"Logic is the art of non-contradictory identification"....Ayn Rand

[lk]

.Is the dust collector normally horizontal or vertical? It seems to me that horizontal surfaces, whether CRTs or dust collectors etc, would best simulate planetary surfaces, since gravity plays a part once the discharge dissipates.
.You don't want to go to Albuquerque with Zane in mid June to demonstrate your experiment, do you? Or maybe he can learn it from you.
.I wish private messaging weren't disabled. Makes it hard to contact people here.

[dahlenaz]

Congrat's to Plasmatic. Those are some mighty fine patterns. You should be taking them to IEEE 07.
Steve associated the CRT tests to static electricity but i wonder if that is accurate for an energized CRT because you've got this electron gun blasting from the inside of the tube. When it is off activity is fleeting at best or not at all, (except with the fiberglass coating). With it the surface is highly active at distances much greater than with field dust, and when the CRT is off the fiberglass leaps off the suface to coats a finger. Again when the CRT is on the fibergalss seems to be building up a tall field, several inches thick and if something gets close to the top of that field changes occur on the surface. With field dust, potentially an insulator, discharges don't occur when the tube is off but when it is on you can see material react to the energizing so it seems like an energized field is present and the only thing static about it is the material being held in place by the field.
The discharges with a dust covered surface are far more intense but requiring much closer distances to the surface than fiberglass requires for any activity to begin on the surface. This all seems like a capacitor build up and not like the static charge you would experience with foam packing material.
Do we need to redefine static electricity to exclude anything that is in the presence of a source of an active electric current and related fields? dz

[dahlenaz]

There was a suggestion to get a video of the discharge.

You might be able to get some info from the manufacturer on whether they used a cut-away model, for any of their advertising, to show the collection of material to the plates. I hope you find something to get those shots. I'll look into it next week when i'm less busy. dz

[dahlenaz]

[quote="Plasmatic MnemoHistory"]Yes you can see the discharges through the grill on the side of the machine.The pics dont do the symmetry of the excavation justice they look like perfect circles with ring like raised material surrounding them.Ive taken some more photos but it takes forever to upload so ill have to go to a higher speed connection to upload hem.I did a before and after this time![/quote]

I noticed the same problem with my photos. It would be resolved through the use of a stereo-camera. The European Space agency has one on their mars mission and the images coming back are stunning. I've found some web sites of clubs that fancy stereo photography and they might be interested in helping us get stunning images of your experiment results.

On the download subject, you can resize your image with 'paint' at the image menu select stretch and skew and chose a percentage up or down. One of your images went through this and is now featured on my desktop, I hope you don't mind. I'm serious about you showing your results a IEEE you could add your image to mine but we would need to figure out if static discharges is an appropriate explanation to what is happening in either case, as Steve said, "your's dynamic" "mine static??",,, but the CRT is blasting the surface! dz

[chessdude3]

I hope I may be able to explain some of the reasons for the CRT effects mentioned.

The CRT needs typically 27,000 volts to operate. This voltage is connected to a conductive coating on the inside of the glass bulb as well as the electron gun’s anode. The outside of the bulb is also coated with a graphite based conductive material and this is grounded to the chassis of the monitor. The two coatings form a capacitor using the glass as the dielectric. The screen area does not have an outer coating (you wouldn’t see the picture if it did!) so in that area we have a single plate and dielectric charged to 27,000V. Dust is attracted to this and settles on the screen. You approach with your finger (which forms the other plate of the capacitor), the dust is attracted to your negatively charged (with respect to the surface of the screen) finger and is lifted off the screen and deposited on to your finger. The dust will now be at the same potential as your finger and will be attracted back to the positive screen (sometimes a bit of fluff will be seen to rapidly go back and forth between the finger and screen).

Once your finger touches the screen, that part now becomes discharged (the 27,000V is now dropped across the glass dielectric) so no further activity will be observed at that location --- move your finger a bit and the process starts again. If you move your hand over the entire surface then all activity will stop as the entire surface is now at ground potential.

If you now switch off the monitor, the 27,000V on the inside will dissipate (leakage in the multiplier / rectifier that provides the voltage) but the surface of the screen will now be at –27,000V so if you approach with your finger again you will get a repeat performance until the screen area is discharged . (In practice, due to natural leakage, the voltage on the screen will not be as high as the applied voltage on the inside)

Reading through this thread has made me dig out my high voltage generator, I will try a few experiments and see if I can replicate any of the results obtained with the air ioniser. (the generator is used for high voltage insulation tests and goes up to 12,000V DC with limited current – about a milli amp)

[dahlenaz]

ThanKyou chessdude, for your explanation, I hope you will continue to fill in details that see to be necessary.

From what you said I get the impression that i mistakenly associated the surface charge to a static charge while the CRT in energized. Do you regard the dust to be to be a dielectric in contrast to the fiberglass which differs dramaticaly in its behavior while the CRT is energized compared to the dust?

This CRT seems to be far more suseptible to discharges than other i've tried, might it have something malfunctioning which causes this?
From your description of the screens surface as a capacitor I wonder if the dust creates another layer to the capacitor whereas the fiberglass causes leakage across the surface of any charge buildup.

I greatly appreciate your involvement in this discussion. Thanks again dz

[Steve Smith]

Zane,

Thanks for writing that -- I don't know how I could have missed that you were doing this with the monitor plugged-in. It does change the concept of what might actually be happening when there's active charge being applied to the inner surface of the glass.

1. Since the electron gun in the tube is sending negative charge into the phosphorus coating on the inside surface, then the phosporus is being ionized.

2. The movement of the electron beam causes magnetic fields, since you can bend the image on the screen with a magnet.

3. The negative charge on the phosphorus would induce a postive charge on the other side of the glass, which would intensify any electrostatic effects -- which may also be part of this equation. So, your sparks are more powerful than if they were simply electrostatic charge separation.

Steve

[dahlenaz]

Steve, it is great that you caught that for clarification. Now the question arises, which may have been answered in a manner that i missed, is the dust being charged as would the plates of a battery or a capacitor? If so how does this relate to the differences seen between fine dirt (field dust) and fiberglass. I'm thinking that the fiberglass is more of a conductor and holds a higher state of charge after power is removed from the CRT but I'm guessing here.

I just want to refresh in everyones mind to stay sensative to clues that will bring us to the larger scale patterns of moons, asteroids and planets such as mars. I think surface composition is a key detail, materials such as silicon have been mentioned. We shouldn't overlook the possibility that planetary surfaces may act in a manner not unlike a capacitor. At the following link there is an image of material flowing down into a crater. The thought of "WHY" crossed my mind followed by "is this material being pulled there by electric forces due to a difference in charge between the surrounding surface and the floor of the crater"? Just a wild thought but not one to go un-explored.
The link below is the one with the stereo images which are stunning. dz

http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMFEB474OD_FeatureWeek_1.html