back in the day i used to work in a transformer factory and they made those big collector globe type things like you see on a van der graaf generator. having a discussion about this the other day and totally failed to either identify what they were called or what they might be for.

seeing as our google powers have failed us can anyone put us right? cheers

Do you mean a plasma lamp/globe/ball? Wiki link Always found them fascinating as a kid, but it appears that practically, their uses are mostly limited to, err, being facinating objects for kids.

i too liked those things but these were of a different order. a variety of sizes from about a metre to maybe three metres across. something like these bad boys
http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft5s200764&doc.view=popup&fig.ent=http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/data/13030/64/ft5s200764/figures/ft5s200764_00074.jpg

^^ Tee hee, big pair of balls

just called a top load sphere here: http://www.rmcybernetics.com/projects/DIY_Devices/homemade_tesla_coil.htm

and again this page: http://www.rmcybernetics.com/shop/high-voltage/tesla-coil-secondary

Charge Collector?

They had some in the Electrical Eng department at uni, but I was in Electronic so didn’t go near them…

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go9XT2S1bF4[/video]

😀

Like the ball in this video?

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQ89_xvaG4s[/video]

back in the day i used to work in a transformer factory and they made those big collector globe type things like you see on a van der graaf generator. having a discussion about this the other day and totally failed to either identify what they were called or what they might be for.

seeing as our google powers have failed us can anyone put us right? cheers

Wasn’t Parsons Peebles in Edinburgh by any chance ?

sorry for the delay in response but work, work work. thanks for the pointers.

it was indeed parsons peebles