#K40LPS
K40 Lightening Strike
BTW this show brought to you through your kind donations to the K40HV lab
No way should you try this at home …
In case you didn’t believe me about the energy in our laser systems take a look at this lightening strike… OMG.
This is the first time I had access to a spare and working supply thanks to Jeff Johnson so I decided to put on a lightening show…
Notice:
… that I have two dead man switches to insure that my hands are away from the bad stuff …
… the arc when I use the chicken stick when the LPS is disabled.
Observations:
This was a marginal supply, do you mean it gets stronger than this?
This supply sometimes seem to output lower than normal voltage with a lower energy spark. Maybe that is what is wrong with it. I also noticed that it was more consistent with a longer gap?
A pipe dream was to use an air gap as a laser tube proxy …NOT! The good news is to work on these I do not need to have the HVT installed.
The arc from this LPS can easily jump more than 2.5 inches, didn’t try further than that. This was a lot larger than my calculations suggested.
When I go to large distances (open circuit) there is arcing on the primary side, around the secondary wind-ings and sometimes through the anode wire’s insulation if it is closer to ground than the gap. Looks like a Christmas tree.
I have wondered if an open ANODE circuit (bad tube) would promote arching and it seems it does. This may mean that when a tube is dead the LPS may arc. It also could be what is wrong with this supply i.e leaky HVT.
The amount of current drawn even in a 2.5" arc is way over 30ma, see the meter. This is why letting this supply arc is not good for it. I accidentally bought a 30A meter instead of the right one, guess I will hook it up.
Clearly and as I expected this supply is not really current limited.
I flinch every time I fire this thing. My wife could smell the corona all the way down stairs. She thought I had eaten something foul… and this was a new form of flagellation :)!
If this doesn’t cause you to add an interlock into the laser compartment …
More lightening to come as I get more curious… and I’m going to use the rubber gloves from now on.
Edit: adding another lightening video:
Try going to setting in your video player and slow these down to the lowest speed, .25.
