[XCSSA] Plasma fractal...

[X-otic Computer Systems of San Antonio]

X-otic Computer Systems of San Antonio wrote:
> On Friday 05 June 2009, X-otic Computer Systems of San Antonio wrote:
>   
>> The whole right side was formed in 10-15 minutes...
>>
>> It starts out as a tiny line branching out and then starts "fractaling".
>> The stem is growing the longer the branching is continuing.
>> If the branching stops, spray some water next to the nail and another
>> branch will come out in that direction...
>>     
>
> Cools stuff Fredrik.. I created some patterns like this on accident" as a kid 
> when playing with my neon sign and furnace "francformers" (I think they were 
> called).
>
> My question to you.. since this is high freq (30kHz-ish?), was the direction 
> of the pattern always back to the transformer?  In other words.. when you 
> created the pattern.. was the HV board in the general direction of the burn 
> marks?  Just curious.  If so.. then the water wasn't so much as a grounding 
> plane as much as it was just a conductive path back to the reference ground 
> of the board (or any near by ground planes), I would think.
>
> Yeah.. it's funny to see how after a leg of the burn mark is set.. how the 
> arcs preferentially follow those burn marks since they are now more 
> conductive than the non burned board.  This is why I'm surprised that you 
> didn't end up with just one or two hard burn marks.  I guess the water 
> helps "spread" the pattern a bit more initially eh?
>
> Have you tried a medium saline solution yet?  I bet that would get you higher 
> resolution patterns.  Sounds fun man. :)
>
> Tweeks
>   
It's 25KV, 20KHz, I got to go and look up my formulas, impedance varies 
with frequency but I'm just too tired to think right now...

The pattern starts at the nail and makes it's way out, it didn't matter 
where the actual transformer or where the wire carrying the HV was.
It does matter where you spray the water and that is why I made the 
theory of the ground plane up... ;-)
Tomorrow I'll try the Saline solution and see what happens...

Let me bring it in for the next meeting and we'll do some "Plasma 
Fractals"... ;-)
It does smoke a little, hope we don't set off any smoke detectors...

/Fredrik