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My "spark" will not jump farther than 5mm
Posted: Thu Nov 13, 2008 11:19 pm
by The Dood
I am doing the How far can a spark jump project. I have set up the whole project but my spark will only go 5mm. Not much room to put anything in between. Is there something I am doing wrong? Thanks, Heather
Re: My "spark" will not jump farther than 5mm
Posted: Fri Nov 14, 2008 10:15 am
by paulsdecarli
5 mm is not bad. There is plenty of room to put cardboard, or paper in between the electrodes.
Re: My "spark" will not jump farther than 5mm
Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2012 5:13 pm
by blair
i thought it should be more than 5mm also as i read where someone got 8cm how did they acheive that.i wish i could get mine to go a bit further than what i got
Re: My "spark" will not jump farther than 5mm
Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2012 9:10 pm
by rmarz
blair - If you are using the piezoelectric igniter from the Science Buddies experiment, 5 mm is a pretty good result. You are seeing upwards of 15,000 volts. In order to get to the magnitude of an 80 cm spark, (about 240,000 volts) you would probably need something like a Van de Graff generator or Tesla coil apparatus.
Rick Marz