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: I just happened on your site. This is really amazing stuff.
Thanks for the kind words. Making these is also quite a lot of fun... :^)
:
: In fact I'm sure I'll buy one when I get some money!
:
: But I had a few ideas for experiments
:
: 1) Have you tried adding doping compounds to your acrylic to modify the
: current pathways? Seems like you could get a whole host of new patterns
: this way. Like maybe carbon powder or iron filings roughly stirred into
: the acrylic.
We only use fully polymerized, cut, and polished pieces of acrylic in order to have the necessary insulation capability and high insulation resistance.
:
: 2) Would it be possible to generate the arcs in wet acrylic (before it is
: set). If you could do that it seems like it might be possible that the
: arcing process might instantaneously harden the plastic allowing you to
: extract the discharge pathways before the rest of the acrylic sets?
The very act of irradiating the liquid monomer with high speed electrons will polymerize (harden) it. The Lichtenberg Figure actually consists of chains of tiny fractures and hollow tubes.
:
: 3) Have you tried it with acrylic that has europium powder added
: http://www.unitednuclear.com/glow.htm
No.
:
: 4) What about placing high voltage coils on the sides of your blocks that
: would attract and control the direction of the discharge
In order to have an influence, the external voltage would likely need to be somewhere between 500,000 - 1,000,000 volts. It's much simpler to simply "poke" the specimens where we want them to discharge. :^)
:
: 5) Stacked Laminars might give you some odd results. Like thin films with
: partially conductive layers sandwiched between.
Possibly. We have stacked thinner sheets of PMMA to "adjust" the depth of penetration on occasion. We are continually experimenting and trying to push the envelope. Some of the results can be seen here:
http://www.capturedlightning.com/frames/SpecialLichs.html
:
: well it's all fun!
:
: -chris
:
Thanks for the ideas, and best wishes,
Bert
Message Thread Curious of ways to modify your figures... - Christian Beaumont 4/22/2009, 2:31 am
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