a question about resistors in an arc experiment

S Claus · 2009-01-15T03:40:28+00:00

Hi allI was browsing through the book "Analog Circuit Design: Art, Scienceand Personalities" and checked on Chapter 8, titled "True AnalogCircuit Design". On page 59 in this chapter, Tom Hornak writes abouthow he got involved in electronics when he was younger. He explainshis and his friends first hands-on experiment which dealth withelectric arcs as thus:We used a 1kW smoothing iron as a series resistor and large iron nailsas electrodes.I had a dumb question about this, which is that what is the reason forusing a resistor in this type of experiement? I mean, would there notbe more current and therefore a larger arc if no resistor was used?How is the limiting of the current flow (by the resistor) desireable?

Jan 15, 2009 421 Replies

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krw 17 years ago

What's the permativity of air? =20

~5Mm

a bit. ;-) =20

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Jasen Betts 17 years ago

close to 1

that 0.7 was a guess, I should have looked it up. it looks much closer to 1 for real power transmission lines, only coax and other small scale lines are that slow.

yeah, that's a better figure,

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