Lightning machine fix

[Harlyquin]

I have a lightning effect machine that has a strobe light and sounds. The strobe light only strobe it doesn't flash in time to the sound. Can any one suggest a circuit diagram I could add to give me the desired effect?

 

[Pommie]

Shouldn't the lightening come before the sound?

Mike.

 

[Harlyquin]

That's not the point ? The machine only strobes. I'm looking for a sound activated light that will pluse with the sound instead of just strobing.

 

[Pommie]

Please describe what you have and what you want it to do.

Mike.

 

[gary350]

The metal sphere is 3 ft diameter. 240v 60a input produces 12 ft long sparks sound is in time with the sparks I am only 30 ft away. It only takes a micro second for sound to travel 30 ft. 27 ft diameter circle of sparks in our back yard. It makes my remote control garage door go crazy up down up down up down changes directions at random times over and over. All garage doors within 2 blocks are going crazy also. Several people standing outside wondering why is every garage door on our street going crazy. All the security alarms in 5 block radius are going off also.

 

[Lightium]

You'd have to start by defining what audio frequency band you want the device to pay attention to. Do you want bass/beat response or full spectrum audio?

 

[Pommie]

The metal sphere is 3 ft diameter. 240v 60a input produces 12 ft long sparks sound is in time with the sparks I am only 30 ft away. It only takes a micro second for sound to travel 30 ft. 27 ft diameter circle of sparks in our back yard. It makes my remote control garage door go crazy up down up down up down changes directions at random times over and over. All garage doors within 2 blocks are going crazy also. Several people standing outside wondering why is every garage door on our street going crazy. All the security alarms in 5 block radius are going off also.

View attachment 147414

You sound like a nightmare to live near.

Mike.

 

[Beau Schwabe]

You sound like a nightmare to live near.

Mike.

In my mid 20's I constructed a van de graaff generator hybrid that was closer to a pelletron electrostatic generator capable of producing an estimated 750kV. Seems like every time I fired that thing up it would rain shortly afterwards ... perhaps the clouds were jealous. Felt as though I was a bit of a weather warlock.

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Schematic-overview-of-the-working-principle-of-a-Pelletron-accelerator-Reproduced-from_fig3_355875506

One of the last HV experiments I did was a high speed corona motor ...

... And a 13-Stage Marx generator powered from a 6-cell Laptop battery...

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

When I was at college they had a room that looked like Frankenstein's laboratory, with a massive Walton Cockcroft multiplier, massive circular spark gaps, and a huge Jacobs Ladder - I can't remember what else?.

Despite our requests, they never demonstrated it working, as apparently it wiped out TV and Radio for the entire town - and it was only ever fired up occasionally on open days.

It must have cost a fortune, and I could never see what it there for, particularly as it couldn't be used?.

 

[Beau Schwabe]

... they never demonstrated it working, as apparently it wiped out TV and Radio for the entire town

When I would fire up the MARX generator you see in the video above, it had to be battery powered. Anything else would back-feed across the power supply over the mains and knock out several computers (at least enough to cause them to reboot)

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

When I would fire up the MARX generator you see in the video above, it had to be battery powered. Anything else would back-feed across the power supply over the mains and knock out several computers (at least enough to cause them to reboot)

Wasn't a problem at college, as it was home pre-home computer

However, they did have a computer at college, but it was a valve based one in it's own room - I believe it was donated to the college, I've no idea if it ever worked? - again, we were never shown it working.

We did however once access the Open University main frame via teletype, at 100 baud or what ever

It was a different era!.

 

[Pommie]

In college many years ago they had what they called the AC lab. One on the demonstrations they did was to brake a huge motor to get the mains frequency to change and you could see the lights beating in time. They also had a huge inductor that they would turn of with a knife switch causing a very large arc to form.

When I started work at Long & Crawfords (High voltage switch manufacturers) the test department tested (through tank) bushings at 21kA during lunch break by paralleling up three phase transformers onto one phase. One day we observed a test but the current didn't switch off (supposed to after 3 seconds). The oil started to get very hot and the Chief Engineer started to run away. Me being young and naive didn't realise anything was wrong and stayed to watch. Luckily the current was cut off shortly afterwards.

Like you say Nigel, a very different era.

Mike.