Tesla Gun As Xenon Igniter?

[Jim Cassedy]

I have this nifty little hand-held Tesla coil spark pistol. (A Tesla Taurus?)
It's capable of easily putting out a decent 6-8in spark, although in doing so it generates
enuf audible and RF noise to scare every cat and jam every AM radio in my building.
For fun, the sparks can also illuminate fluorescent lamp tubes and neon lamps from
a few feet away, and it creates artful patterns if you point it at an old CRT picture-tube.

But I was wondering- - in an emergency, do you think this could ignite a Xenon bulb
if the normal lamphouse igniter failed? This question is only academic. This is
strictly about possibility, and not the practicality or potential safety issues involved.

For example, late last year, we had the Xenon igniter in one of our Strong Highlight II
consoles fail shortly before an almost sold-out 70mm event. Fortunately, my very
resourceful and knowledgeable back-up projectionguy Matt P, who was in the booth
that night, managed to repurpose an old, semi-defective unused igniter to get the lamp
lit before the show. (Also, fortunately, the problem was the Number 2 console, which
gave Matt appx an extra 35-40min to do repairs while Reel 1 was on screen.)

So, I was wondering that if I'd had this device in the booth that night, could we have
just switched on the DC power to the lamp and used this thing to get the lamp lit?






SparkGun4.jpg

It puts out a pretty healthy spark, which is capable of lighting cigarettes, as well as small piles
of gunpowder and even firework fuzes. (Although I realize those are different types of "ignition"
than getting a Xenon bulb lit.)

[Randy Stankey]

I have seen a spark jump between the electrodes, inside a lamp, if a person's body has a static charge. It is very small and it only twinkles for a fraction of a second but it is bright enough to see in ordinary booth lighting. It doesn't have to be completely dark in order to see the spark.

So, with that in mind, I don't see why a mini Tesla coil couldn't do the same thing. Since it is much more powerful than a spark from static discharge, it ought to be powerful enough to start the lamp.

Why not try it on an old lamp? Take one of the old lamps out of the store room and just zap it with the gun. See whether it makes a spark. I think it should. Then, if that works, the next time, before you change a lamp out, try it while it is still in the projector. If you can zap the lamp with the Tesla gun and make a visible spark.

If that works, try it on a live lamp and see whether you can get it to light.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

There was a Drive In a few miles from me when I was growing up. When we'd go there, I always hung out in the booth and talked to the projectionist for a while. I definitely remember the projectionist lighting a lamp that way. He said they were waiting on a part, and used this in an emergency. It was an M&R location, and later in life I learned they were cheap, cheap, cheap!

[Jim Cassedy]

I'm not sure what happened to the first two pictures in my previous post, so here they are:.

I have this nifty little hand-held Tesla coil spark pistol. (A Tesla Taurus?)
SparkGun_1a.jpg

SparkGun2a.jpg

I may try a few experiments with an old xenon bulb over the weekend.

[Leo Enticknap]

When I saw "Tesla gun" in the subject line, I thought you meant Elon Musk's flamethrower...

[Jack Ondracek]

I'd bet it would work... might even be gross overkill, but I'd sure want to be sure that an unconventional method wouldn't somehow backfeed into the power supply, especially a switcher, and fry it.

That said, I'd speculate you could also get somewhere with a repurposed neon transformer or the igniter from an oil furnace burner.

[Tony Bandiera Jr]

I'd bet it would work... might even be gross overkill, but I'd sure want to be sure that an unconventional method wouldn't somehow backfeed into the power supply, especially a switcher, and fry it.

That said, I'd speculate you could also get somewhere with a repurposed neon transformer or the igniter from an oil furnace burner.

As they say on Shark Tank, "And for that reason, I'm out."

There would be an extremely high risk of backfeeding the rectifier with a very large static high voltage spike..bye bye switcher (and probably a few diodes in a conventional rectunfryer too.)

Remember that a conventional ignitor has suppression caps to protect the rectifier, and also that HV spark is directly referenced to the lamphouse ground and the other side of the lamp. A spark from any outside source WILL impose unequal voltage stresses on the rectifier's outputs and that's what will cause damage. Think of it as working on static sensitive electronic parts: note that everything, all leads of said parts, the board you're working on, your body, the workbench, the tools and soldering iron, etc. are all tied to a common ground, so any random static charge cannot pass through the delicate stuff, as everything is held at the same potential.

The ONLY way I'd even try it (just to satisfy curiosity) is on personally owned "junk" equipment that I don't care about. Because the resulting failure (especially of a switcher) may be more spectacular than lighting the arc itself.

[Jim Cassedy]

There would be an extremely high risk of backfeeding the rectifier with
a very large static high voltage spike..bye bye switcher (and probably
a few diodes in a conventional rectunfryer too.) Remember that a
conventional ignitor has suppression caps to protect the rectifier,

And it's precisely for those reasons voiced by you and Jack that I've resisted
the temptation to try it. I do intend to experiment a bit with a couple of old
Xenon bulbs and on a 'dead' system that's already been mostly cannibalized
for parts so if anything happens, nothing happens.