styropyro

prepping more things to zap

Added 2025-09-10 01:47:50 +0000 UTC

It's been a few days since I've zapped anything, mostly because it has been relatively cold here. I tried zapping things on a chilly day and could not get past 125,000 amps. Assuming the temperature drop was to blame, this actually implies that the max current I'll be able to pull is in fact around 150,000 amps with normal summer temps. Needless to say, I'm quickly running out of time to do my experiments, but the coming week will be hot and I have lots of experiments planned for it.

First picture shows a set of giant graphite rods, which of course I plan on pulling an arc between. This may be one of the most powerful carbon arc lamps ever operated. At worst, graphite resistivity would limit the power to a bit over 2 megawatts, and the power would grow substantially as the graphite heated. What I don't know is what the impedance of the arc is like. Either way, most of the light produced will be UV, so it'll be quite spicy to operate.

Next picture shows sodium metal ingots. I'm going to zap them in some way, just haven't decided how Yet. Pic after that shows a titanium rod, which will be fun to hold on a stick and zap things with.

I also made a tree mount for one of my cameras. I feel like aerial shots could be cool.

Finally I just received a 6000 amp fuse in the mail. Of course, it'll get zapped too.