The Turn Of The Century Electrotherapy Museum http://www.electrotherapymuseum.com A Hint Of 2009 2008 was a rough year.  Lets hope for the best in 2009.  To start off the year, here are a few hints of what's to come. For one I will make more room for words on the site.  It is something I realize is lacking a lot.  I take for granted that everyone who is visiting knows what the pictures are.  So I will make an effort to be more descriptive. Small coils.  The big ones cost too much money! This is 500 turns, a 6" Pancake Coil.  Each layer is around 1 1/2" wide, space wound to maybe 14 - 16 turns per inch. Each layer is insulated with paper, .010" thick, three layers to make .030" or so of insulation per layer.  I do this because I am not using the nice silk covered wire here, but normal magnet wire.  The extra space allows better performance, no arcs occur from turn to turn which is common without the silk insulation.  Some people say I am mad because I use silk covered wire, but really the reason is for spacing and insulation purposes.  For those in Europe, each turn of wire is 2-3 mm apart, and between each layer is .7 - .8 mm paper insulation. Here are some scrapped high voltage transformers from TIG welder High Frequency Arc Stabilizers. You know an HF Arc Stabilizer is pretty much a small Diathermy Machine coupled to the output of the welding transformer. Its a Tesla Coil in disguise!  Voltage is 2.5kV on the big guy.  The small NST looks like 4kV.  The other I have not tested. These Aerovox, Sangamo, and other mica caps were in the units.  .002 mfd or so each. I cleaned up this spark gap from a Miller.  They clean up nice, eventually! Steel components are a killer for spark gaps, do they ever rust as you can see! I'm drinking beer while I can still afford it.  Actually I can't afford it, but I'm drinking it anyway. Its almost Christmas.  I'm cooking Tripe tonight.  Tripe and Beer are good friends, in fact I could eat it every day. I wish some of our Czech and Slovak friends would send us some Drstkova Polevka.  (Hint hint...) I prefer Pilsner Urquell, Staropramen, Czechvar (Budvar), Starobrno, Zywiec, Okocim, Golden Pheasant, etc.  I also like Radegast, and hate that they stopped importing it.  Can we protest that?  Its a crime not to have it. Beer from Eastern Europe is really nice.  Especially Czech beer.   Pivo. Mejla is fast asleep. Here is a single spark gap from a welder. I don't remember if it was Lincoln or Hobart. This one took a bit of cleaning, but believe me, lack of steel components saved it! Mejla woke up. Here is the half way point of polishing it.  Too bad Io is blurry in the background, she's beautiful! I wrote Io with Times New Roman font, because I-O looks like L-O in lowercase... For those of you that wonder, "Io" is pronounced like the letter "E" followed by the letter "O".  Like the song - E-I-E-I-O.  Sort of. "Mejla" is actually a czech name, a friendly form of "Milan".  Its pronounced "MAY-LA".  She is a girl, but I like the name for her. Comes from Milan "Mejla" Hlavsa, former lead singer of Plastic People Of The Universe.  Baby Bear is also on the site from time to time.  She eats vegetables, though we are stopping her from doing that because we don't want her to get sick.  She loves tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, you name it.  Io is unique too, she doesn't mind water and will even go in the bath tub and play.  Baby bear also has the unique character of asking for hairball remedy when she's sick. Our pets are a huge part of our life. . . . I have a Skoda license plate on my car.