A capacitor bank dumps 3 kJ of power into an iron wire for dramatic exploding wires effects.
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This shows exploding copper wire at 2 kJ of which only about 500 J is used. The wire is 30 gauge and is about 3 m long.
More exploding wires. Here a 26 g wire explodes with 3 kJ. The red marks are the red hot copper wire fragments as they spin away leaving spiral light trails.
This looks just like the old game Total Annihilation with the Arm machines vs the Core machines burning each other up. It actually is an exploding wire run through an inductor. The inductor is a 3 kV winding of a 10 kW transformer. Wire is 35 G and power is 2.5 kJ at 5.5 kV. Look at the right “machine” which is just a 100 kV mobile x-ray supply which is also supporting the unrelated transformer. The flash seems to envelop the transformer in the first two photos. I wonder if this is due to the magnetic fields as it is not present on a shot without the inductor but arising from the same spot. The fact that it goes out to both sides may indicate voltage reversal due to resonance with the inductor and pulse capacitors.
The series inductor transformer close up with the epoxy encased secondary. You can see the very fine wire connected to H2 and the heavy earth return. This is joined to H1 if I want to add the inductance of the transformer.
Above photo shows the 2.5 kJ shot using the same 35 G wire but without the inductor. The flash and bang is much greater. This is a daylight shot. I understand that you need about 1 kJ of power per foot to explode wire well to give a spark channel.
Future plans would include the inductor setup but with a higher power. I have used 2 kJ here but 10 kJ would give a much longer arc and with the inductor that might be quite long. A 10 foot arc could be possible. This would be longer than a Tesla coil and vastly more powerful for a single stroke. (Intrusive thoughts of world domination start coming back to me here)
In fact this reference (Exploding wire 60 m long) used 69 kJ to explode 60 m. Assuming the right voltage I might achieve 10 m with 10 kJ. It does take a lot more voltage but a series inductor might do the trick as used above. I should really try out this arrangement for distance compared with no inductor.
Related pages
Exploding wire lightning simulation
Try something else
FlouresceinExternal links
A wire exploding site from Bob LaPointe.
Photo Date: 2006