"amdx" wrote in message
...
On 8/1/2014 9:14 PM, Lloyd E. Sponenburgh wrote:
amdx fired this volley in
news:lrhdki$jid$1@dont-
email.me:

So the question;
Once you have an arc started can you sustain it with low voltage?

Is that rhetorical, for the group, or do you want an answer? It's
simple,
really. So is the reason why you can _appear_ to do so.

Lloyd

No, I'm ignorant on that subject. I am looking for an answer.
I have some 15kv neon transformers, I could connect one to my variac
and test it myself, but I'm getting lazier as I get older.
My thinking is the plasma is a conductor so it will sustain an arc
at
lower voltages, but if there is not enough current to keep it hot,
the arc will extinguish. But that one big speculation on my part
Mikek

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neon_lamp
You can pull a thin arc several inches long in air with a TIG welder
at low current. I can't switch off the high frequency on mine to see
how low a DC voltage will sustain an arc.

http://www.bourns.com/pdfs/bourns_gdt_white_paper.pdf
"The arc voltage is the voltage rating that is specified as 10 V @ 1
A for Bourns® GDTs."

-jsw