On Monday, October 19, 2015 at 12:53:45 PM UTC-4, Tom Miller wrote:
wrote in message
...
On Monday, October 19, 2015 at 9:52:07 AM UTC-4, wrote:
Hi all, I found this thing.. see pictures

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/sxd1cq8qb...LzNAK-Vaa?dl=0
In the back of a drawer at my house. The previous owner was a pack rat,
who also worked for the phone company.
It looks like some high voltage flashlight.
What sort of voltage do I apply to the leads?

Thanks,
George H.

As per Boris - yes, it could be a timing light - but definitely a
stop-action device of some sort. I expect that there were other parts
associated with it - strobe-type timing lights have an induction trigger
device, usually, as one example. + & -attached to the battery, and the
inductor clamped to #1 cylinder spark-plug wire.

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

But there is no trigger electrode. It might be Neon. Can you hit it with
some high voltage, maybe from a lawn mower spark plug? See what the
discharge spectrum looks like.

Hmm OK, I could try that.

I'm a little leery of mixing electronics with my lawn mower.
Way back when, a motor wouldn't start, and I convinced myself
it was a spark problem. I couldn't see a spark
after all. I wanted to see how much voltage I was getting so
I hooked up my DMM (though a series resistor), Pulled the
cord to turn over the engine, and promptly blew up my DMM. :^(

George H.