[time-nuts] Spark timer.

[Mark Spencer]

Not sure if we are talking about the same thing or not, but in high school physics we had an apparatus that allowed for metal pucks to slide on a metal table.   Bumpers could be added or removed from the pucks to model different types of collisions.  Metal chains inside surgical tubing allowed pulsed HV to flow from the pucks, thru a piece of paper and into the metal table.  The pulses of HV periodically marked the paper and by measuring the distances between the marks one could compute the velocity of the pucks.    I have a vague recollection of using Lotus 1-2-3 to process the data collected during multiple repetitions of the same experiment.   It never occurred to me to question the stability of the time base for the pulsed HV source when I submitted my findings (:


Mark Spencer

mark at alignedsolutions.com
604 762 4099

> On Nov 24, 2019, at 12:27 PM, Gary Woods <garygarlic at earthlink.net> wrote:
> 
>> On Fri, 22 Nov 2019 12:54:32 -0500, you wrote:
>> 
>> I picked up a CENCO Oscillating Spark Timer at the MIT flea market.
>> I would have liked to get an old tuning fork frequency standard but
>> this old mechanical oscillator peaked my interest and at $5 I could
>> not resist taking it home.
> 
> I remember using one of these to time "frictionless" pucks colliding
> on a sheet of waxed paper in freshman physics lab in beautiful Troy,
> NY.  I thought at the time "hey, an electric Vibroplex!"
> It pulsed a Model T spark coil, IIRC.
> 
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