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steam punk magics duh dave get with it

weeerrrrllll..... it is a lighting device... that incoming objects... like bullets or men will fry.... yeah?

I'm afraid the principals of electricity require grounding

never heard of ball-lightning?...

besides... tesla was/ is cool... so rule of cool fully implies here and overrules reality

Haha of course!

I'll put my science book away and shut up

this here?...i bet you will find something to support tesla thingummies

hahaha better than a magazine in New Vegas eh Vik?

How high does a blimp go ? I am just thinking that some kind of cabling could be dropped to provide the grounding.

I have seen a tesla coil with wire for the electricity recently here on dakka but where I have no idea

Sorry Vik the dumb ideas are going again, while I am at it I still think the Gondola needs a balcony

Viktor von Domm wrote:never heard of ball-lightning?...

besides... tesla was/ is cool... so rule of cool fully implies here and overrules reality

could build his death ray if you want, but it'd be less flashy *ba-dum tss*...

Dave if your worried how he's generating the power, then he's picking up the static from the clouds. If your wondering how he's discharging it at a specific target, then think taser. The ship could fire wires to guide the lightning.

Bah... ok, no apartments then =)

btw, the gondola would make a great submarine if you ever get bored with it flying around

I like the tesla coil stand thing, looks very cool.
Good idea for the attachment thing with the dowels (you seem to have quite a lot of these...).
and nice rails.

Interesting lightning fact: It takes about 1000V per cm for a spark to jump a gap in air (if I remember right).
The charge of the tesla coil on the blimp could be built up and "stored" as static electricity (a potential difference between the coil and the earth, the distance giving you the required voltage) and then discharged trough the target to earth via the air (damp air even makes it easier to conduct). Would probably be a good idea to discharge it before trying to land though.

But it couldn't be used for air-to-air, only air-to-ground right?

It could be air-to-air if the path of least resistance to earth was through the target.
e.g. a lump of metal between the tesla and the ground would create a shortcut for the electricity to bypass a chunk of (quite high resistance) air.

Planes get hit by lightning all the time, on it's way to earth. It doesn't stop at the plane, the arc has to reach the ground somewhere, it's just a little easier to take some of the distance through the plane. (We'll just ignore that these planes don't usually suffer any damage in the process as the metal skin acts as a Faraday cage).

ahh, but lightning only grounds when negative ions reach up from the ground causing that lesser resistance due to atmospheric conditions...i.e. it doesn't always strike

I really need to read more about electricity

in a sense, lightning strikes are actually caused from the ground up

Indeed, the potential difference (voltage) between the clouds (or airship) has to be high enough to overcome the resistance of the air. The atmospheric conditions (or an intervening craft) can help or hinder this by altering the resistance of the path (as can the length of the path (altitude).

 dsteingass wrote:
in a sense, lightning strikes are actually caused from the ground up

That is one fact that I am aware of out of many that are floating around, thats why I though a metal cable dropped to the ground and anchored would work in principle.

Mind you it would make the Blimp a sitting duck

 dsteingass wrote:
in a sense, lightning strikes are actually caused from the ground up

Ja, that's the direction of the electron flow.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The blimp just need to do what the clouds do, which is create a positive charge for the electrons to flow towards.

Yeah, if you don't already consider a giant bag filled with flammable gas to be a sitting duck

 dsteingass wrote:
Yeah, if you don't already consider a giant bag filled with flammable gas to be a sitting duck

LMAO fair point


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Dr H wrote:

 dsteingass wrote:
in a sense, lightning strikes are actually caused from the ground up

Ja, that's the direction of the electron flow.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The blimp just need to do what the clouds do, which is create a positive charge for the electrons to flow towards.

So let me get this right you mean as the conductor of electricity rather then the propulsion of it

 lone dirty dog wrote:
, thats why I though a metal cable dropped to the ground and anchored would work in principle.

The way that small Van der Graff generators work is by splitting the charge (for want of a better word). It make the top of the generator (the silver ball thing) either positive or negative and then the bottom terminal the opposite.
That bottom terminal is connected to earth and then allows a circuit to be completed by someone touching the top while standing on the ground. So a trailing cable could be used for this (if tesla coils work in the same way, I would assume so).

It wouldn't need to be anchored to the ground, but the nearer it is to earth the lower the required potential difference would be to complete the circuit by arcing.

 Dr H wrote:

 lone dirty dog wrote:
, thats why I though a metal cable dropped to the ground and anchored would work in principle.

The way that small Van der Graff generators work is by splitting the charge (for want of a better word). It make the top of the generator (the silver ball thing) either positive or negative and then the bottom terminal the opposite.
That bottom terminal is connected to earth and then allows a circuit to be completed by someone touching the top while standing on the ground. So a trailing cable could be used for this (if tesla coils work in the same way, I would assume so).

It wouldn't need to be anchored to the ground, but the nearer it is to earth the lower the required potential difference would be to complete the circuit by arcing.

Thats what I thought the reason far anchoring was more to steady the killing shot as well as keeping a stronger connection.

 lone dirty dog wrote:

So let me get this right you mean as the conductor of electricity rather then the propulsion of it

Not sure what you mean by propulsion.

To create the current (a flow of electrons) you need a potential difference (the voltage), this acts like a kind of gradient from one extreme to the other.
Nature hates gradients and will always try to maintain an equal spread of anything (that's why milk will always mix with your coffee even if you leave it alone).
If you make the tesla coil positively charged enough, this makes a large potential difference between it and the earth. Make that big enough and the electricity can arc across the gap (to return to an even spread of charge).
How far it can arc is dependant on the resistance of whatever is in between the extremes of the charge (the air).
An aircraft between the coil and earth will create a path of lower resistance and the electrons will choose that path over just travelling through the air and ZAP.


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 lone dirty dog wrote:

Thats what I thought the reason far anchoring was more to steady the killing shot as well as keeping a stronger connection.

The beauty of electricity is that you don't need to aim it, it will always take the path of least resistance. As soon as the enemy came within range it would be zapped automatically and accurately.

Sorry maybe I should clarified what I meant as to propulsion, I was not sure if you were referring to conducting the source of electricity or the deliverance of the power as in the form of a weapon hence propulsion.

Hope that makes some sense as I am not sure it is making sense to me now LOL

Thanks for the break down makes more sense to me now, but can I ask one question does this mean you can only direct the energy down wards to the earth rather than across the sky itself then ?

If thats the case it will limit the potential of the weapon considerably.

You guys are the reason the mechanicus discontinued making electro-priests aren't you?

Magos1: my electro priests have defeated three separate alien incursions on this dust ball of a world.
Magos2: but they shouldn't even function because of the flow of positive energy.....
Magos1: but the omnisiah gave us the stc to make them.
Magos2: yes, but he also gave us books on energy flow matrices, and doomahickies.
Magos1: 01000110 01110101 01100011 01101011 00100000 01101101 01100101 00100001 00100001 00100001, deactivate the electro priest project, recycle the priests into servo janitors.

Two weeks later both mangos were destroyed when the planet were over run by the aliens, this time no electro priests were there for defenses. Now all that remains are servo janitors still cleaning up the mess.

Moral off he story.....rule of cool, electro guns work in steampunk because they are awesome. Failure to bide by rule of cool will have you turned into a servo janitor , in the grim dark future there are always dirty toilets for you to clean .

haha! -Except the Tech-preists don't eat, so therefore don't poop

 dsteingass wrote:
haha! -Except the Tech-preists don't eat, so therefore don't poop

But hey have to have their oil changed every 3000 paces

lone dirty dog wrote:Sorry maybe I should clarified what I meant as to propulsion, I was not sure if you were referring to conducting the source of electricity or the deliverance of the power as in the form of a weapon hence propulsion.

Hope that makes some sense as I am not sure it is making sense to me now LOL

Thanks for the break down makes more sense to me now, but can I ask one question does this mean you can only direct the energy down wards to the earth rather than across the sky itself then ?

If thats the case it will limit the potential of the weapon considerably.

Yeah, I get what you mean. I think I've answered that, have I?
Doesn't have to be downwards so long as the path the electricity takes has a lower resistance than direct to earth and metal has a FAR lower resistance than air.

lol Theo.

Theophony wrote:Moral off he story.....rule of cool, electro guns work in steampunk because they are awesome..

and this is how it should work on Vik's airship.