Author Topic: Vlasic on 120 volts (Read 17229 times)

Scott · « **on:** September 05, 2000, 09:47:00 pm »

Not exactly a bulb topic, but something I saw on a science site I gotta try. According to several sites, if you run 120 volts AC thru a pickle,you get an eerie,green light,for a few moments. My design for a "pickluminator" uses an an old heating element for current limiting, and it'll be fused as well. Has anyone else heard of, or tried this?

Chris W. Millinship · « **Reply #1 on:** September 06, 2000, 11:29:00 am »

I`ve not tried it myself, I don`t know how well a pickle would fare on the 240 volts we have over here, but I have seen it done on TV and it does apparently work! If you must try it yourself I`d suggest errecting some sort of safety screen, a pane of glass or clear plastic should do, in case the electrified pickle decides to explode scattering scalding hot chunks everywhere! Not sure that it will explode though, but it pays to be careful!

-chris

Scott · « **Reply #2 on:** September 06, 2000, 02:25:00 pm »

Good idea..a piece of Plexiglass up front,just in case. Maybe you could try it on 240 with a variable autotransformer,or series resistance of some kind. Just a thought.

Bob Masters · « **Reply #3 on:** September 06, 2000, 02:37:00 pm »

All of this talk is makin' me hungry for a good ol' Vlassic Dill pickle..............

Chris W. Millinship · « **Reply #4 on:** September 06, 2000, 03:37:00 pm »

Well actually I do have a 115v transformer, a huge heavy yellow 3KVA thing, but I`d prefer not to see it disintegrate into a smouldering yellow mass should things go wrong! Plus I don`t have any spare pickles round here!
Anyhow if you try it, let us all know what happened, perhaps take a picture and post it here if you can, that`d be interesting to see!

-chris

Tim · « **Reply #5 on:** September 06, 2000, 03:40:00 pm »

quote:
Originally posted by Bob Masters:
All of this talk is makin' me hungry for a good ol' Vlassic Dill pickle..............

Hahaha!

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-Tim

Scott · « **Reply #6 on:** September 06, 2000, 08:53:00 pm »

I'm gonna try it here soon. Finally, it's cooled off, and I can go work in my shop without sweltering, or fighting mosquitos(or, as pronounced in Ky., skeeters). One project I'm accumulating parts for is The Ugly Lamp Contest,held by Lynn's Paradise Cafe every year at the state fair(in Louisville). The "heart" of it is an old wooden ammunition box,which is sitting out on the back porch with some other junk to weather a bit and get grungy looking.It'll be fun...

Bob Masters · « **Reply #7 on:** September 07, 2000, 10:41:00 am »

Please say that you'll post a picture of your "creation" when it's done ! Ha Ha Ha....
May we call you Doctor FrankenPickel ?
Ha Ha Ha..........

I wonder if Vlassic might use that lamp in one of their commercials ? You may have discovered a whole new market for their product !

Chris Kocsis · « **Reply #8 on:** September 11, 2000, 11:09:00 pm »

I've been away from the board a few days but just saw the pickle thread -- here are links to a scan of an article in the Washington Post on May 12, 1999. I meant to put one of these together in time for Tim's visit out my way (to see my collection and Dr. Hicks', and for a visit to the incredible GE automated lamp factory in West Virginia) but it didn't get done. There are two files. Hopefully you can piece them together with tape

http://www.radix.net/~chrisk/pklite1.jpg">/A> and http://www.radix.net/~chrisk/pklite2.jpg">/A>

Cheers,

Chris

Chris Kocsis · « **Reply #9 on:** September 11, 2000, 11:16:00 pm »

Oops! I muddled my HTML in the messsage above but if you click first on the left /A> and then on the right one you will get both pix. I also need to play with my scanner's contrast settings. Still this ought to be fun reading.

[This message has been edited by Chris Kocsis (edited September 12, 2000).]

Tim · « **Reply #10 on:** September 16, 2000, 11:49:00 pm »

Cool article Chris - thanks for scanning it! Definitely "weird science" in my book

Now, how many homemade lemon batteries would it require to power this super pickle luminary?

Couldn't resist!

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-Tim

Chris W. Millinship · « **Reply #11 on:** October 08, 2000, 08:31:00 am »

Scott- have you had the chance to try it yet? Did it work? Let us all know won`t you...

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-chris

http://members.ebay.co.uk/aboutme/chrismillinship

Dylan · « **Reply #12 on:** February 15, 2001, 08:30:00 pm »

I haven't tried it on 120V yet, but I did put a pickle on my 10,000V neon/ignition transformer. the pickle only produced a small amount of steam, but nothing else happened. Wet cardboard or sticks react with alot of smoke and steam, but why not the pickle?

ddn2 · « **Reply #13 on:** March 01, 2001, 02:02:00 pm »

Dylan - I suspect an easy answer to your question is that the impedence of the pickle is much, much lower than the output impedence of the transformer. Therefore, most of the energy being feed into the transformer is being dissipated by the transformer and not the pickle. The pickle essentially "shorts out" the transformer. In contrast, the wet sticks have a high resistance, dissipate a good deal of heat, and put on quite a show when subjected to higher voltages.

Dylan · « **Reply #14 on:** March 01, 2001, 07:12:00 pm »

Thanks for the explanation. I thought it might have something to do with that, but I haven't been doing this for very long, so I wasn't sure. I still need to try the pickle on 120V and see how that works.

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---Dylan Windom