Quote:
Originally Posted by walterbeers
Found a picture of a similar shock therapy thing on e-bay. This is just like the one my dad had only it has more glass tubes in different shapes than the one pictured. There trying to sell it for $235. Gosh, wish I had grabbed it when we cleared out my parents estate.
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That's a Tesla Coil. They are worth at least somewhere near that.
I have two of that exact sort which I bought new in the 70's and used daily for years. They still work.
The standard use was to look for leaks in glass vacuum systems.
You turn it on and hold it near the glass, and see
a purple glow near the leak. It is also used
in real science demonstrations for exciting gas tubes,
like hydrogen, neon, helium, mercury, chlorine, bromine, etc.
You get different excitation from a 30kV neon sign transformer
and different yet from DC. This of course works on
gassy vacuum tubes, well, but I don't suggest it on
valuable ones since there is the possibility of damage.
That particular type won't hurt you unless you have
a bad ticker. I got hit many times ... always in the behind,
by my grad students.