[edwardmk]

Originally Posted by T-Cut

The first job I had after Uni was running some very high vacuum equipment. It needed to get down to around 1 micron of mercury pressure, so tiny leaks would stop it working. One way to detect leaks is to buzz the area (it was all glass) with a high voltage wand. These generated several kilovolts and would produce a two inch spark to any metal surface. Any trace of air leaking into the vacuum was ionised by the voltage and you'd see a glowing jet from the 'hole' The interesting thing was you could hold the wand to your finger or palm and get nice Tesla-esk sparking, accompanied by a faint tingle. The current would be a few milliamps, if that, so virtually static electricity.


TC

That is very ingenious and also a rather cool job requirement.