Flash Glass

[nbk2000]

I saw a post on another forum, about 'frozen lightning', which is the pattern of an electrical discharge in a lucite object.

Anyways, while the resulting 'art' are so much kitsch, the process of production is quite interesting.

The lucite blocks are saturated with an electrical charge from an electron beam gun, and the charged block grounded out.

In the process of grounding out, the lucite emits a bright flash and, of course, a high-voltage charge, just like a capacitor discharging. See attached picture.

This got me to thinking that, depending on the ability of the lucite being able to retain it's charge for a long time, it'd be an interesting protective device.

Imagine a laminate of the charged luctie between regular glass. It's in a window frame. Piggies come to smash'n'rake their way into your house.

Piggy with the rake gets a few thousand volts shot through him as the charge grounds out through the rake and his attached body, while simultanously flash-blinding any night-adapted eyes. :p

The lucite loses most of it's structural strength after discharge from the occluded fractures, but until then, it's strong.

I got the idea for this from the last episode of GIST SAC1, where the intruding pigs went to break the wall window of the Major's house, and got flashed for their trouble by the window. :p This was too similiar to ignore.

[sdjsdj]

You'd need an electron beam trained on it to maintain the charge long-term, but for doors and windows this is a fantastic idea.

How about a charged lucite plate resting on a glass plate, earthed when somebody treads on it? A sort of short-term delaying landmine!

[megalomania]

I was reading about frozen lightning too recently. The deviousness of your mind never ceases to amaze me :) I never thought more about it than the dendritic patters were mildly amusing...

It might be easier to incorporate a transparent (fine mesh) metal screen into the window connected to a powerful supercapacitor that discharges when the glass is broken. Maybe use one of those windows with the blinds inside. Liquid crystal windows should also be able to conduct an electric charge since that's how they change from transparent to opaque.

[nbk2000]

Use the wire mesh as a continuity check. When the resistance of the wire mesh is sufficently altered to indicate a break, the capacitors dump their charge through the remaining wires, which act as EBW's. :)

[tmp]

And I thought I had a mean streak in me ! One(or more) gets toasted with
with potentially kilojoules of electricty and the others get temporarily blinded
by the flash amplified by their nightvision gear. Wow ! The idea of wiremesh
screen is interesting. Like an electric fence built into the window.

[jellywerker]

Lucite is plexiglas/acrylic by the way.

What a coincidence, I am "encouraged" to make a post, and there is a post covering things similar to what I am working on in my physics class at the moment!

The problem is, as pointed out by sdjsdj, lucite wouldn't hold the charge long. Depending on the humidity, it would slowly leach into the air. I think an electron beam is overkill for keeping the plastic charged in this case, but I'll have to research what an alternative might be. I am sure there is something simple that could be done without much effort.