Kelven Water Dropper

That's Kelvin Water Dropper.

Yeah, l'm making a such device. And I want to solve that confusion. Do you know the answer? Thank you.

Did you follow the link?

Yeah, the device can work, and I can see the light from the device. But I cannot make sure whether it is corona discharge or spark discharge.

Can you hear it click? Sparks are usually audible.

Yes, I can hear it click clearly. So is it spark discharge? In China, it's 00:00 a.m now. I have to go to the bed. I will reply you tomorrow. Thank you for your explanation.

So, when you awake tomorrow, consider that the difference between corona discharge and a spark is just a matter of timing.

When you have two electrodes at high potential difference, and surrounded by a fluid like air, the high potential will start to ionize the fluid near sharp corners, points, or small radii. This is corona discharge. You can feel it if you put your arm near the electrode (NO! Not that close! ), you can hear it if the potential is high enough, and you might even smell it.

When enough of the fluid gets ionized, you will get breakdown channels where the air ions are highly conductive and carry the potential quickly toward the other electrode, until ZAP!! the whole channel gets ionized, and you have a spark.

So, corona discharge is like a baby spark that hasn't learned to walk yet.

Question #1: Is this homework, or a new energy charging device where you have already a flow of water? Were you aware that a group in The Netherlands (Univ. of Twente, as I recall) made a micro-fluidic version of Kelvin's water dropper? Also mentioned in the link was the multiplexing of these to arrive at more charge/time.

Suppose instead of a spark gap, one attached a quite large impedance to current flow, and allowed slow passage of some of the charging current to a large value, low voltage capacitor. Then the capactitor could supply quite a large flow of power for short durations, such as powering electric tools, recharging batteries, etc. Or it might be used for a planet destroyer rail gun if the size could be extended out of the realm of sanity.