Does such a device exists in real world ? If yes, how is it called ?

[tigrou]

In "Mac Gyver - Easy Target" episode, at 32:15 there is a device referenced as a "high voltage regulator".



EDIT : another picture


I'm wondering if it really exists (and how it's called), or if it's only something made for the show.
It's supposed to be used to charge a superconducting magnetic energy storage, to power some electromagnetic pulse (EMP) device.

[jpanhalt]

The high voltage laboratory at Caltech, Pasadena, CA had similar looking things.  It gave a series of Friday public lectures to which I and my future sister-in-law usually went (I wasn't allowed to drive) while in high school.  Of course, one of the lectures was about high voltage.  Like all, it was great.  The most memorial lecture, however, was about double- and triple-points to which local oil companies apparently sent their engineers (circa late 1950's).  When one asked a very pointed question, the professor/presenter responded, "If you want a consult, call my office."  CalTech was and is a great American technical school.

[oPossum]

May be a large Cockroft-Walton voltage multiplier

[pdenisowski]

The high voltage laboratory at Caltech, Pasadena, CA had similar looking things. 

I've been in numerous high voltage testing chambers and that was my thought as well.

[TimFox]

Often, a Cockroft-Walton high-voltage DC accelerator (voltage multiplier, possibly excited at frequencies above line frequency) was constructed with parallel branches (besides the diodes and capacitors) to include a high-voltage resistor to measure the terminal voltage, and a guard string to avoid corona current in the measurement resistor string.
See Brain Cathcart The Fly in the Cathedral Farrar, Straus and Giroux/Viking 2004.
Close, F. Split decision. Nature 429, 702 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/429702a

In one of the pictures about their competition, there is a good photo of the first cyclotron at UC Berkeley.
The book properly mentions that the heavy armature, rescued from a scrapyard by a grad student, was originally from a Federal Arc (q.v.).

[pdenisowski]

EDIT : another picture

Yeah, that's definitely a high voltage impulse test setup

Here's a (public) picture of the Florida Power and Light "lightning lab" that I visited once

https://interfase.org/fpl-reliability-assurance-center

[tigrou]

EDIT : another picture

Yeah, that's definitely a high voltage impulse test setup

Here's a (public) picture of the Florida Power and Light "lightning lab" that I visited once

https://interfase.org/fpl-reliability-assurance-center

Do you think it's the exact same place, same shot, but modernized ?

[pdenisowski]

Do you think it's the exact same place, same shot, but modernized ?

Not sure.  It's been a few years since I visited them, but my first thought when I saw the picture was "Man, that looks like FPL's lab!" 

[packetbob]

This is equipment was most likely in Powertech's lab near Vancouver, BC (where MacGyver was filmed back in the day)

https://powertechlabs.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/High-Power-Brochure.pdf

[pdenisowski]

This is equipment was most likely in Powertech's lab near Vancouver, BC (where MacGyver was filmed back in the day)

https://powertechlabs.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/High-Power-Brochure.pdf

I think you're right:  here's a picture from their brochure that shows a tower with the same color scheme

[RJSV]

   Did they ever show the thing working, with obvious corona discharge, or even with a faked 'flashy Bright' sparking ?

[RJSV]

   I've worked, 40 years ago, on an accelerator.  That line-up was to have a particle beam, of electrons, in a vacuum.  The claim, which may have been to disguise the project, claim was to hit a target, which would originate radiation when struck. 
   Supposedly to 'irradiate' food, for sterilization.   Now, I suspect it was really for developing a particle beam...weapon...?

   It had hand-wound inductors and a 5 kv supply, along with spark gap switches.

[IanB]

I've worked, 40 years ago, on an accelerator.  That line-up was to have a particle beam, of electrons, in a vacuum.  The claim, which may have been to disguise the project, claim was to hit a target, which would originate radiation when struck.

As far as I know, this is exactly how X-ray machines work. They fire a beam of high energy electrons at a (tungsten?) target, and this causes the emission of X-rays. The higher the voltage (energy) of the electrons, the shorter the wavelength of the emitted radiation. With high enough voltages you can get very hard X-rays that approach gamma rays.

[TimFox]

I've worked, 40 years ago, on an accelerator.  That line-up was to have a particle beam, of electrons, in a vacuum.  The claim, which may have been to disguise the project, claim was to hit a target, which would originate radiation when struck.

As far as I know, this is exactly how X-ray machines work. They fire a beam of high energy electrons at a (tungsten?) target, and this causes the emission of X-rays. The higher the voltage (energy) of the electrons, the shorter the wavelength of the emitted radiation. With high enough voltages you can get very hard X-rays that approach gamma rays.

High-energy x rays (usually above 450 keV) are normally generated in a linear accelerator, which accelerates electrons to energies in the range of 1 MeV to over 20 MeV, which then hit a tungsten target.
The x-ray generation process is called by the German word Bremsstrahlung, which means "braking radiation", since the photons are emitted by the rapid deceleration of the electrons when they hit the target.
X-ray energy between 1 and 10 MeV are often used for industrial radiography, while energies above 10 MeV are typically used for radiation therapy (in oncology).
Bremsstrahlung makes a broad spectrum of photon energies, where the maximum energy corresponds to the energy of the electron beam.

Gamma rays and x rays are the same thing (photons):  the terms refer to the process that makes them.
Gamma rays originate in nuclear reactions, while x rays originate in electron reactions.

[IanB]

Gamma rays and x rays are the same thing (photons):  the terms refer to the process that makes them.
Gamma rays originate in nuclear reactions, while x rays originate in electron reactions.

In some fields, e.g. astronomy, there seems to be an arbitrary distinction where photon energies above 0.1 MeV are called gamma rays, and energies below 0.1 MeV are called X-rays. But this is just a matter of labeling for convenience.

[jonpaul]

HF AC: Tesla coil
Pulse: Marx gen
DC HV Crockofft Walton
Van de Graff

Used in nuclear physics, X ray inspection, HV insulation testing, power transmission and distribution lightning simulations.

See our old friend Greg LEYH site

LIGHTNING ON DEMAND

https://lod.org/

ZAP!


Jon

[warner112aa]

however, was about double- and triple-points to which local oil companies apparently sent their engineers (circa late 1950's).  When one asked a very pointed question, the professor/presenter responded, "If you want a consult, call my office."  CalTech was and is a great American technical school.
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