Warning: Everything written here is a bad idea. it's not only dangerous, it's lethal. quite a few people have died while practicing this craft. I am a firm believer that everyone is entitled to get him/her/whateverself killed in whichever creative way suites their fancy, but it is no exaggeration to say this is one of the worst. getting zapped by ~2000V is no laughing matter. Just a glancing blow (touching a live circuit without getting glued to it) feels like getting kicked in your entire skeletal structure by a fully grown man. it's not just the pain, but the offending invasiveness of it that proves to you that you are insignificant in relation to this element. Oh, and that's just my experience as a lucky guy. people are randomly more or less fragile to electric shocks. I'm one of the lucky ones. guess how you find out which one are you - yup - surviving it (or not). Becoming the circuit, however, is a horrific experience I wouldn't even wish upon my worst Ex. I got glued to it in Kenya once (full story coming soon) and I have no idea how I'm still alive. If a glancing blow feels like a kick, then this feels like your muscles are trying to snap your bones in half (because they are), and you are reminded in a very vivid sense that many basic things in your body are in fact, muscles. Lungs, for example, cannot expand once emptied, so forget about crying for help. Also, forget about "take a breath, chill, figure it out".
NEVER WORK ALONE NEVER USE TWO HANDS ALWAYS MIND THE SWITCH
ALWAYS WEAR WELDING GRADE EYE PROTECTION ALWAYS DISCONNECT BEFORE TOUCHING
ALSO, DON'T DO IT AT ALL, INSTEAD WATCH MY VIDEOS AND BUY MY STUFF.
Also, I'm self-taught in almost everything, so the following explanation will definitely contain errors. Here you can find a professional breakdown of the phenomena by actual physicists. personally, as an avid science fanboy, and with my experience, I understood maybe 17%.
Let's get to it, then.
Well, I didn't invent the system of creating lichtenberg figures, just the method of controlling it, which is reliant on my understanding of the process detailed here (which I'm still struggling to put into words). the basic idea (regarding wood - there are other materials) is this:
Wood is a fibrous material, with capillaries designated to transfer different solutions through the body of the wood in a process called capillary action for the purpose of... well, living and stuff. once timbered and dried, those capillaries quite readily transfer other liquids (in this case a baking soda & water solution) through them. This allows me (inefficiently) to run high voltage through the grid. As a power source, I usually use microwave oven transformers I scavenge - another process that's just waiting to kill you by electric shock or cancer. I also experiment with neon light transformers and electric fence transformers, but since they're not free, well...
Personally, I use plywood almost exclusivity for two reasons.
The first - structure. when splitting a wood into plys, the wood is basically lathed like unrolling a toilet paper roll into flat sheets (plys). The result is that the capillaries make no sense anymore, as they are cut regardless of the tree's structure. now that the displaced capillaries are flattened in a chaotic grain, it is optimal for chaotic fractal patterns. The more possibilities for the electricity to "guess" where to go next, the better. another advantage is the separation of layers by glue. Until the process burns through a layer, the layers almost never interact electrically with one another and the burns remain on the surface, for the solution stops permeating at the glue. when I worked with solid woods such as the bar in Kenya, the burns often traveled underneath the surface and reappear in an inconvenient location. Naturally, such unruly behavior and disobedience is not to be tolerated.
The second reason - I prefer to work with reclaimed materials, for obvious environmental reasons and for personal therapeutically reasons (If there's hope for trash wood, there just might be hope for me). But while many scavengers such as myself compete over salvageable timber wood, almost nobody attempts to reuse plywood, So it's readily available every time someone throws away a closet, a bed or (my favorite) remodels their kitchen cabinets. So basically, plywood is better suited for fractals, desperately needs re-usability avenues, and it comes in two of my favorite colors - available and free.
So, after absorption of the conductive solution, the fibers effectively become a mesh of electric chords, connected one to another by a residue of conductive solution. Naturally, as high voltage flows throughout the mesh, and through the not-very-efficient conductive solution, the resistance creates heat, which evaporates the residue, turning the zone between two fiber-ends non conductive. Well, there's actually no such thing as fully non-conductive, but for simplicity's sake we'll let it go. So, electric flows have "inertia" of their own, especially when a potential route is set. As the current flows over the non-conductive area, it is at maximum resistance, creating a Dielectric Breakdown which is basically a mini lightning - an arc that burns a tiny piece of wood. It also generates UV light that can mess up your eyes, and if two circuit meet - it creates plasma as well. All of this is the basic unit of the burn process.
Now comes the cool part, as the process is repeated X millions of times per meter. At the beginning, a conductive solution was added to the non-conductive wood, but burnt wood is semi conductive in itself, and when heated, is actually more efficient than the solution. After long conversation with physicists, electrical engineers and mathematicians, I'm convinced that this is the source of the stunning fractal nature of the results. It is rooted in the exponential expansion of conductivity. As the arcs create new and semi-random pathways, it both allows for a "thicker" current, and demand new pathways for it. Nature solves these equations as it does rivers deltas, neural pathways, lightnings ,corals and the list is endless.
and so repeats and intensifies the process - potential creates flow dwspie resistance, resistance begets heat, begets arcs, begets charcoal, begets more flow, and repet. throughout the process, simultaneously, but on a different resolution, at the vey edge of the emerging fractal. an electron "asks" which route to take through the non-conductive area. as it does so, it "commits" to the route, burning the wood into conductivity and dictating a pathway and options choose from for the next electron for when it will undergo the same process as it will travel through the arc.
As limitations within possibility and potential collide, allowing each other and folded onto themselves, we get the pattern, as we do in all of nature. i believe the bifrucated fractal is the most common fractal in nature because this is what energy flowing, or matter forming looks like, given minimal rools.
I assume that this fractal differs from such fractals as the Mandelbrot beetle in multi dimensional symmetry (or scarcity thereof) in that those computer generated models work on homogeneous grids while the wood's original grid is, well, another fractal of it's own.
So that's the basic understanding as I perceive it. based on that, and based on envisioning electrical current as kinetic energy (It's not, but actually understanding electricity is beyond me for now) and pretending I understand quantum electric phenomena helps me tempt, coax and bludgeon the electricity go more or less where I want and do more or less what I want. Since electricity will always travel the path of least resistance, it is up to me to stage the path for it to travel. Too much coercion results in uninspired and unnatural lines. Today, after pushing the envelope on the control issue beyond any further attempt, I'm more comfortable with a soft hand on the lead, and letting the material dictate most of the decisions.
Or at least, that's what I tell myself
© Copyright Nadav Parzanchevski 2019
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