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30 BPS, 60 BPS tests
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From: Robert W. Stephens [SMTP:rwstephens-at-headwaters-dot-com]
Sent: Wednesday, March 11, 1998 12:27 PM
To: Tesla List
Subject: Re: 30 BPS, 60 BPS tests
> From: John H. Couture [SMTP:couturejh-at-worldnet.att-dot-net]
> Sent: Monday, March 09, 1998 11:22 PM
> To: Tesla List
> Subject: Re: 30 BPS, 60 BPS tests
John Couture wrote:
> Because the TC system contains capacitors it has the ability to store
> electrical energy over more than one spark gap operation. This means the
> electrical energy can build up in the secondary circuit and provide one
> extra long random spark. This type of operation is obvious because the
> random sparks emitted from the secondary terminal are not of the same length
> indicating different amounts of voltage and energy on the secondary terminal.
John, All,
I can't believe you are still thinking in this mode John. I thought
Malcolm pretty much beat this point to death explaining it long ago. Sure the
TC contains capacitors, but your statement about energy being stored
in the secondary resonator to 'add up in sequential firings of the
oscillator gap to suddenly conspire on occasion to make one
occasional and random bigger streamer' JUST AIN'T POSSIBLE!
At the normal break rates employed by all coilers, after the gap has
fired the secondary will ring in a decremented wave and whether or
not there is a streamer discharge, the ringdown will be finished,
finito, done-like-dinner, all gone, *long* before the next
commutation of the spark gap occurs. The only mechanism I can see of
storage between bangs is in the ion cloud surrounding the Tesla coil
top terminal, and this capacitance is entirely external to the TC
itself. It is in fact a short lifetime storage medium. If you keep
it's average charge high by pulsing it with a higher than lower
average system breakrate, it rewards you with ion storage and a
pre-paved pathway which successive system pops can build upon.
I see the effect of a TC throwing the occasional long streamer as
brought about from two separate and random processes. One is linked
to the instantaneous voltage which the system oscillator cap is
charged to. This is simply because of the randomness of
the commutation of the system gap over the charging 60 Hz sinewave
from the charging transformer. This is especially a normal mode in
non-synch rotary gaps. The occasional commutation will occur when
the cap has fully charged.
Now introduce the second variable phenomenon. If this happens at the
right moment after a series of previous pops have laid an arc channel all over
the same path and the channel is nicely seeded with ions, wham, you will get
your longest random streamer! Most of the time you are popping at
much less than full charge, and the streamer once launched will often
be heading in a different direction where there is no nicely paved
ion highway, so it has to break new ground as it were. The result is
a less than max streamer length.
Robert W. Stephens
Director
Lindsay Scientific Co.
RR1 Shelburne, ON Canada L0N-1S5
Tel: 1-519-925-1771 Fax:
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