Re: Gas & Gaps

To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: Re: Gas & Gaps
From: "Sam Barros" <sambarros-at-hotmail-dot-com> (by way of Terry Fritz <terryf-at-verinet-dot-com>)
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 14:58:17 -0600
Approved: terryf-at-verinet-dot-com

>Electronegative gas, like SF6 (oxygen? chlorine?) has twice higher 
standoff
>voltage, but inert Ar & Xe quench faster

 Oxygen will be perfect for oxydising your gap! It will make your copper 
electrodes turn into copper oxide over 5 times faster than before.
 The only use I see for clorine in a gap is if you want to make some 
copper cloride and die from clorine poisoning... Clorine is VERY 
reactive!


>Pressure increases standoff voltage linearly to 6 bar
>
>Mercury and heavy inert gas (Ar, Xe) has lower forward voltage (10 - 40
>volt) drop, but cathode damage (sputtering) happens around 100V, with 
high
>currents. Insulators get metalized & shorted.
>
>Hydrogen has higher drop, 100V, but faster recovery time, and has 
higher
>(600V) sputtering damage threshold
>
>Metals make diffuse-to-arc transitions similar to vapor pressures:
>Mercury has best diffuse-to-arc discharge, happens at lowest voltage.
>Cadmium, sodium, copper and iron with the highest vapor pressure vs.
>temperature
>All suffer from poor 10's ms quench times, limiting pulse rates to
>100's/second.
>
>Ionization probability vs electron collision energy curves list argon,
>nitrogen, mercury, neon, helium, respectively, over a 2-1 range with 
argon
>the easiest to ionize.
>
>
>
>
>
>surface discharge:
>
>multi-channel
>
>fast cooling/quenching-.2 - ,5 ms 2-5A/channel
>
>
>surface conditioning of G10-3 orders magnitude, 500 shots
>
>alumina 1/4 erosion of g10, g10 channels dropped to 1/4
>
>fast switching & low jitter, no trigger electrode flashback/isolation
>
>glass, ceramic & alumina

 If I was you I'd try Nitrogen or, better yet, HYDROGEN! Use some 
pressure as well...

 Sam.

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