Re: Tesla Coil Power Factor

To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: Re: Tesla Coil Power Factor
From: "Malcolm Watts" <MALCOLM-at-directorate.wnp.ac.nz> (by way of Terry Fritz <terryf-at-verinet-dot-com>)
Date: Mon, 21 Sep 1998 20:50:15 -0600
Approved: terryf-at-verinet-dot-com

Hi all,
         I omitted an extremely important piece of information from 
this piece sorry:

> From:           Self <DIRECTORATE/MALCOLM>
> To:             Tesla List <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
> Subject:        Re: Tesla Coil Power Factor
> Date sent:      Mon, 21 Sep 1998 17:17:06 +1200

> Hi Terry, all,
>                 Thought I'd mention something that's been bubbling 
> around in my mind since this discussion started:

<snip>

>      There is a thread on the Tesla-2 list about safety gap firing 
> and what causes it. One guy who was having such problems found that 
> reducing k all but got rid of the problem. Not unexpectedly, his coil 
> output dropped a bit as well. However, the thought that occurred to 
> me (yes, I will test this at risk of my own transformers) was that a 
> gap which does quench rather better than others *might* be 
> extinguishing at a time when there is somewhat more energy in the 
> primary circuit than a poorly quenching one and this energy *might* 
> have something to do with the safety gap firing. Your observation of 
> good quench (correct me if I'm wrong) leaving a reasonable voltage 
> still on the cap seems to fit with this thought. I do feel that it is 
> time this nuisance was quantified and eliminated properly.

I forgot to add that the safety gap firing occurred *only* when the 
system broke out. Another clue.

Malcolm