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Re: Corums New Tesla Coil Theory Paper
Hi all,
I have a few observations of my own to add to those already
made on the Corum's paper.
While great play has been made on the subject of the role that
VSWR plays in coil operation, nothing has been said in this paper
(unless I've missed it) that Q is related to VSWR by multiplication
with a constant (4/PI). This has been stated by them in other
papers. There is a clear inference that if a coil has a high VSWR, it
also has a high Q, Q being an excellent description of the losses
present and easily quantifiable by bandwidth measurements.
Nothing has been said about the voltage that can be reached in
a lossless helix of specific parameters *when fed by a specific
amount of energy* as it is in each and every cap discharge coil. I
think a clear distinction should be made between the characteristics
of a coil fed from a CW source and a fixed energy source. IMHO,
anyone tempted to think that a coil rings up and up with successive
cap discharges should get an oscilloscope onto it and see what
actually happens in a running coil for themselves. It is also
instructive to use a cap discharge circuit capable of sub-
microsecond dwell and break time adjustment to get a feel for just
how difficult it would be to achieve that kind of result with a
mechanical gap of any sort, especially when voltages, ions present
etc. dictate the actual spark timing.
I wonder about the appropriateness of modelling the secondary
as a *uniform* tx line. I don't think there is disagreement that the it is
made up of distributed elements and that current for small toploads
is non-uniform. I can't for a second buy the notion that secondary
current is uniform during gap dwell. I can construct a primary which
would make that situation impossible (unless the speed of light is
infinite of course ;)
Regards,
Malcolm