Re: Paper about multiple resonance circuits

["Antonio Carlos M. de Queiroz" <acmq-at-compuland-dot-com.br> (by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>)]

Tesla List wrote:
> 
> Original Poster: "Mark Fergerson" <mfergerson1-at-home-dot-com>

>   Tesla used to stress the rate of rise of voltage in the driving
> waveform to obtain optimum power transfer. In light of "recent"
> advances in EM theory, was he really seeing that, or is rate of rise
> just important in getting the spark gap to fire?

The only important rate of rise there would be in the charging of
the primary capacitor by the power supply, just to get more power
into the system. For high efficiency, it's also important to have
fast energy transfer from the primary to the secondary. The best
configuration transfers all the energy in just one cycle, and is
obtained in a conventional coil with k=0.6 in the HF transformer.
This is, however, difficult to achieve, and the reason for the
"magnifier" configuration.
 
>   Is a TC really just a low-pass filter (spikes in, sine out)?

More precisely, a kind of band-pass filter, with DC in (a
charged primary capacitor suddenly connected by the spark gap) and
several simultaneous sinusoids (two in the basic coil) out.
 
>   The "standard" TC circuit transfers power only when the primary gap
> voltage is high enough to fire. This would seem to me to be the source
> of any chaotic behavior, as many factors (temp., heat, humidity, the
> phase of the moons of Jupiter, etc.) will influence the timing of any
> given bang relative to the previous one considered against secondary
> phase.

Once the gap fires, it essentially continues to conduct while it's
hot, with some fast transients at polarity reversals. Chaotic behavior
envolving the power supply, the primary capacitor, and the gap seems
possible. The energy transfer between the primary-secondary systems,
however, is essentially linear, without energy replacement until all
of it is dissipated. No chaos is possible.
 
>   I'm thinking a TC should really be burst-driven with sinewaves, the
> beginning of each burst synched to replenish the secondary field with
> successive ringdowns. This could be accomplished with an
> externally-excited spark gap (yes, like a Xenon tube. That's my
> particular seat on our mutual hobbyhorse  ;>) ).

This is the idea of a CW coil, that tries to replace the lost energy
at each cycle. Essentially just an oscillator driving a resonant
coil, with a behavior that is very different from what happens in
a capacitor-discharge system.

Antonio Carlos M. de Queiroz