Subject: Re: Critical TC Size

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Greg Leyh by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <lod-at-pacbell-dot-net>


>Original poster: "D.Wightman by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" 
><dwightman-at-mmcable-dot-com>
>A very simple question, What is "CW" mode?


Continuous Wave.  That is, the coil is driven with
a constant amplitude from a signal source as opposed
to being pulse-driven, from say a rotary spark gap.

Pulsed-mode is analogous to using a hammer to drive
a nail, whereas CW mode would be analogous to applying
a constant force to push the nail in.

Hmmm.. to stretch this analogy a bit further, creating
an arc is analogous to driving in a nail, that tries to
creep back out at a slow rate.  If there's too much dead
time between strikes, most of the hammer's work will be
undone by the creeping nail.  To hammer at a faster rate
requires either a lighter hammer or a bigger hammer-wielder.

For nails such as these that tend to creep back out, there's
a practical upper limit to size of the nail -- where the
required hammer becomes so large (and so slow) that the
nail creep will undo any progress made between hammer blows.
--


-GL
www.lod-dot-org