Re: Vacuum Gap

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

Original poster: "Terry Fritz" <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>

Hi,

	Reducing the air pressure will make the gap fire at lower and lower
voltages until it is basically shorted.  At very low pressures (diffusion
pump) the vacuum will act as very good dielectric and you will get no arc.

I would think the gap resistance would be high at lower pressures.  Perhaps
pressurizing the gap would have some advantage but "I" can't think of any
advantage to a vacuum. 

Cheers,

	Terry

At 06:12 AM 8/17/2001 -0700, you wrote:
>Is there any significant improvement is performance in placing the the 
>spark gap in a vacuum?
>I have a vacuum pump, and I was thinking of putting the SRSG in an airtight 
>enclosure and sucking out the air. It would be easy enough to do, but I'm 
>wondering if it would serve any practical purpose besides giving me the 
>chance to put the unused pump to work...
>