Very High Mutal inductance

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

Original poster: "Erik Schulz by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <gradient-at-mail.utexas.edu>

    I was thinking about the old days when I had problems with racing arcs
on my secondary.  I was wondering why they were caused.  Is the air breaking
down around the coil from the high emf with the help of the pvc secondary?
If so the secondary could be immersed into a large bath of oil.  This would
prevent arcing along the secondary and allow higher coupling before
dielectric breakdown.

    By faraday's law we would get a higher emf with the given higher
magnetic flux linkage.  So what would be the advantage of this?  Im glad you
asked. :o)  My hope is *longer* more wispy streamers but what would happen
if the toriod was increased in size, thereby decreasing the voltage gradient
along the surface?

    Another thought is since the mutual inductance is increased, shouldn't
more energy be transferred per cycle from the primary to the secondary?
Which would mean less total current through the spark gap.

Just some thoughts,
Erik Schulz

CS and PHY
University of Texas at Austin