Re: El Supremo

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

Original poster: "K. C. Herrick by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <kchdlh-at-juno-dot-com>


On Thu, 12 Sep 2002 17:04:20 -0600 "Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
writes:
> Original poster: "Malcolm Watts by way of Terry Fritz 
> <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <m.j.watts-at-massey.ac.nz>
> 
> Hi Ken,
>         A comment:
[snipped]> 
> The decline in primary amplitude exhibited by a cap discharge system 
> 
> is (as you must know) a side effect of the energy transfer. Probably 
> 
> a desirable one since the low duty cycle of the machine prevents the 
> 
> air from becoming continuously ionized as it does with a CW system. 
> 
> This means that a substantial buildup of energy in the secondary 
> occurs before it lets go for each bang. A primary circuit that 
> decrements radically all by itself can't be much of a recipe for 
> success. I'm sure you know all this. Perhaps I've misinterpreted 
> what 
> you are saying.
> 
> Regards,
> Malcolm

Malcolm (& all)-

Neither my existing machine nor what I propose is continuous-wave; in
both, sparks are produced by bursts of energy.  In the case of my
existing s.s. machine, those bursts can be up to about 5 ms. long, with
intervals of about 10 ms, minimum.  El Supremo would work the same way. 
And I'll point out that all spark-gap coils "decrement radically" in
energy: that's the nature of them--the capacitor's energy gets sucked out
exponentially into the secondary for each spark!  By far the most of it
resides in the first few cycles of the resonant discharge-period.  The
instantaneous power that is present varies as the square of the
(exponentially-declining) voltage.  That means, I think, that if the
power being transferred during the first cycle is "1", then that
transferred during the cycle when the voltage has declined to 38% (1
time-constant) is only 14% of "1".  Do I have that right?

Ken