RE: Why does my ammeter jump around when running my tesla coil?

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

Original poster: "Lau, Gary by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <Gary.Lau-at-hp-dot-com>

Good question!  When using a static gap, the gap firing does not coincide 
with the peaks of the mains waveform and the firing rate is not at all 
related to the mains frequency.  The time interval from one bang to the 
next may only be described as chaotic.  See 
http://www.laushaus-dot-com/tesla/gapsim.htm for some simulated waveforms.  So 
the number of bangs that occur in the span of one second will be different 
than in some other one second interval.  This results in a fluctuating 
average current reading over the course of time.  If you were using a 
synchronous gap, each bang would be precisely identical and the current 
reading would be stable.

Gary Lau
MA, USA

  -----Original Message-----
From: 	Tesla list [mailto:tesla-at-pupman-dot-com]
Sent:	Thursday, March 20, 2003 12:30 AM
To:	tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject:	Why does my ammeter jump around when running my tesla coil?

Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" 
<Beans45601-at-aol-dot-com>

When i run my tesla coil (currently running on 1 12/60 nst), i notice that
the ammeter that is connected to the nst jumps from 10-13 amps the whole
time i run it. It never stayes at one place for more than 1 second, why
does it do this?
Thanks
Adam