Original poster: "Barton B. Anderson" <bartb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Hi Peter,When I said "when all is said and done", I was referring to the voltage present at the gap during each presentation of the electrode. The cap size and charging is affected by the high rate of presentations. Along with this however, is the gap spacing. I assumed narrow (as is normal with RSG's). If for some reason you had the gap spacing relatively large, then the minimum voltage required to conduct would transfer to a much lower bps. But, if the gap width was small (only a couple-few thousand volts needed to arc the gap), then yes, the voltage at the gap was down near 5 kV. Hard to really say however without "the coil in my garage (if you ever get to California!)".
I completely understand your 11 kV value (Javatc calc'd the same "Before the gap") and is what it would be with a full cap charge time between presentations, but that is definitely not the case at your high break rate (Javatc showed slightly lower than 5 kV at the gap itself). The cap only had a charge time constant of 0.51, resulting in a 40% charge of the 11 Kv. But, there is a lot that goes into gap conduction, so only an ideal guestimate in your particular case. Very interesting nonetheless. High bps has been hinted as "over lossy" via theory in the US yet promoted in the UK. Well, maybe the UK coilers know what their talking about and it took your photo's to get the point across (at least to me).
Take care, Bart Tesla list wrote:
Original poster: "Peter Terren" <pterren@xxxxxxxxxxxx>Interesting what you say about the drop under load. My calculations before were of 11kV with the small resonant rise, but of course this doesn't take into account the loading. It also makes my voltage calculations way out for the output at the topload. Guess I'll have to make a plane wave antenna and measure it properly.Peter http://tesladownunder.com/Original poster: "Barton B. Anderson" <bartb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Hi Gerry,Peters transformer output I guessed at about 10kV, but by the time all is said and done, it drops to about 5kV at an eVp, however, the power at the gap was still sufficiently high due to the high bps. His spark lengths and streamer color certainly shows there was plenty of juice. That's what I was referring to.Take care, Bart