Hi Phil,The leap frog affect as described sets a tone that I don't agree with (the arc from starting electrode to the center arcs first, charging the center electrode until the charge from the center electrode is high enough to arc to the final electrode). That was the tone and why I stated "/It's not a leap frog affect across the gap in the way that your describing/". The potential difference across the entire gap ionizes the air across all gap sections, and when the gap fires, the current in the series circuit across all gaps is the same. But yes, there are different voltage drops between each gap. There is of course a rate at which points of the air will reach conductivity sooner or later than other points. When all the points have reached a conductivity level needed to arc the gap, that's when we switch current. The current increases from the source at some rate up to it's peak, and the voltage drops are based on the resistance of each gap.
The spark from a toroid is different. It reaches a high enough potential for corona inception to begin breakout and allowing the current in the channel tip to ionize the air in front of it in a path (steps) that will also move toward the greatest potential difference, up until the current at the tip can no longer ionize the air forward.
I think it's as you say, an illusion of leap frogging in the gap. Even with timed events like a camera capturing a glow in one gap while another is starting to arc, whatever ionization remains in a gap section shows that the ionization of the remaining gaps simply became ionized enough for total gap breakdown to again occur.
Take care, Bart FIFTYGUY@xxxxxxx wrote:
Is it really?After all, we have no problem with streamers from the topload growing, or starting from nearby objects, or even growing from the middle of the distance outwards (or extinguishing the same way). The primary gap is also pulsed high voltage RF - might it not also behave just as "strangely"? I've got photos of the Jacob's ladder from my pole pig in which the arc extinguishes in sections, little wisps of the previous arc are still floating in the gap while the new arc is starting. Would it be too far-fetched to believe that those little wisps are more conductive than the rest of the air in the gap, and thus if they were to exist across a single section of a multi-section gap, that section would glow either first or the brightest? You also mentioned uneven heating of different gap sections - if one section starts to conduct a little more frequently, and gets the tips of its electrodes glowing from the heat, wouldn't we expect that section to conduct first? I realize that current has to flow through the entire gap at the same time, but there may be a subjective effect where the part of the gap that responds with the lowest resistance or quickest breakdown might glow much more brightly than other gap sections, thus giving the illusion that the current is "leapfrogging" the gaps.-Phil LaBudde Center for the Advanced Study of Ballistic Improbabilities**************Make your life easier with all your friends, email, and favorite sites in one place. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000010)_______________________________________________ Tesla mailing list Tesla@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.pupman.com/mailman/listinfo/tesla
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