Re: Output

[Tesla729-at-cs-dot-com (by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>)]

In a message dated 8/29/00 9:05:42 PM Pacific Daylight Time, tesla-at-pupman-dot-com 
writes:

<< Most people use a constant for to estimate voltage. I think that 
 > >1,000,000volts/5feet works best. >>

Hi all,

I do recall a Dicovery Channel special on lightning that had a clip 
showing Richard Hull's 11-D magnifier in operation for the man-
made lightning segment and the narrator stated, "these 2 million
volt sparks leap 10 ft. thru the air and are an awsome reminder of
the raw power of electricity". I know because I have it on tape. Al-
so, John Couture's "Tesla Coil Construction Guide" on pg. 14-9
has a "Sphere Spark vs Kilovolts" log graph which seems to show
that ~50" represents 1 million volts. I believe this is referring to 
electrostatic DC charges built up on very large radius spheres, 
though and was the only comparison data available to John C. -at-
the time of printing (1994). If I'm not mistaken, John stated this
himself? Also, this same graph shows that 100" sphere sparks 
are considerably less than 2 million volts ( KVs vs spark length
is NOT a linear progression).

OTH, the inductance, energy, and capacitance formulas as well as
the Q factor formulas seem to dictate a much lower "KV/inches"
ratio. We do know that higher rep rates/ freqencies yield longer 
sparks at a given voltage at a given atmospheric condition. Applying 
these formulas to my "Medusa" coil system, it yields around 600 to
700 KV for 10 KVA input and output sparks ~ 10 ft.  However, as 
John C. stated, we need more well equipped and well educated coilers 
to get together and resolve this issue for good. Unfortunately, I am
not educated or equipped sufficiently to conduct these experiments 
myself, but fortunately ther are plenty of geniuses on this list that 
are.

My $.02 worth,
David R.