Re: Spark Dissipation

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

Original poster: "Luc by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <ludev-at-videotron.ca>

Hi Gary John and all,

When I study video in slow motion I find the same conclusion than John. But my
experience tell me it could be an artifact too. I extract some sequential
shot from
a video of one of my coil. http://pages.infinit-dot-net/luc2/streamer_grow.jpg

Luc Benard

Tesla list wrote:

> Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>"
<FutureT-at-aol-dot-com>
>
> In a message dated 1/31/01 10:14:43 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> tesla-at-pupman-dot-com writes:
>
> > It appears that the second spark might try to follow the path of the first
> >  one for a short distance (an inch or less) but then finds its own
path. Two
> >  distinct sparks were evident most of the time, even at a spacing of 2 ms.
> >
> >  At 125 sparks per second (5 ms burst and 3 ms spacing) the
> >  spark length drops about 12 percent from the 1 spark per second case.
There
> >  are enough other things happening in a conventional Tesla coil (resonance
> in
> >  the power supply, heating effects, etc.) that this probably would not be
> >  obvious either. The point is that one should use whatever break rate gives
> >  the most pleasing visual appearance, without expecting that going from 60
> to
> >  120 to 240 sparks per second will make a significant difference in spark
> >  length.
> >
> >  Gary Johnson
>
> Gary,
>
> Do I understand correctly, that you're suggesting disruptive spark
> lengths do not increase much as the break rate is increased from
> for instance 120 to 240 bps?  This does not seem to fit what I've
> seen in my work.  I've found a 20% increase in spark length as
> the bps was increased from 120 to 240 bps while keeping the
> bang size constant.  Greg Leyh's streamers in his old coil,
> grew almost linearly with increased breakrate.  The sparks can
> be seen to grow over time.  The sparks from each bang do not
> seem to be separate sparks, but seem to follow the same paths,
> adding to the length.
>
> John