RE: VTTC/SSTC Spark Appearance Comparison

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

Original poster: "Mccauley, Daniel H by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <daniel.h.mccauley-at-lmco-dot-com>

So my question is, why are VTTC arcs perfectly straight, and SSTC
arcs not? Don't they work the same way? They both (VTTC and SSTC)
switch CW power into the primary right? I know exactly how SSTC's
work, but I've never looked into VTTC's, so can someone please inform
me exactly...exactly...what the primary sees in a toob coil? If you
can describe, or link to a waveform, it'd be great.

 >>>>>I believe it may have to do with the pulsed cathode nature (staccato
mode) of the tubes.  Since the tube is operating
at a much lower duty cycle, the arcs are very short lived and don't have
time to move around much.  This is opposed to a
coil running at normal 60/120Hz (half/full rectified) duty cycle in which
the streamers basically continue propogating and have room to emerge in the
previous ionized paths.  Of course this is just a conjecture on my part, but
seems to make sense - at least to me.

 >>>> I think you could get a similar effect if you hooked up a staccato
controller to a SSTC coil.  Hook-up would be a bit different, but i think
the effect may be similar.  Not too late to get one of these boards
SSTC'ers!  Still have a few left.

The Captain