Re: TC triggered high energy discharge

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

Original poster: "Jim Lux by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <jimlux-at-earthlink-dot-net>


----- Original Message -----
From: "Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
To: <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Sent: Saturday, March 01, 2003 8:31 PM
Subject: Re: TC triggered high energy discharge


 > Original poster: "Terry Fritz" <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>
 >
 > Hi Jim,
 >
 > It helps if the capacitor is charged to as high of voltage as possible so
 > it can have a pretty good arc length initially (maybe six
 > inches).   Suppose we charge our plates to +50kV and -50kV.  Probably fat
 > terminals would do fine.
 >
 > I think you want a inductor in the cap discharge circuit to limit the
 > current to some known enormous value so the cap works more than once. ;-)

Oh, ho.. it just so happens I have some pulse discharge caps rated for
several hundred kA discharge

 >
 > So my idea is to isolate the top terminal with say a 100pF 300kV
capacitor.
 > We still get nice top voltages but the top terminal will be ignored buy
the
 > capacitor discharge currents since the capacitor basically ground isolates
 > it.  It would work much like a triggered gap.  It would arc to one plate
 > first and the top cap would be charged to the first plate's voltage, then
 > that streamer would die and it would look for the other plate with the top
 > terminal having a 50kV offset voltage now (100kV different from the other
 > plate now).  It will find the other plate pretty fast and the residual
 > charge from the first plate streamer should be enough to flash the whole
 > mess over. ;-))

Exactly.. like a swinging cascade..
 >
 > So you just really need a good isolation capacitor in the Tesla coil's top
 > terminal.  Just a block of high dielectric constant plastic with a
tungsten
 > plate on top would probably do it.  It would take some HV design work to
 > get all the dimensions and safety factors right, but once it is going
 > reliably, it should run forever without a thought.  If it had say a 60Hz
 > flash rate at 50kJ per flash.

I was thinking more along the lines of 1 pps...at most..



  You could pump 3MW into it.  I am sure that
 > would be good for something :o)))  Take a moment to imagine what a
terrible
 > machine it would be =:O   3MW, 60HZ, 4 foot discharge, running for a few
 > hours...  I bet the neighbors would call the cops :o))  The noise the
thing
 > could make would probably be lethal at close range...

That's the next problem.. can you run it in some sort of readily
constructable chamber to contain the noise... I imagine that the neighbors
would call the cops the first time you fired the 50 kJ (it sounds like a
very big rifle..)