RE: [TCML] Re Electrode diameter

[drieben@xxxxxxxxxxx (David Rieben)]

Hi Terry,

No, the second set of stationary electrodes is in SERIES 
with the first set. However, I do think your concerns would 
be well founded IF one were to try to PARALLEL two or
more sets of stationary electrodes and although I have heard 
of wiring multiple SGs this way, I just don't see how one could 
get all of the SGs to equally share the "sparking" duty. It seems
to me that the sparks would always "favor" one of the SGs
over the other(s) and therefore, that partricular SG would wear 
away faster than the rest. I suppose that once that "shortest"
SG wore down more, then the next "shortest" one would take
over? Of course there are other factors involved in spark forma-
tion vs. available voltage than just electrode spacing such as 
electrode geometry. It seems that I tried paralleling SGs once
before and ran into the issue of only one of the SGs doing 
most, if not all, of the firing. Anyone else have any practical
experience with multiple paralleled SGs that they'd like to 
share?

Happy sparks,
David Rieben

-------------- Original message -------------- 
From: "Terry Oxandale" <Toxandale@xxxxxxx> 

> This brings up a question: I'm assuming this second set is paralleled to 
> the first set, and if so, have you thus far seen an issue where one set 
> of contacts fires more often (or always) over the second set. The 
> concern I'm getting at is equal firing time between the two sets over 
> the long run as this relates to equidistance gap spacing between the two 
> sets. My question is how much tolerance for a difference in gap spacing 
> can one get away with (001", .010", .1OO"?) and still split the duty 
> between the two sets. 
> 
> Terry 
> 
> -----Original Message----- 
> From: tesla-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:tesla-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx] On 
> Behalf Of David Rieben 
> Sent: Sunday, December 02, 2007 3:07 PM 
> To: Tesla Coil Mailing List 
> Cc: David Rieben 
> Subject: Re: [TCML] Re Electrode diameter 
> 
> Hi Bart, Phillip, 
> 
> I use 3/8" diameter flying electrodes and 1/2" diametered 
> stationary electrodes (all pure tungsten) in the ARSG of my 
> large Tesla system: http://www.teslauniverse.com/members/drieben/ 
> The electrodes were originally tungsten carbide drilling blanks 
> but I have since changed them over to 99.95% pure tungsten. 
> Expensive? Yes (I probably have over $150 in the tungsten 
> alone) but still well worth it in my humble opinion. Also, you 
> will have to excuse the outdatedness of this website as none 
> of the still images have been updated in over two years now! 
> I'm just not much of a website guru ;^/ BTW, I am able to 
> run up to 20 kVA with this setup and the electrodes stay 
> at a reasonable temperature (there is no visible incandes- 
> cence of any of the electrode surfaces after a long, high 
> powered run) ;^) Quenching does start to become a real 
> issue at these kinds of power levels, though, as I can de- 
> tect a "popping" sound accomapanied by a visible flaming 
> yellowish plasma around the spark(s) of the RSG above 
> the intense noise levels of the output spark streamers! I have 
> recently added another pair of stationary 1/2" diameter sta- 
> tionary electrodes to the ARSG so that I now have two 
> pair of stationary electrodes placed 180 degrees apart on 
> opposite sides of the rotary disc to further commutate the 
> spark gap's heating energy. I haven't yet had a chance to fire 
> it at high power since this recent modification as firing this 
> beast requires dragging it onto the driveway ;^() 
> 
> David 
> 
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