Re: RSG and NST's

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: "David Rieben" <drieben@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

 Hi Gary,

Answers to your questions are interspersed below:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, November 27, 2004 5:40 PM
Subject: RE: RSG and NST's


> Original poster: "Lau, Gary" <gary.lau@xxxxxx>
>
> Hi David:
>
> I'm sure you know better, but I still have to ask this to cover all
> bases.

Actually, at that time, I really DIDN'T know any better :^/

> Can you say with certainty that prior to the NST failures, that
> you were careful to ensure that the RSG was spinning at 120BPS or
> greater before energizing the NST's?

As far as I know. It's been several years ago, around '99. Can't
remember for sure if I waited for the RSG motor to reach its
full RPM before energizing the transformers or not, but I feel
reasonably sure that the break rate had already exceeded 120
BPS. Can't say for absolutely sure, though.

> Was there a reasonably set safety
> gap in parallel with the RSG?

Nope, but I've burned up NSTs WITH safety gaps set
on them before, too.

> And any possibility that the RSG gap
> clearance was excessively wide?

Yep, I'm sure that's a real possibility. I just generally got out-
done with the fragility of NSTs. That's why I now use PDTs
for this purpose. Of course this was before I had ever even
heard of a "Terry filter", but once I saw the size and brightness
of arcs generated by a pig powered coil, combined with the
reliability, I was through with NSTs, in spite of the info now
available on filtering circuits for NSTs that actually WORK!
Let's face it, once you're used to pig powered arcs, the arcs
from even the most efficient and reliable NST systems just
look plain weak in comparison ;^))) It's a hopeless addiction,
the quest for ever bigger sparks ;^)))))))))))))))

> I would agree with you on the cap feeling the stress more-so than the
> transformer at higher BPS, due to the higher Irms.  But I also think
> that this would be a greater problem in pig-powered systems.  With NST's
> or other lower powered sources, the bang voltage will diminish with
> higher BPS's.

Yep, that would certainly seem to be correct. Like I said, I've just had
absolutely terible luck with reliability of NSTs, no matter what precau-
tion I took to protect them, but I never got around to building a Terry
filter. The pig came in before I found out about it ;^)


>
> Regards, Gary Lau
> MA, USA
>

David Rieben