Rotary test

To: richard.quick-at-slug-dot-org
Subject: Rotary test
From: Esondrmn-at-aol-dot-com
Date: Mon, 15 May 1995 11:42:29 -0400
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Richard,

I fired up my rotary spark gap this weekend.  Performance is disappointing.

Construction:  The wheel is 10.0" dia. Lexan (polycarbonate).  There are 8
electrodes composed of 1/4" stainless steel acorn nuts connected by a 1/4"
stud.  They are set in 1/2" from the outside edge of the wheel.  The
stationary electrodes are 1/8" tungsten.  Since the wheel is not perfectly
true and the acorn nuts are not all exactly the same height, there is some
small gap between the electrodes.  I set them up so they just barely do not
hit.  There is probably .005 to .010" clearance.  I'm not exactly sure what
RPM I am running at, I had trouble getting consistent readings with my
tachometer.  It is turning fast enough to sound like an airplane motor.  I
tried different speeds as well.  I have not got my fan that I plan to mount
in the cover box yet so I am running it out in the open for now.

I thought hooking it up correctly was to simply place it in series with my
existing cylindrical static gap.  I tried this first.  It would only fire
intermittently and the secondary of the coil produced weak, short discharges.
 The cylindrical gap at this point was electrically folded in half.  Then I
shorted out one set of gaps so I had only two gaps on each side, in parallel.
 Same result.  Next I tried removing the static gap and using only the
rotary.  Same result.  Next I removed the resistive load in series with the
welder.  Same result.  I tried varying the setting on the welder and it did
not help.

I noticed that I can finallly control the input voltage to the pig.  It does
not "clamp" at 125v like it used to with the static gap - which we concluded
was shorting out the pig secondary due to it's inability to quench properly.
 I still did not exceed about 10,000 volts because I am using my homemade
capacitor.  (My new commercial cap should be here today or tomorrow.)

Do you have any ideas?  I don't know why this is not working as I thought it
would.  I expected the same or better performance than I had with the static
gap - and the ability to control the primary pig voltage.  I seem to have
control over the pig primary now but the rotary gap hardly works at all.  It
fires very inconsistently, maybe on a 10% or less duty cycly.  I had longer
discharges with a static gap and a 12kv 60ma neon transformer.

Thanks,  Ed Sonderman