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Re: What efficiency?!
Bert,
Thanks for getting my thinkin' in order on this one.....
> Based upon some of the measurements I made during the light-bulb
> experiment, I'd suspect that the currents would be dramatically unequal
> assuming you've got a large secondary discharger. Let's assume that we
> discharge the top terminal through the grounded rod at a point near the
> maximum secondary voltage excursion. The toroidal capacitor's "other"
> plate is earth ground. If we now directly discharge the toroid to a
> grounded rod, NO portion of this heavy discharge current is required to
> flow through the base of the coil - we're directly shorting the cap!
>
> Once we initiate this discharge current, the toroid/arc/groundpath
> inductance form an LC circuit which oscillates in the 10-20+ MHz region.
> The high inductance of the secondary will prevent most of this RF
> current from making out the coil base.
>
> During series resonance, the secondary base current is 180 degrees out
> of phase with the toroid (capacitor) voltage. When we get the heaviest
> "leakage" current from the streamers (at the secondary voltage peak)
> should correspond to the current minimum of the series LC. Again, since
> we're discharging primarily isotropic capacitance through the air while
> attempting to hit ground via the streamers, I'd expect very little
> direct correlation between streamer and secondary base current...
Forgot about the phase shift from bottom to top didn't I :(
Malcolm