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spark gaps
Hello all,
In my never ending quest for more power and longer spark
I have come to a bottleneck. I believe the gap is now my limiting factor.
Running at about 1.2 KVA I notice that as I run the variac up towards
maximum the spark output actually decreases slightly. I believe that the
gap may not be quenching well as I turn the power up.
I have built an 8 electrode cylinder gap similar to the design
from the funet archives. The 7 gaps are set at .025 inch for a total of .175
inch.
I used 3/4 inch copper tubing and a piece of 4 inch PVC to house it.
A small muffin fan provides air for cooling. (I'm a use what I got kind of guy).
Questions.
1. Would a larger version (bigger, longer electrodes) of the cylinder gap
provide better perfromance?
2. Do I need more than 7 gaps to adequately quench my neon bank? (12kv-at-100ma)
Or another set of gaps in parallel with the first?
3. I have seen references to vacuum gaps in the archives but very few details.
Could somebody who has built one give some details and what kind of results
were obtained.
4. The message I get from the list archives is that rotary gaps are not
for neons. The message is loud and clear that using a rotary on a neon
is inviting transformer failure. Why? What is it that promotes a failure?
I'm not likely to build a rotary anytime soon but would like to know just
the same.
Any input appreciated.
Mike Hammer
mhammer-at-midwest-dot-net