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Re: Gaps
On Sat, 1 Feb 1997 22:10:25 -0700, you wrote:
snip
> Quenched Gap beginning on page 41. It
>consists of two LARGE, Heavy, Thick, pieces of metal that are cylindrical
>in shape, with the facing ends ground and polished flat. The machined ends
>are then placed from 1/1000 to 1/100 of an inch apart. Due to the massive
>way it is built it can sink a fair amount of heat. This keeps the
>electrodes cool and allows for hundreds to thousands of individual
>discharges per AC cycle. This does not affect the resonant frequency, but
>does affect the nature of the discharge from the secondary. Mr. Curtis is
>lavish in his praise of this spark gap over all other types. He says it
>produces a series of "very short, clean, and nearly undamped surges". He
>mentions that as it heats up it deteriorates in performance. Today we would
>probably force air cool the device. It appears from the description that
>there is no need to force air THROUGH the gaps. (They are very close
>together!)
>
>By the way, these things were quite heavy and massive, with face diameters
>of three inches and more, and thicknesses of about an inch and a half
>(minimum), and greater. The sheer mass causes the heat to be removed
>rapidly. The large parallel surface area allows for MANY conduction paths,
>and thus high RF currents.
>
>I do not have the facilities here to machine such a beast, but there may be
>some of you out there who have access to such machinery as large lathes,
>etc. Does anyone know if any Coiler has built such a quenched gap and
>reported on its performance?
>
Sounds simple enough.
Do you suppose one could mount the two plates on large aluminum
heatsinks then fan cool if necessary?
Would steel be the appropriate material?
David Christal 3341 Cloverdale Lane, Dallas, TX 75234
214 349-6972 (214 FIX MY PC) (Pool Cues and Personal Computers)