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Re: A Puzzle
From: Richard Wayne Wall[SMTP:rwall-at-ix-dot-netcom-dot-com]
Sent: Saturday, September 06, 1997 7:04 AM
To: Tesla List
Subject: Re: A Puzzle
9/6/97
Greg wrote:
snip
>When I had my coil setup at the old warehouse in SF(see the July Nat'l
>Geographic, Page 94), I installed two wide-bandwidth (20MHz) Pearson
>CT's -- one on the secondary ground connection, and another around the
>ground return wire for a suspended metal claw. The warehouse was
>rather cramped, and the claw was only 10 ft. away, so power arcs were
>the principal form of discharge. During a typical power arc, the peak
>secondary base current ranged between 25 and 30A, and the waveform was
>all but dead after 9 cycles. The peak current in the claw return was
>on the order of 20A. The two waveforms seemed to be in phase, or very
>nearly so. (possible skew from the chopping action on the scope?)
>The RMS current (over 1 sec) for these waveforms was considerably less
>of course, on the order of hundreds of mA.
>-GL
Very nice experiment Greg. Unfortunately, it does not address the
original issue as defined by Bert. Bert asserts that "The current
levels required to support streamer growth are in the multi-ampere
range." In another post, Bert is also very specfic that we are not
refering to "arcs". This is as it should be. We are clearly
discussing "streamer growth" and not power arcs. There is a huge
difference.
When a grounded electrode (claw in your experiment) is made to approach
a TC resonator, environmental factors in the vacinity of the coil are
markedly altered. Electrostatic field gradients between the coil
termination and approaching ground are severely altered. When the
interelectrode distance becomes close enough, interelectrode
electrostratic fields become quite intense. Under the these intense ES
fields, electrons and charged ionized particles are induced to move.
Currents and magnetic fields are produced only by movement of charged
mass particles. Again, a very important EM concept. When
interelectrode distance is close enough, avalanche breakdown occurs and
there is massive movement of charged mass particles. Huge
instantaneous currents may be induced in your power arcs. However,
these induced power arcs have little to do with support of "streamer
growth". Tesla coil "streamer growth" is antecedent to power arc
formation and is incident to charge particle and ion formation by the
electrostatic fields.
Translators are dynamic devices and may be quite simple. They work
both ways. EM <==> ES and ES <==> EM. A simple example is to charge a
HV capacitor with DC current then remove the current source. No one
can deny that the charged cap is an electrostatic device containing
significant electrical energy at this point. If cap voltage potential
is high enough, there will be spontaneous ionization of ambient gases
and corona around the cap terminals. It is still an ES device at this
point. If a conductor is allowed to contact one terminal and is slowly
moved toward the other cap terminal, the interelectrode ES field
becomes quite intense and coulombic forces cause electrons and other
charged mass particles to move. Again, currents and magnetic fields
are produced only by movement of charged mass particles. A very
important EM concept. At avalanche breakdown, there is massive
movement of charged mass particles and huge instantaneous currents may
be produced as a power arc. A very similar senario to Greg's TC power
arc above. Discharging a capacitor is the simplist of all translators.
It merely converts ES <==> EM in the above example.
So, there is nothing magical or mysterious about
electrodynamic/electrostatic translators. We see them and use them all
the time. Everytime we fire a TC. Everytime electrical energy "passes
through" a capacitor. The real mystery is their mechanisms of action.
Ultimately, charge is the prime mover of all electrical energy.
RWW