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Re: More arc simulations

Hi Richard,

At 12:17 AM 10/20/98 -0400, you wrote:
snip
>All had just a few things in common, inspite of their own unique slants.
They all
>used small caps, large primary inductances, extremly large secondary
inductances,
>and finally, greatly outsized toroidal capacities.

     I assume by "small caps" you meant that they used caps that could be 
efficiently charged given the break rate.  They weren't really using 
"undersized" caps were they?

     Increasing the inductances and toroid size does the following:  It 
increases the number of notches the system sees, lowers the frequency, and 
increases the total time the output arcs last.  However if taken to too far, 
the losses catch up and performance starts to fall back.  The output voltage 
begins to fall back as well.  Although, the system is able to "drive" the arc 
much longer.
     There is probably an ideal region where the arc performance is best 
given a number of input constraints.  Unfortunately,  very drastic changes 
in coil geometry change the losses to areas my models can't see yet (not 
enough data).  So I can't predict what would be best.  However, the 
principles involved are very apparent.  Since I like 15kV/60mA neons as an 
input, there is apparently some optimal size and component values that will 
produce the "best" arcs given this input.  Even though my coil is rather 
large compared to most in it's power range, I suspect it should be somewhat 
larger still for best performance.

     You also mentioned, in an earlier post, that "RF radiation" was "our 
number one enemy".  Personally, I don't worry about this very much at all. 
 I use the usual heavy grounding and all that.  Why is it our enemy?  Have I 
missed something?

Thanks,
     Terry



>
snip
>
>Richard Hull, TCBOR
>
>
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