pulsed tube TC staccato musings

To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: pulsed tube TC staccato musings
From: FutureT-at-aol-dot-com (by way of Terry Fritz <twf-at-verinet-dot-com>)
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 1999 18:49:48 -0600
Approved: twf-at-verinet-dot-com

All,

When I installed the staccato feature onto my small 13" spark tube
coil, the sparks increased to 16" or so.  This may be because the 
sparks were straight and swordlike.  All the energy of the streamer
was concentrated in this one spark-trunk.  Or it could be that the
tuning improved (by chance) in the staccato mode due to the
presence of a smaller ion cloud during staccato operation.  The
spark did not shorten no matter how much I slowed the pulsing.

In contrast, when I built the 29" staccato TC, this coil gave wild
fluffy looking sparks that did not have a dominant central trunk.  As the
staccato rate was slowed, the sparks became shorter, until at very
low pulse rates, the spark was only about half the normal length or
so.  This could also be the result of tuning, except in this case,
perhaps the smaller ion cloud made the tuning worse.  I don't
remember offhand if I tried varying the tuning.

So the question is; why did staccato action increase the spark
length in one coil and decrease it in the other coil?  The only 
possibilities that come to mind are tuning effects as mentioned
above, or spark type also mentioned above.

Has anyone one the list tried a pulsed tube coil and seen these
effects?  (If a large grid cap was used to create the pulsing, this
often tends to shorten the spark.  I didn't use a grid blocking 
osc set-up in my coil).

Perhaps I'll hear from one of the Great Silent Majority of the list.
I'd be happy to hear of any theories, or results, etc. either on or
off-list.

Thanks,

John Freau