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New G10 Gap Performance
Hi all,
Just wanted to post tonights run (first run outside this year).
I just finished construction of my G10/Tungsten gap (decided to build a
decent gap for once). It's basically 12" dia., can run up to 12, 0.375"
dia. tungsten rotating electrodes, mounted directly to shaft via press
center hub (very stable and can be mounted to different motor shaft
diameters for a low cost of $3 [U.S.]), homebrew sync gap. I also added
length to the secondary which is now at 12.5" x 44", 983 turns.
Anyway, the gap is mounted and housed under the primary. The caps are
also mounted to the gap housing so everything is under the primary. I
set it up outside the garage tonight. I only used a single toroid for
this run (7.6" x 35"). Tank capacitance was set to 0.044uF. The coil
performed well and at about 6 KVA (breaker limitations on the mains).
The gap was incredibly smooth running and quiet, and set with 8 rotating
electrodes and one stationary pair (240 bps). I was getting about 5 very
white arcs per break (small toroid). The average freeair arc length was
about 80 inches or so with frequently longer arcs. Not sure how long,
but probabably 90 or more. I got a few arcs to the strike rail, but most
arcs stayed in the air or hit the pavement. Toroid to pavement is 85
inches.
The coil ran excellent with a smooth buzz. I heard the safety gap fire
only once or twice. The caps stayed nice and cool. I snapped about 30
pictures, but with a cheap camera not capable of shutter speed changes.
Hopefully, they'll turn out ok. It was a great run. The coil had nice
field control and the arcs were "very" white, powerful, and heavy.
Obviously, the toroid at 38pF is too small (this coil should have about
60pF). That will be another night. I only ballparked the tune. I scoped
the sync gaps sine angle firing today but made no changes to the disk
rotation since it was firing slightly after the peaks. I felt it was
pretty close. Maybe next weekend (if it's nice) I'll add my second
toroid and maybe another 0.022uF.
I want to thank Ed Wingate for his work on the tungsten electrodes. Ed,
they are perfect! This RSG is the best I've built. I've tried quite a
few different RSG's (alluminum disk, belt driven, spinning pipes, etc.)
and you really don't know they are poor performers until you build a
good one and see the difference. The odd thing is, this was actually the
easiest gap to build (of course, I have everyday access to a machine
shop, mills, machinest who likes beer, etc.).
Bart