Re: Tesla Coil Operation - was "Harmonics"

To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: Re: Tesla Coil Operation - was "Harmonics"
From: Ed Phillips <evp-at-pacbell-dot-net> (by way of Terry Fritz <twf-at-verinet-dot-com>)
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 19:36:31 -0700
Approved: twf-at-verinet-dot-com

"  I believe the Tesla coil is a complex electrical apparatus and it is
not
possible to duplicate its operation accurately using a mechanical
analogy.
The main problem is in duplicating the transfer of energy thru space
from
the primary to secondary coil. This involves electrical induction that
was
discovered by Faraday"

	The Tesla Coil as normally built is simply two coupled resonant
circuits.  While the primary spark gap and the secondary streamers both
exhibit non-liner and time-dependent behavior, there are no mysteries
involved, and straightforward circuit theory can predict the performance
perfectly, if all of the parameters (including spark and streamer
impedance) are known.

	As for mechanical analogies, these are mechanisms which can be
described by the same differential equations as the electrical circuits
for which they are analogs. (Works both ways, of course).  The coupled
pendulums (pendula?) are exact analogs of the Tesla "magnifier", and
with the correct common mass  (pendulums connected via an extra mass, as
described by Antonio) will exhibit most of the behavior of the normal
magnetically-coupled TC, including "resonant rise" and "beats" between
the primary (heavy pendulum) and secondary (light pendulum) motions. The
latter case is exactly analogous to the circuit where the coupling
between primary and secondary is through a common inductor (or
capacitor) at the "bottom" end.

Ed