Re: Paralleled SGs (was VICTOREEN SGCA)

• To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
• Subject: Re: Paralleled SGs (was VICTOREEN SGCA)
• From: "Steve Young" <youngs-at-konnections-dot-com> (by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>)
• Date: Thu, 03 Jun 1999 00:27:34 -0600
• Approved: twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net
• Delivered-To: fixup-tesla-at-pupman-dot-com-at-fixme

<SNIP>
> I have ordered 20 of them from all electronics to try and torture them to
> death. well near death anyway. One problem might be that if they are
> designed for low duty cycle use ie surge protection, they might not last
> long in a coil tank circuit. What I am planning to do is try and sort
them
> into voltage breakdown categories of say 1 or 2 % and run them in
parallel
> to try and keep the current density down. Anybody see anything I might
have
> missed?. 
<SNIP>
> regards 
> 
> bob golding
> 
> 
Bob and all,

Every now and then, the idea of putting spark gaps in parallel to share the
high currents is proposed on this list.  It seems to me in general this
won't work.  I think that no matter how many gaps are directly paralleled,
one gap will always fire slightly before the other(s).  Once this happens,
the firing gap's impedance drops far below the others, the voltage
therefore also immediately drops, and the other(s) will probably not fire
at all.  Thus only one of the paralleled gaps will take the full current
and punishment.  On succeeding bangs, this one is likely to again fire
first because of residual metal ions, higher temp, etc.

An analogy would be paralleled neon bulbs, with just one current limiting
resistor for the two or more paralleled bulbs.  I think the probability of
more than one of the neon bulbs lighting is very small.

I have no practical experience with paralleled spark gaps, so I encourage
other list member's wisdom for this subject.

--Steve

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