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Re: Gap losses

At 02:49 PM 6/16/99 -0400, you wrote:
>Malcolm, all,
>
>1.  If the L of pri and sec is increased four times, this should halve
>the freq. (ignoring toroid effects).
>
>2.  Surge impedance will double.
>
>3.  But since freq will be half*, energy transfer will take twice as long,
>so the gap losses will be the same.
>
>(*freq might be a little more than half due to the effect of the toroid, so
>the gap losses might be a little lower).
>
>Is my thinking above correct or flawed?
>
>4.  Because of the above, the *only* way to reduce gap losses is by
>using a higher input voltage with smaller cap and larger L to keep
>freq the same, as Malcolm recently mentioned.  (Here I'm ignoring
>methods such as using metals that will throw more ions into the 
>gap arc, etc.)  
>
>Regarding our gaps, maybe we should worry less
>about how well they quench, and more about how low their firing
>resistance is.  Does the resistance vary much with the use of 
>different gap electrode metals?  Maybe electrodes that burn up
>quicker will throw in more metal, and give a lower resistance?
>I think this was discussed some time ago, I can't remember the
>outcome.
>
>Other comments, speculations?
>
>Thanks,
>John Freau
>

My multi-gap gaps do have better quenching but the series resistance is
also high.  Rotaries have rather poor quenching but the series resistance
is rather low.  Which is best??  Well, it just seems to depend on the
specific system they are on...  Sync rotaries have the ability to fire at
just the right time which, for me, seems to out weight the other two
factors by far.

	Terry