Re: sync gap vs. static, was; secondary coil form materials

[Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>]

Hi Chris,

	Theoretically, if a neon system is fired at a given rate but that rate is
not synchronized with the line voltage, the power will drop by 1/2.  This
is because the gap is firing at .2, .4, .634, .02553.... of the full
voltage of the system.  However, if we precisely sync the gap firing to the
maximum charge on the caps, we can ALWAYS fire at the peak voltage and
every firing cycle will be at the full power available.

A static gap fires when a certain voltage level is reached.  So it tends to
fire at full voltage giving a fairly good power throughput.  Thus, it is
sort of self synchronized.  But rotary gaps have a few advantages.  They
run far cooler and resist power arcing and a number of other obnoxious
traits of a static gap.  I used and studied static gaps a long time and
even I was amazed at the giant difference sync rotary gaps make.  They
always fire just at the right time, run cool, and their electrodes can be
set very close to further reduce losses.  You will not find many people
with a sync rotary gap that have thrown it away and gone back ;-))

Richie Burnett has a great site that explains this very well but my link
for it is not working??

http://www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/r.e.burnett/

LTR coils that play with truely refined power control, actually fire
'after' the peak in the AC voltage.  Such a trick can only be done with a
sync rotary gap.

Cheers,

	Terry



At 05:17 PM 7/15/00 -0400, you wrote:
>Hello all,
>
>I am a bit confused regarding the use of async rsg's with neons. If indeed a 
>static gap fires at uneven rates, and is not apt to synchronize, why, then is 
>it necessary to use a sync rsg with NST's?
>
>Thanks for any clarification!
>
>Chris
>