Re: ignition coil for high voltage source

["Kennan C Herrick" <kcha1-at-juno-dot-com> (by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>)]

I haven't been attending to this particular subject but it just now
caught my eye.  Sounds like you pulse a xfmr directly from the power line
thru a triac or light-dimmer & a series capacitor.  I can attest to the
fact that that works just fine:  Some 10 years ago I designed and built
several neon-tube assemblies that employed just such a circuit.  They
incorporated a 4 ft. tall neon tube standing upright in a sealed and
windowed metal case and the transformer was of a conventional but
high-ratio type, i.e., not magnetically-shunted.

The purpose of the device was to provide for a strobe-light effect within
the field of view of the camera that is used to make the photo-finish
images at racetracks.  Such a camera is focussed on the finish line and
its field of view encompasses only the finish line & what's in front of
it and nothing else.  In this instance, the finish line is, literally,
the neon tube--flashing on 120 x per second--and what's in front of it is
the horses as they pass by.  That's a clever technique but I won't
discourse further on it as it's off-topic.

Ken Herrick
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