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Re: Discharge impedance of a CW Tesla coil
Hi Terry,
> Original Poster: Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>
> I have been playing with my patched together RF generator and
>measurement equipment. Today I took off work early to do
> something important. ;-)) I was able to measure the impedance
>of the brush discharge of my coil run from the generator in CW
>(continuous wave) mode.
Snip.
A very interesting experiment. Now what would be of even
more interest to me, is what kind of primary capacitance did
you use? MMC? EMMC? How was it built and what difference
did you notice in cap performance (vs. a normal DW coil). Did
they run hotter, etc, etc? I am sure all the toob-groovies or
those solid state junkies out there would appreciate feedback
on (E)MMC design for a CW coil ;o)).
I am not sure why you noticed less ozone, but the reduced
NOx is probably due to the lack of the spark gap. I donīt
think the coilīs discharge produces noticeable amounts of NOx,
but the pulsed power you see in a DW powered coil, in the
main spark, is (I think) the main source of NOx and not the
coilīs output itself. Due to the outer shell state (electron
configuration) of nitrogen, it takes a lot of energy to get
nitrogen to combine with oxygen to form NOx. Nitrogen is a
very stable element, whereas oxygen can easily be "tickled"
into combining with another element.
Taking a wild guess on ozone: The area of the CW discharge
is much smaller than that of a similar DW powered coil, so you
may be effectively re-combining less O2 molecules to O3
radicals (they come in contact with less oxygen from the air,
because the discharge is shorter). You may want to try using
a small (very low cfm) fan during a CW run. If the amount of
ozone increases (you would then be replacing reduced arc
surface area for an increase in cfm => increased ozone supply),
this is most likely the reason. Also, as you need energy to split
an O2 molecule into separate O atoms, the DW coil might be
able to do a *better* job, because the peak energy is much
higher than that of a CW coil.
Coiler greets from Germany,
Reinhard