Re: Are Monster Toploads Really Needed?

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "John Williams by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <jwilliams-at-edm-dot-net>

Hi,
	What produces the potential in the secondary of a Tesla coil
isn't just the interaction of the coil with the oscillating field generated
by the primary tank circuit.  The secondary itself also creates an oscillating
flux field.  If you induce a current flow in a conductor that current flow
will create a flux field in opposition to the applied field.
	In a Tesla coil what you are doing is using the primary to
make the secondary "ring".  When a tank circuit is oscillating part of
the time the energy is stored in the flux field of the inductive component
and part of the time the energy is stored in the electric field of the
capacitive component of the ciruit.
	The values of the inductance and capacitance of the secondary
put a limit on how much energy moves back and forth when the coil
is resonating.  In part the potential the secondary generates is due to
a self inductive effect.  I believe that is what the term "resonant rise"
is about?
	The capacititive and inductive components can be thought
of as two resevoirs of energy, like a pair of buckets you are shifting
water between in a very rapid fashion.
	What you seem to be asking is if you can build a system where
one side is a bucket and one side is a thimble and make it work like
both sides are buckets.
	From my understanding of how all this works I would
tend to say not.
	It may be that your system, for whatever reason, has a great
deal of parasitic capacitance and that adding more in the form of
a larger top load doesn't gain anything for you because the
inductive component is the limiting factor not the topload.

	John


>Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>"
><uncadoc-at-juno-dot-com>
>
>Hi all, Is it not possible that a tank circuit with an appropriately
>wound coil could work without a monster toriod topload and give equally
>devastating arcs?  I still stand by my statement that our coil can
>produce an equal arc when tuned with a toroid, sphere, or no topload at
>all.  The arc length remains the same as long as the primary is tuned for
>optimum coupling.    Al.
>