Re: 3 horn vac TSG update

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

Original poster: "Luc by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <ludev-at-videotron.ca>

Hi Jonathan

The way the dimmer system work, give you a pulse rate double the
frequency of the line; 120 pulses for 60Hz, 100 pulses for 50 Hz.
The way it work could not give you other thing. With out a power
resistor in parallel with the coil-cap assembly, with a
simulation software I have doublet and triplet pulses on the same
half cycle, but each time I test in real life this circuit in the
past I never experience this condition even without the power
resistor ( but when I experiment with it, what I want was big
output, I never drive the circuit to the extreme of the
adjustment knob )

Cheers,

Luc Benard    

Tesla list wrote:
> 
> Original poster: "jpeakall by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>"
<jpeakall-at-mcn-dot-org>
> 
> Howdy All,
> 
> Finally got over a nasty infection and got back to work on my triggered 3
> horn sucker gap. The story so far:
> 
> I am using Terry's controller circuit, without the Carcom filter and
> associated MOVs. I do have the three MOVs around the dimmer and IC. I don't
> have any power resistors on hand, and so far have had no luck using various
> lights and so on as loads. So I don't have the range that I should, but at
> least can experiment with firing the gap. Any suggestions as to homebrew
> loads would be great, I'm going to order some PRs from Digikey on Monday,
> but would like to play with it between now and when they arrive.
> 
> I went and got an Accel IC out of my Mustang, and was using it with 3x700pf
> caps in series, and was surprised to see that all I was getting was around
> 29kv, about what I get out of a standard IC. As with regular coils, I found
> in necessary to dunk the whole assembly into oil to prevent arc over and
> loss.  Anyway, hooked it all up, was running fine, then there was a pause in
> the firing of the gap, and piff, both the dimmer and the Accel IC were shot,
> the IC with an open in the secondary. Resonant rise with the caps maybe? I
> wonder if safety gaps on the IC circuit might be a good idea. Anyway, I took
> out one of the caps, and replaced the IC with a regular one. Surprisingly,
> once I dunked it into oil, I am getting about 34kv out of it, better than
> the Accel coil.
> 
> The new system has about 20 min on it so far, and is doing fine. My previous
> blowing of dimmers was doubtless due to the 15uf/1.5 uf typo. One thing I
> find is there is sometimes a slight delay when I kill the power to the
> trigger, and the arc continues for a fraction of a second. Caps in the
> trigger discharging? Another odd behavior, and one I have noted using a
> dimmer/IC setup to run small TCs, is that occasionaly the trigger arc stops,
> and to restart it I have to move the dimmer knob slightly or turn the power
> on/off. As long as I leave it in place the trigger won't fire.
> 
> Is there any way without a scope to determine the pulses per second of the
> trigger? I tried with a frequency meter (archaic, of questionable quality)
> with an HV probe, and got nothing but garbage.
> 
> Jonathan Peakall