Re: Safety Gap Puzzle

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

Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <Hollmike-at-aol-dot-com>

Greg,
   It might be that your main gap missed a firing and consequently allowed 
your primary cap to be charged to a higher voltage before the safety gap 
fired.  Since the stored energy of the cap is proportional to the voltage 
squared, this would dump more energy into your primary coil.  You'd think the 
center electrode would dissipate the current into ground, but since the other 
electrode has an opposite polarity, it is probably a more desirable path for 
the current to flow rather than to ground.   This would then amount to having 
a multiple static gap that maybe quenched the arc better than your normal 
gap.  If that is the case, then it also could have helped to improve the 
streamer output.
     One other possibility occurs to me.  Usually the resistance of the 
primary circuit is not included in the resonance calculations.  This makes 
design a bit less cumbersome,  and the tuning is done by trial and error to 
compensate for the slight error.  Perhaps the resistors in your safety gap 
system actually improved the tuning if your tap point was just slightly off 
from the most optimal point.  This is just a guess, but it could be a 
possibility anyway.
Mike