Re: THOR's strike rail: how to?

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

Original poster: "Malcolm Watts by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <m.j.watts-at-massey.ac.nz>

An addendum to my earlier post:

On 21 Jun 01, at 18:29, Tesla list wrote:

> Original poster: "Malcolm Watts by way of Terry Fritz
<twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <m.j.watts-at-massey.ac.nz>
> 
> Hi Marco,
> 
> On 21 Jun 01, at 7:53, Tesla list wrote:
> 
> > Original poster: "Marco Denicolai by way of Terry Fritz
> <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <marco.denicolai-at-tellabs-dot-com>
> > 
> > Hello all (again),
> > 
> > As you have maybe read, I came to the conclusion that Thor's strike rail
> > arrangement needs some modification. I had last week a streamer hitting
> > the primary, with catastrophic effects on one of the CCPS drivers. That
> > wasn't exactly a nice thing...

<snip>
> I think the streamers would probably track around the cover if they 
> seriously head in that direction. Nothing short of a totally bottled- 
> in primary would work in my opinion. You might consider using a 
> driver transformer to feed the resonator in a magnifier type setup 
> which would make isolating the secondary discharges a lot easier. A 
> primary residing inside the resonator coilform Electrum-style might 
> also be a better proposition. A disk of plexi mounted inside the 
> coilform to isolate it from the higher voltage portions might also be 
> necessary if you go this route.
>      A further possibility (a favourite of mine) is to use a bundled 
> primary - say two or even three layer "flat" spiral which compacts Lp 
> into a much smaller volume and would make it less attractive to 
> secondary strikes. Much smaller diameter and much cheaper copper 
> costs too.
> 
>       Also, congratulations on obtaining your degree. I tried to 
> download your thesis for reading yesterday but ran into problems. 
> I'll try again shortly.

It is possible that a cover over your primary might deter strikes to 
some extent. I see someone else's experience is positive. One thing 
it could do is suppress an upward stream of corona coming off the 
primary conductors in the presence of strong electric fields. 
Photographs I've taken show corona coming off just about anything 
metallic near the coil, strike rail included.

     I finally did manage to download your thesis. Thankyou for 
making your work freely available. I will have a very enjoyable read 
this weekend.

Best Regards,
malcolm