Re: Certain s.s. phenomena; to J.F. et al

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

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

In a message dated 3/18/01 6:44:49 PM Eastern Standard Time, tesla-at-pupman-dot-com 
writes:

> I haven't seen that regularity:  I'll get sometimes 2 -at- ~90 deg,
>  sometimes 3 within ~120 deg, sometimes 2 -at- ~180 deg, sometimes 3 more or
>  less equally spaced, etc.  It seems random--and usually there's just one.

Ken,

Thanks for that info above.  Now that I think of it, my spark gap
sparks might not have been exactly opposite either when there
were only two.  Also the walls have the effect of often causing
the sparks to form on the side of the toroid facing the wall where
the wall is closer to the toroid.

>  > A number of people say the bigger the better in terms of making the 
>  > spark longer or fatter
>  > 
>  > Even for tube or other CW coils?  I've never heard that.  Even for 
>  > spark gap TC's bigger is only better up to a point, for a given power 
>  > input.
>  
>  I may be mis-remembering since I haven't paid too much attention to
>  toroid lore as related to spark-gap coils.  I thought I'd remembered that
>  a bigger toroid is supposed to yield more top capacitance which is
>  supposed to yield a more robust spark due to its increased capability for
>  holding charge.

I agree that a bigger toroid makes the sparks thicker and longer in
general in a spark gap TC.  But what I'm saying is that there's a limit,
or an optimal size range.  For instance on my TT-42 spark gap TC,
I use a 13" toroid and I get 42" sparks.  If I install a 6" by 26"
corregated toroid, I still get 42" sparks, but they look purplish, and
boring (like a flame sort of).  If I install a 6" by 24" smooth toroid,
the sparks probably will never break out at all.

>  > I guess this heating may have been killing
>  > whatever benefit the toroid may have "wanted" to produce?  Does
>  > your toroid heat up at all?
>  
>  Not in the least but then, I don't leave the coil on for extended
>  periods.  That Landgren toroid is seriously massive and would take a
>  whole lot of power before it got warm.  If your toroids get warm, that's
>  quite a bit of power lost.  But that really surprises me since the
>  inherent resistance of a toroid is pretty low--unless it's of the
>  corrugated variety & perhaps imperfectly glued together.  

The 3" by 12" toroid was made of riveted stovepipes, so it probaby
had a lot of internal resistance.  My small 6" dia one is glued (the
halves are glued together), so I don't know if that is causing the
heating.   When I put the 4" by 17" corregated toroid on the tube
coil, it might not have heated very much, but it didn't help the
spark length.  

John Freau


>  [snipped]
>  
>  Ken Herrick