Re: Modeling Secondary Inductance

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

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

In a message dated 9/10/01 10:17:46 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
tesla-at-pupman-dot-com writes:

> > Something else I noticed about the model was that when the spark gap 
switch
>  > closed, the coil output spiked up and rang down.  I thought the secondary
>  > oscillations built over successive firings until the voltage reached a
>  > threshold and blasted out sparks.  I read an analogy with lasers 
somewhere.
> ..

Jeff,

The firings are separate events, and no energy build-up can 
occur over successive firings.  However the spark lengths can
build up in the air over successive firings, due to the 
persistence of heat and ionization in the air, and this causes
higher break rates to give longer sparks for a given firing
energy or "bang-size".  This does not imply that higher
break-rates are more "efficient" at producing longer sparks
however.

John Freau