Re: Gap Power Levels

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

Original poster: "Jim Lux by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <jimlux-at-earthlink-dot-net>

I think the quenching issue could be solved, but I don't know if you can
get away from the gap loss for the static/triggered gap, compared to the
RSG.  For a good part of the time, the actual gap in an RSG is much shorter
(0.02 inch or so) than in the triggered gap (on order of 0.2 inches).
Pressurizing the gap might help, but it's going to take a fairly
sophisticated system, and then, you're just back to the complexity of the
RSG.  The appeal of a static/triggered gap is no moving parts.

Consider though, say you were willing to take a 10% or 20% hit in
performance, for the simplicity of a 20 kW static gap system....What you
aren't spending on motors and disks you might be able to spend on a bigger
transformer (assuming you aren't mains power limited... 20 kW is 70-80A on
a 240V service, and WILL make the lights blink, not only for you, but for
your neighbors)

The question is, then, is two parts:

1) What is the maximum power you can run a triggered gap at, at any efficiency?
2) What is the efficiency hit?  And does it get worse with higher powers so
that there is some asymptotic limit.


There were static gaps running 10s of kW built in the days of King Spark,
so it might be possible.


Tesla list wrote:
> 
> Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>"
<Tesla729-at-cs-dot-com>
> 
> In a message dated 8/12/02 7:06:02 AM Pacific Daylight Time, tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
> writes:
> 
> Bart wrote:
> 
> << I tried a triggered air-cooled RQ gap up to 4kVA and although it worked
>  fine, it
>  just didn't perform as well as my RSG. I also ran the same gap without the
>  trigger
>  and it didn't change much. >>
> 
> Hi Bart,
> 
> So you were able to run the triggered gap at 4 kVA but it didn't perform
> as well as it did with the RSG. It would appear that the triggered gap
> obviously was not quenching or dissipating heat as effectively as the
> RSG. I would assume if you increased the power level further beyond
> 4 kVA that the decreased performance of the triggered gap as opposed
> to the RSG would only become more prominent. I think this emphasizes
> my point, that an RSG (whether sync or asynch) is basically essential
> for pole pig level coiling. As I said before, just MHO. If someone can
> prove me wrong, then please do as I would really be intersted in seeing
> a stationary RQ style SG operating at > 5 kVA power levels that actually
> worked as well ( had equal length output streamers ) as its RSG
> counterpart :-)
> 
> Sparkin' in Memphis,
> David Rieben