Re: "Cheating" was Re: The Tabletop Tesla Coil Showdown

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

Original poster: "Terry Fritz" <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>

Hi Jim,

At 04:26 PM 10/10/2002 -0700, you wrote:
>At 12:52 PM 10/10/2002 -0600, you wrote:
>
>
>Just scale for air density... pressure halves every 18,000 ft..
>
>Sparks follow Paschen's law for this kind of thing... breakdown field is 
>proportional to density.
>
>US Standard Atmosphere, 1962, at SL density is 7.647E-2 lbm/ft^3
>At 5000 ft, 6.590e-2
>
>86.2%....
>
>Dry air has a lower breakdown field than humid air, too.... Hmmm.. it's dry 
>in Colorado, maybe you got a boost there, too...
>

I found that the Fort Collins, CO "official" altitude is 5003 feet.  I was
in the basement and I'll just "declare" that it is "exactly" three feet
below ground level ;-)

So I am at 5000.0000... feet :o))

A nice number since you already worked out the 86.2% ;-)))

13.25 x 0.862 = 11.42 inches which is the sea level corrected GMHEICSLR.  I
guess we could call that the SLCGMHEICSLR :o)))  

BTW - Would you happen to have the equation for feet vs. delta spark length
or delta percent handy??  I have a habit of messing math stuff up 0:-|
After being humbled by not catching this altitude factor earlier, I am shy
of messing things up "again" ;-))

Room temperature, humidity, smog, Radon....  That falls under rule 8.  No
nit picking...  If you got em', smoke em there ;-))  The washer and dryer
are in the basement here too so humidity is not that low.  Radon may help
me but you can send those stupid radon kits un-opened in for testing and
they still read high ;-)))  So this altitude thing is all that musters
"special correction"...

I guess the issue of "cheating" comes up.  In the case of the GMHEICSLR,
the contenders have all put a lot of blood sweat and tears into it and they
have shared that with me.  There was no cheating there!!  They all want to
"take" the prise fair and square!!  I have done all I can think of ways to
help them take the cup from me!  I was perplexed at how much trouble they
were having beating me...  But now I think this altitude stuff explains it
all!!  I hope this will help the GMHEICSLR gain a little new life!!
Indeed, it appears "I" may have to try to "get it back" now!!!  I can truly
say that I did tell all my tricks on this one.  Have to think of "new"
tricks now!!

Cheers,

	Terry