RE: The PING Test

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

Original poster: "John H. Couture by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <couturejh-at-mgte-dot-com>


Dan -

A 555 should work fine. I haven't made one of these devices so cannot give
you any details. I was using a pulse width of about 5 us every 1 ms. You may
need to use the inverted output pulse from pin 3 and an operational
amplifier as a low impedance source.

John Couture

--------------------------------


-----Original Message-----
From: Tesla list [mailto:tesla-at-pupman-dot-com]
Sent: Tuesday, September 24, 2002 6:57 AM
To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: Re: The PING Test


Original poster: "Daniel Barrett by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>"
<dbarrett1-at-austin.rr-dot-com>

> The Ping Test is the most fundamental of all Tesla coil tests. The TC
> operates using a dampened wave and the Ping test also uses a dampened wave
> unlike other tests. A robust pulse generator is needed for good results. I

    This sounds like a VERY useful test. What sort of pulse width do you
typically use for this?

    As narrow as possible?
    1uS?
    Half an Fo cycle?


    I'm thinking this is worth playing with. Being on a budget, I like to
build as much of my test gear as possible. If the required pulse width is
not too narrow, this sounds like it could be done with a 555, a MOSFET or
two, and not much else, and would provide a LOT of data per dollar...

db