Re: Magnifier first light

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

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

Hi Antonio,

At 09:54 PM 4/23/2003 -0300, you wrote:
>Hi:
>
>Today I powered up my experimental 6th-order magnifier and made it work
>at full power.

COOL!!  You beat me to it :o))

>...
>It works, with good performance, but not better than a similar
>two-coils system using the same C1, L3, C3

There are two schools of thought here.  Either the streamer length is 
dependant on power alone such that John's spark length formula will still 
hold true.  Or, that the much higher voltages of the magnifier will push 
further streamers even if the power is held constant.  Past evidence 
supports both.  No solid data to prove or disprove either.  Hopefully, we 
will fix that ;-)

>...
>This C2 capacitor shows significant of corona around the
>plates, and becomes quite warm quickly. It's evidently dissipating
>significant energy.

Yes!  And that is a bad place to be having a lot of series resistance.  My 
coil will have a very low loss (hopefully) C2 so we'll see if that makes a 
difference.  Capacitors getting hot deep in the power transfer section 
could have a dramatic effect on streamer length!

>The system works better -without- C2, producing longer streamers.
>The distributed capacitances may be enough for some higher mode,
>or are not having significant influence, or the losses in C2 are
>too high.

That is interesting!  No other magnifiers have a separate C2.  Sort of 
suggesting C2 is not needed.  However, maybe the C2 losses are so great it 
is better off without it.  Hard to say which.  At least none of the 
observed performance is worse than a two coil system.

>An oscilloscope with an antenna close to the system shows the
>correct waveforms, but no quenching when C2 is connected.

If quenching is good without C2 and no quenching with C2, that could make a 
dramatic difference too.

>....
>Some corona was observed in the connection between L2 and L3,
>and at the base of L3, possibly damaging the insulation there.

Ok!  The L2 to C3 wire is always covered with corona.  The base of L3 is a 
logical place too.  I am a bit surprised that the top of L2 is not a 
problem but happy to hear if it is not.  Corona ring time ;-)

>Pictures, only after a slight reworking and retuning, maybe by next
>week.

Looking forward ;-))  I wish so much that mine was going!!!  This sounds 
like way too much fun!!!

Cheers,

         Terry


>Regards,
>
>Antonio Carlos M. de Queiroz