Re: A working SRSG, FINALLY!

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

Original poster: "Steven Ward by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <srward16-at-hotmail-dot-com>

Ok, here are my thoughts as to what is going on, please correct me.

This is an example of what happens with my coil.  The Phase setting is set 
to allow the maximum attainable voltage at a 50% input setting.  This 
settings gives the longest sparks (at this moment).  The safety does not 
fire.  When i increase the voltage across the capacitor, not much happens, 
since the spark gap is timed or phased to discharge the capacitor at the 
previous setting.  So to compensate, i must adjust the dwell time to be 
later in the AC phase (my guess anyway).  When i do this, the sparks grow 
further, but then, the safety kicks in.  My guess is that the safety is 
probably set to about 12kv.  If the electrodes are not there in time, the 
safety discharges the cap rather than the spark gap.  So, unless i widen 
the safety, i can not achieve more than the safety gap is set for (which 
might be like 12kv).  So even at high power, i am limited in a way.

  This leads me to believe that the safety is set too small rather than the 
RGS being incorrectly phased.  Please correct me if im wrong.  So should i 
set it more than 11/32"?  What is safe for a 16kvdc capacitor to see?  I 
would not imagine over a 1/2" safety gap.  Perhaps i am severly limiting my 
coils peformance with a too small of a safety gap?  Hmmm, but then again, i 
may already be stressing my other components.  My caps are getting pretty 
warm.  Im using 3 strings of 10, 1600V .15uf 942 series CDE caps.
Theoretically, they should easily handle the RMS and peak currents of the 
system, unless Java TC and Java MMC are a bit off base with the I 
calcs.  My transformer runs pretty warm to, but it doesnt bother me too 
much.  Maybe its time for a better cap?

Steve Ward.


>From: "Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
>To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
>Subject: Re: A working SRSG, FINALLY!
>Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2003 18:30:01 -0600
>
>Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" 
><FutureT-at-aol-dot-com>
>
>In a message dated 6/28/03 5:17:47 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
>tesla-at-pupman-dot-com writes:
>
>>what safety gap setting should i use?  Right
>>now its set to exactly 11/32".  Before i had it set to 1/4",
>
>
>Steve,
>
>On my TT-42 coil, which uses a 12/30 NST, I set the safety gaps at
>about 3/8" or 7/16" each, but they are washers on edge, not a wide surface.
>When an SRSG coil is running correctly, the safety gaps will never
>fire.  If they do fire, then either they're set too narrow, or the coil is
>not phased correctly.  I could probably set them closer, but I
>never tried.  I think I used to set them at 1/4" though in earlier designs.
>In any case, I always set the safety gaps after I'm done extracting
>the max spark length from the system.  To do this, the rotary phase
>is set to give the maximum spark length with the safety gap set wide.
>The safety gap on an SRSG coil is there in case something goes wrong.
>For example if motor loses power, or the secondary ground connection
>becomes disconnected, etc.  An SRSG coil is a very different beast
>than a typical static gap coil.
>
>John