Re: SSTC idea

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

Original poster: "Justin Hays by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <pyrotrons2000-at-yahoo-dot-com>

Hi Chris and All,

 > instead of a NST use the SSTC driver to charge a tank-cap
 > then have the usual sparkgap system.

So you mean, use a high voltage switching power supply to charge the
tank cap, instead of a neon transformer? This is essentially how
project "Thor" is done. It uses a 5kVA 20kV SMPS (Switched Mode Power
Supply) to charge the tank cap in a normal spark-gap type tesla coil.
Marco Denicolai is responsible for this beautiful design...I forget
the website, but Google can provide.

Anyhow,

The arcs will be the same. It will still take time to charge the cap
after each spark gap firing. Just how much time elapses between
firings depends on the output power of the charging supply, the
capacitance value of the capacitor, and the spark gap firing voltage.

This would not be a continuous wave system. Continuous wave means
that power is delivered to the resonator *with every cycle*, at the
resonant frequency of the resonator. With the setups mentioned above,
power can only be delivered to the resonator at a few hundred Hz or
so, because it takes time to charge the tank cap. The waveform would
be a damped ringdown at every gap firing, just like any other TC.

A continous wave system can be done with IGBT's, vacuum tubes,
MOSFET's, or other high speed switching device capable of switching
hundreds of thousands of times per second (100's of kHz).

Take care,

Justin Hays, www.hvguy-dot-com