Re: Spark Gap Distances for Marx Generator

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

Original poster: "Stephen Conner by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <steve-at-scopeboy-dot-com>

At 07:04 05/05/03 -0600, you wrote:
>Original poster: "Mccauley, Daniel H by way of Terry Fritz 
><teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <daniel.h.mccauley-at-lmco-dot-com>
>
>
>Regarding spark gap distances for a marx generator, I am seeing two schools
>of thought.  One school seems to make all
>spark gaps the same identical distance while another seems to make the
>primary gap closer together than the other gaps.

Uh, as far as I know, there are actually three schools of thought. The 
third one says to space all the gaps identically, making them all a little 
too wide to fire at the maximum charging volts you intend to use. Then make 
the primary gap a 3-electrode triggered gap. Firing the primary gap doubles 
the voltage across the next gap up causing it to fire and so on.

I believe this is a good setup for medium/high powered Marx generators, 
just because _you_ choose when the device is going to go off, rather than 
having it come as a surprise 8-at- It also lets you control the charging 
voltage/time so you know all caps are fully charged before firing. Plus 
having a fire button to press is cool. IMO.

Of course the fun would really start when you swapped the charge resistors 
for inductors (two multi-tapped Tesla secondaries side by side?) or diode 
stacks. The reduced losses would let you run at very high rep rates without 
overheating the apparatus. A pig or PT-powered Marx generator firing at 
120BPS would probably wreak complete havoc.

Steve C.