Re: Simulation of a conventional Tesla coil

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

Original poster: "Bert Hickman by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <bert.hickman-at-aquila-dot-net>

Hi Terry and Ken,

Don't give up on the spark gap idea just yet. You may be able to use a back 
to back Zener diode as a first order approximation as a model for a 
conducting spark gap. A ballpark estimate for the voltage drop across a 
firing gap is of the order of 100 volts in either direction, and this 
voltage drop will be pretty much independent of current flow as long as the 
arc channel is open and unconstrained. A 5,000 amp discharge with a 100 
volt drop would imply a dynamic gap resistance of around 20 milliohms at 
peak current, and around 2 ohms at 50 amps...

Best regards,

-- Bert --
-- 
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Tesla list wrote:
>Original poster: "Terry Fritz" <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>
>Hi Ken,
>At 02:30 PM 5/18/2003 -0700, you wrote:
>
>>Tell me more about the ohms per gap.  Is that ohms per 1/4"-or-so arc, or
>>ohms per arc + hardware, or... what?  And what, I wonder, would be the
>>resistance of a 0.03" gap--with negligible hardware resistance?  That
>>might well be a lot better.
>
>I just looked at the ring down of my spark gap coil primaries with no 
>secondary in place, and that is the resistance I get.  The 2-3 ohms things 
>seems to always work well and predict the gap losses close enough.
>It would be interesting to revisit spark gap voltages and currents now 
>that the equipment is so much better...
>Cheers,
>         Terry
>
>.