Re: Streamer lengths

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

Original poster: FutureT-at-aol-dot-com 

In a message dated 10/1/03 7:05:38 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
tesla-at-pupman-dot-com writes:

>What I'm trying to do with my small coil is determine
>how well I'm doing with respecct to John Freau's empirical spark length
>equation:
>
>1.7 sqrt (power).


Gerry,

There's some evidence that small coils do not do quite as well
as the formula predicts.  When I built a coil that should have given 27"
sparks, it only gave 25" sparks.  Something like that.  In contrast,
very large coils have an easy time equaling the formula's predictions.

So there may be a slight extra non-linearity based on coil size and
power.  Coils may not exactly follow the square law for spark
length as the power level is changed over wide ranges.  The formula
is only a rough guide.

John