Re: Chokes vs Safety Gaps

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

Original poster: dgoodfellow-at-highstream-dot-net 


----- Original Message -----
From: Tesla list <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
To: <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Sent: Monday, February 09, 2004 8:19 PM
Subject: Re: Chokes vs Safety Gaps


 > Original poster: "Dr. Resonance" <resonance-at-jvlnet-dot-com>
 >
 >
 > I may be off topic a bit but I still defend a small RF choke before the RF
 > signal goes into the NST.



I used to use a pair of woofer chokes, the type available as a passive
crossover from any automotive Hi fi supplier. I put the chokes right on the
high voltage terminals. No other protection. They were ferrite core and were
wound with about 14 gauge magnet wire. They were made to start attenuating
the signal 6 db per octave, starting at 100 hz. I figured that as long as it
passed 60 hz, it would be fine, and by the time the chokes saw operating
frequency of over 100khz, the attenuation would be down by something
ike  -36db.  Significant when you consider that every 3db drop represents a
halving of power.
Then I read the findings made by members of this list, and took them off!!
Maybe I'm just lucky, but the only time I saw a neon sign transformer fail
right before my eyes was when we had a few 15/60's on a coil with a variable
speed rotary gap. There was no protection on the transformers at all. That
much you can take to the bank- never run an nst with a rotary unless it is
synchronous. We weren't running the transformers that hard, yet it died
within the first 5 or 6  15 second runs.
I wish I had the test equipment to see what my woofer chokes did on the
transformer for myself, since everyone's idea of what is a suitable choke is
different. Anyone else ever use woofer chokes?

Cheers, Dave Goodfellow