RE: Static Gap question.

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

Original poster: "Lau, Gary" <gary.lau-at-hp-dot-com> 

Hi Luke:

My "don't get hung up" point was in reference to one striving to achieve
a perfect 120BPS at-the-peak-of-the-waveform operation, which just won't
happen.  I failed to address the granularity needed to set the gap at a
proper "safe" breakdown voltage.

You do ask a good question regarding how many gaps in a multi-gap chain
is optimal.  I'm not aware of anyone performing a controlled study on
this, although evidence seems to suggest that gap losses go up as the
number of gaps increases.  For this reason, I use and recommend a single
gap, such as my sucker gap (see
http://www.laushaus-dot-com/tesla/onegap.htm).  In addition to low losses,
it has the added virtue of being infinitely and easily adjustable,
rather than discreet steps like a TCBOR gap.

BTW, I use a 15/60 NST with a .02uF cap with fine results!

Regards, Gary Lau
MA, USA


Original poster: "Luke" <Bluu-at-cox-dot-net>

Thanx for the input.
You say do not get too hung up on the small increments of adjustment for
a static gap.  Obviously there has to be some point to consider
starting.  For instance if a the approx gap desired is .3" then I could
just make it 3 gaps in series at 0.1" each.  That would be large
increments compared to what seems to be the norm.

So in your opinion at what would be a good increment to consider using?
Before I get the "depends on power rating etc." lets set up an example.

Say for a coil using a 15KV 60ma NST and a cap of say .02 mfd.
Yes I know that is not the LTR size, just picked a number and threw it
out there so we had a starting point for the example.

I am playing with design ideas and an opinion from someone with more
experience will help at least point me in a direction for an increamet
amount.

Thanx.

Luke Galyan
Bluu-at-cox-dot-net