Re: The OLTC II lives!

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Original poster: "K. C. Herrick" <kchdlh-at-juno-dot-com> 

Admirable work, Steve!  And aren't you lucky to have a cooperative EE
department nearby.  Mine is nearby all right (U.C. Berkeley) but without
doubt that's about all--for this graduate of half a century ago.

I note that you employ a "breakout" point.  What effect do you get
without that?  I'd found, with my sstc when it was working, that I would
get very much more sparking when the sparks issued directly from the 6" x
24" smooth toroid rather than from a point (you may recall having seen a
photo on hot-streamer/temp).

No doubt that difference has much to do with the differing modes of
operation:  In mine, I had to build up the secondary voltage over 20-30
cycles before breakout whereas with yours, I'm sure most all of the power
into the secondary is crammed into the first few cycles.

I wonder if this difference would tend to support my conjecture that the
relatively rapid rate of rise in a "spark-gap" type of coil enables a
higher voltage to appear at the top electrode than would otherwise be the
case.  That would be due to the physical inertia of air molecules in
"getting out of the way" of the path of the spark, thus delaying the
gross reduction in secondary Q resultant from the spark.

Can any pundits (in addition to yourself!) shed light on this?

Ken Herrick