RE: SSTC hits 66"

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

Original poster: "Steve Conner" <steve.conner-at-optosci-dot-com> 

Wow, that is one awesome machine :-0 And it sparked 6" further than mine :'(

I'm amazed, not just at the size of the sparks, but how bright the air
streamers look, they seem almost as bright as ground strikes. On Jimmy's and
my coils, the streamers seemed quite dim, but ground strikes were
light-up-the-room bright. Maybe your higher resonant frequency has something
to do with it? Jimmy H and I run at 66kHz, you are using 110kHz IIRC? Or is
it just your camera?

Anyway, if you have any more data, like power consumption, breakrate,
primary current waveforms etc, can you post it?

 >I don't understand why everyone is so surprised over Steve Wards recent
 >ISSTC success, when earlier Jimmy Hynes got the SSTC  record with his
 >DRSSTC.

I think it's just taken people this long to believe what they're seeing. The
new coils look and sound so like SGTCs that you just tend to forget there is
no HV transformer or spark gap, just a bunch of IGBTs throbbing away in
there :) Also Dan and Steve have some very nice photos, Jimmy just had some
video stills that don't really do the beast justice.

But nevertheless I reckon the spark gap is now DEAD :))) Steve's ISSTC
actually exceeded John Freau's old 1.7*sqrt(power) benchmark, so it seems to
be even more efficient than a SGTC.

BTW- It might look like all the monster SSTC builders are competing, but
really I would say it is a collaborative effort. It's only competition in so
far as we all egg each other on to build bigger and bigger coils.

Terry got the ball rolling 2 years ago with his findings on IGBT pulsed
operation, which probably even the IGBT makers didn't really know or care
about. From then on, everyone who was interested has shared data, circuits,
PSpice files, and the like. Amateur science at its finest IMO :))))

Steve C.