RE: Side-wise Vectors?????

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

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

 >So, maybe, it's the coil's discharge orientation to the earth's magnetic
 >field that determines the direction of the cork-screwing-like path?

No, I think it's more likely the magnetic field of the secondary (and/or
primary) coil. This is orders of magnitude greater than the earth's field, I
(and others) have seen it deflect the beam on an oscilloscope near the coil
through about 1/4". This was a good quality scope with an aluminium case and
mu-metal shield on the tube.

This is an interesting conundrum though. In a SSTC, the primary and
secondary currents are theoretically in phase with each other, and are zero
at the instant when the topload voltage is maximum. As far as we know, the
discharge only grows for a short time around the topload voltage maximum, so
it should see practically no field.

So maybe streamer growth occurs at different times than we thought, or maybe
the magnetic field driving the corkscrew effect comes from the primary.
Under heavy loading, the primary current in an untuned primary SSTC starts
to lag the secondary current, and so the primary field could be non-zero
during the streamer growth time.

If my hypothesis was right, then in a tuned primary coil such as a VTTC or
CW-DRSSTC, you should be able to make the corkscrew go in either direction,
or disappear altogether, by adjusting the primary tuning (which can make the
primary current lead or lag the secondary)

And, a SSTC magnifier should not corkscrew no matter how hard you try, since
the primary coil is physically far away from the discharge.

Another support for the hypothesis that the field comes from the primary, is
the observation that sparks from a SGTC or OLTC do not corkscrew. The
primary current in these classic disruptive coils has more or less died away
by the time the streamers start to grow.

Has anyone tried any of these experiments?

Steve C.